This article investigates the form of European universities to determine the extent to which they resemble the characteristics of complete organizations and whether the forms are associated with modernization policy pressure, national institutional frames and organizational characteristics. An original data set of twenty-six universities from eight countries was used. Specialist universities have a stronger identity, whereas the level of hierarchy and rationality is clearly associated with the intensity of modernization policies. At the same time, evidence suggests limitations for universities to become complete, as mechanisms allowing the development of some dimensions seemingly constrain the capability to develop others.
Institutional diversity-the variety of higher education institutions within a higher education system-has been a popular theme in higher education (policy) research. Despite the large amount of work, key challenges to a better understanding of institutional diversity have hardly been addressed. We argue that particularly the problems of conceptualizing and measuring diversity across higher education systems are underestimated. This article therefore focuses on selecting salient dimensions of difference (i.e. important dimensions of organizational action), setting the perimeter of the populations studied, dealing with outliers and choosing appropriate diversity measures. We highlight the careful steps that need to be taken to make comparisons across higher education systems meaningful and use European data to illustrate the consequences of particular choices.
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AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to identify those factors that key actors in university governance hold as to be important in realizing strategic change within their institutions. Design/methodology/approach -Key decision-makers in 26 European universities were surveyed on their views on which factors bring about strategic change. The results were interpreted using a theoretical framework emphasizing organizational archetypes and their development. Findings -The findings indicated that strategic changes in universities were perceived as highly dependent on leadership, decision-making procedures, communication and evaluation. However, some differences between the universities in the sample can be identified, supporting indicating the relevance of using organizational archetypes as an analytical tools for observing change within the higher education sector. Originality/value -The study links organizational level developments on strategic management to macro-level change within the European higher education landscape, and provides new insights intoon the debate on convergence and differentiation in organizational fields.
Although the bioeconomy has been embraced by many governments around the world as a way of responding to the grand challenge of climate change, it remains unclear what the bioeconomy is and how it can contribute to achieving these broad policy objectives. The aim of this paper is to improve our understanding of whether, and how, the bioeconomy includes contending rationales for governance and policy-making. In order to do this, we apply a typology of three bioeconomy visions onto the policy discourse on the bioeconomy. These visions are (1) a biotechnology vision; (2) a bio-resource vision; and (3) a bio-ecology vision. Based on a discourse analysis of 41 submissions to a public hearing on the development of a bioeconomy strategy in Norway, the paper explores the actors involved in shaping the new bioeconomy and analyses their positions on this emerging field. The paper finds that it is possible to categorise the consultative inputs into these three visions, and also that the bio-resource vision is predominant, which reflects the structure of the national economy. Moreover, the paper reflects upon how the contending visions observed imply negotiations and power struggles, which may hamper directionality in the current socio-technical transition.
Previous studies have pointed at participation in the European Framework Programs for Research and Innovation as elite driven, foremost by large and prestigious universities. By analyzing all proposals (including rejected proposals) rather than funded projects only, we have investigated whether such findings also hold for success in proposal decisions. We study which university characteristics are associated with successful proposal outcomes. Our study finds that university size is indeed an important driver for success, but independent of size; it is essential with a relative high volume of proposals. Those Higher Education Institutions who submit relatively many proposals compared to their size performs better, especially in the European Research Council. What are important success criterions vary across thematic areas and to some extent over time, reflecting changing goals of the EU programs. Success is based on complex mechanisms, where many universities—irrespective of size—for different reasons perform well in the framework programs.
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