External drivers are pressing for a more privatized approach to higher education and research, a greater reliance on technology and the more efficient use of resources. This book analyzes recent changes in institutional governance and management in higher education and their impact on the academy and academic work. It draws on findings from an international study based on a survey of academics in eighteen countries. It opens with a chapter outlining the key issues, drivers and challenges that inform contemporary discourse around academic work and the profession in general. It then focuses on national case studies, comparing changes in the top tier with the lower tiers of national systems, public and private institutions, and other differentiating factors appropriate in each country, which include mature and emerging higher education systems. It concludes by proposing a series of generalizations about the contemporary status of governance and management of institutions of higher education.
This is the most comprehensive international discussion of higher education governance ever published. It presents a critical analysis of governance issues and reforms in: Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the UK, and the USA. The book explores different theoretical perspectives and presents new empirical evidence on system and institutional governance issues.
This volume seeks to identify and explore the dynamics of global forces on the development of higher education in Asia, in particular, how neoliberalism has affected reforms on university governance and management in the region. It includes a set of country-specific studies on how various countries have responded to the dominant neoliberal ideology at the systemic, institutional, and process levels. The focus is on the relationship between the state and the universities, which is usually reflected in the degree of autonomy and accountability allowed in a particular higher education system. The selected countries are Cambodia, China, Indonesia, India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, and Thailand. Each case study examines the establishment of corporatised or autonomous universities in the country focusing on (i) the acts, reports, and/or policies that led to such a move as well as the rationales behind the move; (ii) the changes in the governance and organisational structure of the universities, highlighting the kinds of autonomy that the universities have; (iii) the new management strategies, techniques, and practices that have been introduced to the university including the internal and external quality assurance mechanisms, and (iv) some of the tensions, conflicts, and acts of resistance that may have emerged.
Higher education reforms have been on the agenda of Western European countries for 25 years, trying to deal with self governed professional bureaucracies politically weakened by massification when an emerging common understanding enhanced their role as major actors in knowledge based economies. While university systems are deeply embedded in national settings, the ex post rationale of still on-going reforms is surprisingly uniform and “de-nationalized”. They promote (1) the “organizational turn” of universities, to varying extent substituting collegial loosely coupled entities by “integrated, goal-oriented entities deliberately choosing their own actions (and therefore open to differentiation), that can thus be held responsible for what they do” (2) the diversification of stakeholders, supposedly offering solutions to problems as various as the democratisation of universities, the shrinking of State budget resources and the diversification of university missions offering answers to changes in the making and in the use of science. When it comes to accounting for these reforms, two grand narratives of public management share the floor. NPM implies a strengthening of the capacity of the core State to direct public services organizations through management by objectives and results or contractualization, assessment, evaluation and. “Governance” focuses on “network-based” governance systems, where coordinating power and control are collectively shared between the major ‘social actors or partners’ at all levels of the decision-making system. Our results suggest that all higher education systems under study were more or less transformed according to both these narratives. It is therefore needed to understand how they combine or create contradictions. This leads us to test a third neo-weberian model. This model reaffirms the role of the State, of representative democracy, (central, regional and local), of public law (suitably modernized), preserves the idea of a public service with a distinctive status, culture and terms and conditions. It shifts from an internal orientation to bureaucratic rules towards an external orientation in meeting citizens’ needs and wishes by means of standardization of work processes and their products, based on a distinctive public service and a particular legal order survived as the foundations beneath the various packages of modernizing reforms. This book traces the national dynamics of public policies, organizational design and steering tools in seven European higher education and research systems, using these narratives to interpret and test the actual changes and the degree of national specificities and European convergence. This book is not a sum of national chapters like other presumably comparative. It does not intend to tell once again the story of the transformation of the relationships between the state and universities. It tries to use Higher education system to discuss issues on state intervention and steering and more generally the NPM, governance and neo-weberian models in a specific field. Furthermore, this book intends breaking the walls between specialists in higher education and specialist in public management and research policy. This well rooted division of labour is less that ever justified as the university mission in research (fundamental, applied, strategic) is underscored by commentors and reformers themselves. For that reason, we have chosen to observe the consequences of the dynamics of public policies, organizational design and steering tools on two specific issues related to the development of research training and organizing within universities: the transformation of research funding on the one hand and the expansion of graduate studies and doctoral schools on the other.
Governance of Higher Education explores the work of traditional and contemporary higher education scholarship worldwide, providing readers with an understanding of the assumptions, historical traditions, and paradigms that have shaped the scholarship on governance. Bringing together the vast and disparate writings that form the higher education governance literature—including frameworks drawn from a range of disciplines and global scholarship—this book synthesizes the significant theoretical, conceptual, and empirical scholarship to advance the research and practice of governance. Coverage includes the structures of governance, cultures and practices, the collegial tradition, the new managed environment of the academy, and the politics and processes of governance. As universities across the globe face a myriad of challenges and multiple stakeholder demands, Governance of Higher Education offers scholars, practitioners, and higher education graduate students an essential resource for advancing research and the practice of governance.
Autonomy in governance and management in education has become the prerogative of higher education institutions, whilst optimum allocation and use of resources have become the aim of all higher education institutions. This volume explores the creation of knowledge and its dissemination in a way that creates a significant impact in society.
This book addresses three central questions in contemporary university governance: (1) How and why has academic governance in Anglophone nations changed in recent years and what impact have these changes had on current practices? (2) How do power relations within universities affect decisions about teaching and research and what are the implications for academic voices? (3) How can those involved in university governance and management improve academic governance processes and outcomes and why is it important that they do so? The book explores these issues in clear, concise and accessible language that will appeal to higher education researchers and governance practitioners alike. It draws on extensive empirical data from key national systems in the Anglophone world but goes beyond the simply descriptive to analyse and explain.
The governance of higher education in the UK was regarded until recently as the 'dignified' element within the constitution of the academy. University councils were trustees rather than directors. But governance is now a contested area and, in particular, lay governors are seen as key change agents, responsible for reforming the old donnish culture of elite higher education. Governing Universities explores who governors are, how they conceive of their new roles, and what they think about higher education policy. It examines whether governing bodies have become more actively engaged in setting institutional policies; and whether governors have changed the old culture or gone 'native'. It sets university governance in the large context of the massification and 'marketization' of higher education; and draws comparisons both with other parts of the public sector and the private sector, and with governance in North America and the rest of Europe.
Universities find themselves in dynamic change. They are confronted with growing expectations from their stakeholders, increasing international competition, and new technological challenges. Featuring insights and in-depth case studies from leading researchers and university decision makers from around the world, this book argues that institutions of higher education, in order to be successful, have to actively reflect on circumstances, visions, and strategies to master the future. Drawing from their experiences across a diverse array of institutions in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, the authors explore the pressures on today’s universities and the opportunities for excelling in the contest for resources. They discuss operational issues, such as strategic management, IT governance, leadership development, and entrepreneurial culture, and broader concerns, such as the roles and responsibilities of universities in promoting technology transfer and economic and social development. The result is a resource that not only reveals and analyzes universities from an organizational perspective, but presents best practice models and concrete inspiration for management and policymaking.
