This article conveys the results of a reflexive investigation of the managerial practices and entrepreneurial discourses that shape the academic trajectories of early career scholars. Beginning with the experiences of early career scholars in research‐intensive universities in Canada and Hong Kong, the authors explore some of the social and political‐economic relations that are reshaping higher education systems across the world. Drawing on experiences navigating university governance, funding and performance management processes, the authors explore how participation in the marketised relations of higher education inserts people into competition with colleagues within and beyond a single university context, instrumentalises and constrains relationships with civil sector collaborators, and produces a shared sense that nothing one does is ever enough. In this way, the article illuminates some of the ways a new global knowledge economy conditions academic life.本文探討學術管理主義和企業論述如何塑造新晉學者的學術軌跡, 並匯報相關反思性研究的結果。本文以任職加拿大和香港研究型大學的早期新晉學者為例, 開始探討一些正在重塑全球高等教育體系的社會和政治經濟關係。作者利用新晉學者如何探索大學治理、資金和績效管理流程的經驗, 從而了解高等教育界的市場化關係如何將競爭意識植入在大學界的同事之間、令到與公民社會的協作關係工具化、並產生一種感到工作慣常不達標的意識。通過上述的方法, 本文闡明了新型全球知識經濟影響學術生活的一些方式。 Copyright © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.