This paper explores the digitalisation of teaching and learning understood as external processes, influenced by government and international trends and as internal processes within the institutions, in Denmark and Norway. These are countries with similarities regarding digitalisation and educational systems. In the internal processes, there was some use of digital technology in teaching and learning when initiated from administration including IT-staff, in collaboration with academic leaders. There was little or only limited reported use of technology for teaching and learning, when the processes were initiated by administration together with enthusiasts among faculty staff, who did not have leadership roles or influence on change. There was more reported use of technology in teaching and learning in Denmark than Norway. The paper discusses possible explanations for these findings and thus illuminates how processes of digitalisation are influenced by broader governance arrangements, institutional maturity and academic and administration staffs.

Reforms and changing ideas about what higher education institutions are and should be have put pressure on academic identity. The present paper explores the way academics in Danish universities make sense of their changing circumstances, and how this affects their perceptions of their organization, their leaders and of themselves. The study highlights how the formal organizations' translations of external impulses and ideas constitute a more severe threat on the perceived identity of the academic staff than the impulses and ideas themselves. The findings indicate that with the tighter couplings of top-level management and the political system, the coupling and identification between academic staff and the formal organization may become weaker. Also, the behavioural responses perceived threats are studied, by examining the 'us'/'them' categorizations of the academics, providing a burgeoning conceptual framework for further studies into how academics change their actions as a result of reforms or organizational change.

Research groups as communities of practice-a case study of four high-performing research groups. Higher Education.

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