<jats:sec> <jats:title>Purpose</jats:title> <jats:p>New Managerialism (NM) literature frames employment relations as a sub-set of managerial and technical issues, shaped by broader socio-political structures. This paper aims to qualitatively examine the operationalisation of NM on internal employee relations within the higher education institutions (HEIs) in the context of Palestine. It spares particular attention to power, intersectionality and epistemic autonomy based on a critical socio-political lens to move beyond managerial and economic accounts of theorising employment, and to suggest productive communicative employee relations practices.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Design/methodology/approach</jats:title> <jats:p>This study adopts a qualitative, constructivist grounded theory design drawing on 23 in-depth interviews with academicians, managers and union representatives in Palestinian HEIs. The analysis is theoretically informed by Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action and Intersectional feminist theory, enabling a multi-level examination of macro-structural, relational and micro-identity dynamics, leading to three emerging themes.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Findings</jats:title> <jats:p>The investigation reveals that ideological pressures associated with NM reshape relational dynamics and ultimately generate identity-level tensions within HEIs. In extreme contexts, communicative action must be paired with epistemic justice, protection against retaliation and institutional mechanisms that redistribute voice. Palestinian universities, then, should not be treated as exceptional cases to be “managed” but as critical sites for rethinking the ethical and political foundations of managerial governance in higher education. Findings also present an interactionist conceptual model that advances an intersectional communicative repair perspective.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Research limitations/implications</jats:title> <jats:p>Given the idiosyncratic nature of the studied context, the suggested model might pertain to HEIs operating in politically fragile or resource-constrained environments where managerial reforms interact with broader institutional pressures. It is less likely to apply in more liberal organisational settings where managerial authority is balanced by strong institutional governance mechanisms, robust faculty participation structures and relatively stable funding arrangements.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Practical implications</jats:title> <jats:p>This paper invites researchers and policymakers to treat employment relations as context-specific and socio-politically embedded communicative order, structured by the need to manifest an equal access to voice, legitimacy and institutional influence. Generative dialogue can bring in thriving employment relations yet cannot be reached unless conditions for meaningful participation are evenly distributed across organisational actors.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Originality/value</jats:title> <jats:p>The investigation is one of those rare publications that map qualitative studies to infer some of the pivotal measures in turbulent workspaces. This paper reconceptualises employment relations as an evolving socio-political process, rather than a managerial function. By combining insights from both theories, it provides a nuanced framework for understanding how employment relations are shaped, sustained and constrained in HEIs operating in contextual cultures.</jats:p> </jats:sec>