Disjointed governance in university centers and institutes

Abstract

William MallonThe American research university, like the modern metropolis, is sprawling, and the most significant growth is occurring in the suburbs, not the center. Activities such as for-profit curricular ventures, strategic research alliances, distance education, and technology transfer testify to the increasingly far-flung enterprise of higher education. In these congested suburbs of the university, new models of decision making have emerged. Consequently, this is where scholars need to focus investigations of academic governance. Some have already begun to do so. Kennedy (1993), for instance, argued for "new coalitions" of decision makers from both the institutional center and its periphery (p. 113). Bok (2003) called for new decisionmaking models for entrepreneurial ventures. Kezar and Eckel (forthcoming) considered how new kinds of academic workers make "shared" governance more complex and problematic.I want to explore conceptually what others have done anecdotally. Asserting that university governance is disjointed, I argue that certain structures, processes, and participants-in what I am calling the suburbs of the institution-have captured a role in decision making, infringing on how traditional governance works. I will examine the case of research centers and institutes in order to demonstrate how this disjointedness adds to and complicates traditional governance in the research university.

The People behind the Curtain: A Proposed Succession Planning Model for University-wide Research Institutes

“…In the second article, Disjointed Governance in University Centers and Institutes, Mallon (2004) maintained that core governance structures of universities have changed and eventually become disjointed by the creation of research centers. According to Mallon, (2004), disjointed governance in universities means that various governance structures have been layered upon one another, causing complexity, confusion, and tugs-of-war over power structures and authority.…”

“…The author pointed to four characteristics that are evidence of disjointedness, increases in: (1) new governance structures; (2) external stakeholders in decision making processes; (3) nontraditional faculty (part-time and non-tenured) and faculty-like groups (post-docs and graduate assistants) in decision making processes; and (4) views that these non-traditional faculty are citizens of the university community (p. 63). Mallon (2004) argued that research institutes have significant influence on university governance for three reasons: they play a role in who is hired, generate revenue, and employ significant numbers of employees who sit on university commissions and make decisions. Mallon (2004) ended his article with five implications of disjointed governance:  the importance of traditional, formal faculty governing bodies will decline;  representation of the interests of non-traditional faculty will continue to rise;  individual faculty members who bring in considerable external resources will gain more power and authority over the faculty as a group;  faculty loyalty to the institution may shift to external markets rather than focusing on disciplines and professions as they do now; and  power will shift from the traditional core, or academic mission, of the university to its fringes, where sponsored research occurs (p. 70-72).…”

Academic Entrepreneurship vs. Changing Governance and Institutional Management Structures at European Universities

“…Managing structures and decision-making processes at a small private university (the University of Buckingham in the UK) are substantially different from those at bigger institutions (such as Warwick and Nottingham Universities in the UK or Twente University in the Netherlands; see Schutte, 1999;Mallon, 2004;Middlehurst, 2004;Lazzeretti & Tavoletti, 2005). For example, the three schools at Buckingham are each treated as a separate business division, and each is responsible for maximising its financial return (derived largely from teaching).…”

Private and Public Sector Models for Strategies in Universities*

“…However, as yet there is little attention in the sector literature on the importance of the parallel concept of followership: 'leadership is also about followership' (Pettigrew, 1998, p. 285) and 'there is no bad leadership without bad followership' (Kellerman, 2004). The issues are not only how to encourage, train, reward and manage good leaders, but how to enable teams with followers and leaders to operate, generate succession and deliver and implement strategic change (see also Mallon, 2004;Schein, 1985;Schneider, 2000, for more discussion, in both private and university settings). One also awaits evidence of the systematic and thoroughgoing implementation of staff development in intrapreneurship, teamworking and strategic management within universities' human resource practices.…”