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PurposeThe purpose of the research is to demonstrate the impact of psychological contract infringement (independent variable) on organizational commitment, exit, voice and neglect (dependent variables) within a Canadian federal public organization located in Quebec, where individual (e.g. age), organizational (e.g. stricter rule enforcement) and situational (e.g., employment alternatives) variables are controlled.Design/methodology/approach – A pre‐tested questionnaire (204 questions) on the psychological contract was distributed to 357 Canadian civil servants in a one site federal department. One hundred and thirty‐two questionnaires were returned and considered usable for research, for a 37 per cent response rate. Bivariate analysis was performed on the various determinants and individual responses to psychological contract violation, including organizational commitment, departure designs and counterproductive behaviors.Findings – Results clearly illustrate the great complexity of the link between organizational variables and individual reactions and shed light, on a higher level, on the need to outgrow arguments that reduce bureaucracy to its mere perverse effects. These results suggest that the managerial challenge is not so much to produce a shift from an environment where the rule of law, standards and regulations prevails to an open and flexible environment where individual autonomy is prized as it is to ensure compliance with normative and regulatory constraints.Originality/value – The research seeks to enrich the knowledge base on the subject area because previous research has dealt almost exclusively with the psychological contract within large private companies.

In this article we argue that the university cannot fully contribute to democratic life without being both an institution whose governance is collegial and based on principles of equality, equity, inclusion, transparency, and accountability, and a vector of critical thinking closely linked to academic freedom. Based on this understanding of the 'democratic university,' we seek to highlight some of the key tensions between the 'managerial university' and the democratic university, as reflected in institutional structures, regulations, legal frameworks, and principles. In order to achieve this objective, we identify two sites of political struggles from which it is possible to examine the interaction between a managerial and a democratic conception and practice of the university. The first of these sites is the bicameral governing structure, membership, rules, and regulations of the University of Ottawa. The second site is academic freedom in Canada, which we will discuss by comparing the Canadian Association of University Teachers' (CAUT) Statement on Academic Freedom (CAUT, 2011) with the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada's (AUCC) Statement on Academic Freedom (AUCC, 2011). By stressing the necessary link and positive relationship between democratic governance and academic freedom, the article offers a normative evaluation of the impact the managerial reengineering of Canadian universities has had on the possibility and practice of a more democratic university.

In this article we argue that the university cannot fully contribute to democratic life without being both an institution whose governance is collegial and based on principles of equality, equity, inclusion, transparency, and accountability, and a vector of critical thinking closely linked to academic freedom. Based on this understanding of the 'democratic university,' we seek to highlight some of the key tensions between the 'managerial university' and the democratic university, as reflected in institutional structures, regulations, legal frameworks, and principles. In order to achieve this objective, we identify two sites of political struggles from which it is possible to examine the interaction between a managerial and a democratic conception and practice of the university. The first of these sites is the bicameral governing structure, membership, rules, and regulations of the University of Ottawa. The second site is academic freedom in Canada, which we will discuss by comparing the Canadian Association of University Teachers' (CAUT) Statement on Academic Freedom (CAUT, 2011) with the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada's (AUCC) Statement on Academic Freedom (AUCC, 2011). By stressing the necessary link and positive relationship between democratic governance and academic freedom, the article offers a normative evaluation of the impact the managerial reengineering of Canadian universities has had on the possibility and practice of a more democratic university.

Since the late 1990s social science-based studies have allocated much less attention to public organizations. Based on the sixth Organization Studies summer workshop, this introductory paper suggests a diagnosis of such a decline as well as a research agenda. It lists some fundamental issues still to be explored such as publicness and governance. It also considers how social science-based organizational knowledge might be extended to various empirical objects and fields in public domains and set-ups such as inter-organizational arrangements, hybrid organizations, multi-stakeholder arenas, hybrid organizing, and transnationalization processes, that usually are covered by scholars – economists, historians, anthropologists, management academics, etc. – who are not using organizational theory lenses.