Merger Mania? The Finnish Higher Education Experience

Aarrevaara, Timo; Dobson, Ian R.

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-21918-9_4

Cited by 14 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Scholars have discussed the Finnish government's BHarvard Here^in a pursuit of creating a Bworld-class^university by injecting funding into one merged university in the capital of Finland (Aarrevaara et al 2009;Aarrevaara and Dobson 2016). Further, Bmerger mania^describes the intense push for university mergers in a search for improved efficiency and effectiveness by diminishing the university network in Finland (Aarrevaara and Dobson 2016). However, worries about smaller rural universities' survival is relevant.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revisiting the five problems of public sector organisations and reputation management—the perspective of higher education practitioners and ex-academics

Kuoppakangas

Suomi

Stenvall

et al. 2019

Int Rev Public Nonprofit Mark

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The extant literature has identified five problems related to public sector organisations and their reputation management: politics, consistency, charisma, uniqueness and excellence. This study examines whether and how the problems of reputation management occur in public higher education by collecting qualitative data from 40 interviews. The study sheds light on the perceptions of a group that has been largely neglected in previous studies: namely, doctorates who have exited academia, or ex-academics. In addition to ex-academics, interviewees also included their employers and university leadership. The analysis follows a thematic qualitative approach with an abductive logic. The study provides empirical evidence of the content of the problems in higher education and discusses recent related transformations in higher education. The findings show that, in terms of reputation management, the most challenging matters appear to be knowledge transfer and the applicability of research to practice. These challenges are cross-cutting and apparent from different angles across all five problems of reputation management. This study contributes to the academic literature on reputation management in the public sector by applying prior conceptual categorizations and employing a comprehensive set of empirical data with a fresh perspective. The study presents implications for higher education policy makers and managers and emphasises the need for university management to minimise the duality between different types of workers, as this duality threatens university reputations in general and consistency in particular.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revisiting the five problems of public sector organisations and reputation management—the perspective of higher education practitioners and ex-academics

Kuoppakangas

Suomi

Stenvall

et al. 2019

Int Rev Public Nonprofit Mark

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“…It rather holds back regarding the evaluation of the impact of various merger operations, most analyses concentrating on the process rather than on the results (Aarrevaara & Dobson 2016;Karlsson & Geschwind 2016;Nokkala & Välimaa 2017;Pruvot, Estermann & Mason 2015). Naturally, the Chinese programme of halving the number of their universities is a success -only its success is discussed in an article by an author from the Popular Republic (Huang 2000)!…”

Section: Merger Impact: the International Experiencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Experiences of mergers and of consequently reducing the number of universities were identified, in the last two decades, in the literature (Aarrevaara & Dobson 2016;Aula & Tienari 2011;Clark 2005;Evans 2015;Geschwind, Melin, & Wedlin 2016;Hansen 2010;Harkin & Hazelkorn 2014;Harkin & Hazelkorn 2015;Harman & Meek 2002;Huang 2000;Lang 2003;Nokkala & Välimaa 2017;Salmi 2009) in China, France, England, the US, Denmark, Finland, Sweden or Ireland.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are University Mergers a Solution for the Problems of Romanian Higher Education Nowadays?

Hatos¹

2017

JRHE

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This article discusses the timeliness of university mergers against the background of the crisis in Romanian higher education. It includes a summary review of international experiences while underlining the evaluation of the net results of the mergers and it shows that, in drafting and implementing such initiatives, a lot of precaution is needed, given that worldwide results are rather ambiguous. Finally, it discusses a number of evolution scenarios for the mergers in Romania and offers policy recommendations in the field.

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“…The regional outroar in the spring 2016 around the decision of the University of Eastern Finland deciding to discontinue its teacher education branch campus in Savonlinna testifies that the autonomy of the universities themselves to conduct structural development is by no means uncontentious. (YLE 11.4.2016) The simultaneity of introducing the new Universities Act with its different initiatives to strengthen university management on the one hand and the three merger processes to create larger units on the other hand, contributed to the complexity of the university mergers (Aarrevaara & Dobson 2016).…”

Section: The Aftermath -Continuity In the Context Of Changementioning

confidence: 99%