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How do a university leader's publication patterns change after appointment? Until now, few studies have examined whether administrative burden has a significant effect on a leader's publication patterns. This study seeks to evaluate changes in individual publication patterns in relation to academic productivity and increased administrative load. The main expectation is that rectors opt for collaboration instead of publishing single‐authored papers. The analysis of publication data on Russian rectors demonstrates that: (1) a rector's academic productivity is significantly positively related to the share of single‐authored papers and papers in inter‐organizational co‐authorship; (2) every additional year in office adds to the share of co‐authored papers and impedes a yearly increase in article numbers; and (3) previously high individual productivity has a mitigating effect on an increasing share of institutionally co‐authored papers. The results suggest that administrative burden induces changes in collaboration patterns of university leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper calls for a more detailed study of social practices in the analysis of governance failures. Using the Woolf report on the breakdown of governance at the London School of Economics as a case study and Wittgenstein's notion of language games as an analytic lens, the author argues that widely used institutional and structural theories of governance are necessary but not sufficient to explain how governance works and why it fails. It is also necessary to understand, through a detailed micro-analysis of talk and action, the contingent social practices occurring within and outside these structures. This matters because structural accounts of governance tend to present solutions as changes in structures, standards and procedures or measures to make academics comply with these. A language games framing, in contrast, suggests that it matters less what form the structures of governance take than the extent to which they allow effective deliberation on the numerous contradictions and paradoxes that make up their day-to-day work. The paper concludes that those charged with governing universities should maximise opportunities for individuals and groups to deliberate on, and 'muddle through', the multiple and conflicting demands and accountabilities that characterise contemporary higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper examines changes and developments in institutions' internal governance during the last decade, identifying points of continuity in the policy and political environment in the United Kingdom as well as points of difference. External drivers are discussed as part of the increasingly dynamic and volatile operating conditions for higher education. Institutions' internal governance arrangements are presented within a framework drawn from Clarke's studies of entrepreneurial universities. The final section of the article argues for a re-interpretation and strengthening of collegial forms of governance, using models and examples drawn from innovative private sector companies that can indicate useful directions for higher education institutions so that they are better fitted to meet 21st century challenges. While the analysis is focused on the UK, the lessons are more widely applicable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on findings from a study that explored the changing roles and career experience of research managers and research administrators in English universities. It explores how research support has evolved during a period when the higher education sector was responding to changing science and higher education policy. These changes have impacted on research managers and research administrators roles, altered the occupational group and moved field boundaries. The paper draws on Bourdieu's theory of social practice to understand these changes and identifies a shared space of tension, the ‘shifting arena,’ where the research manager field crosses into the academic field. It is suggested that an increased understanding of this space will enhance the collaborative working of all those involved in research and help maximise research activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws upon the experiences and perceptions of ten university vice-chancellors in the United Kingdom on the challenges they face in providing leadership and strategic direction for their institutions into the twenty-first century. The paper reveals the perceptions and spoken words of these leaders as they identify the key challenges shaping higher education, their strategies for addressing these challenges, their struggle to maintain the core mission of universities and finally, implications for the future of higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the exception of lecturing staff, research on occupational groups and cultures within the UK higher education system is relatively sparse. This paper focuses upon one specialist group, to-date under-researched but which plays a central role in contemporary higher education administration: graduate research administrators. This occupational group is of particular interest as its members administer and manage an increasing complex and key area of university life, which in many cases appears to span the putative occupational divide between ‘academic’ and ‘administrative’ work. Based upon qualitative interviews with 27 research administrators, and using some of Bourdieu's conceptual devices, the paper analyses particular kinds of informal occupational knowledge and practice, necessary in order effectively to ‘do’ the complex task of research administration in the pressurized environment of contemporary British higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Lambert Model Code of Governance proposes to institutionalise the dominance of governors from commercial and industrial organisations as core members of compact and effective boards controlling UK universities. It is the latest expression of a fashion for viewing university governance as an overly-simple example of an obsolete system, where overweening and obstructive committee systems inhibit universities from achieving more significant and business-relevant activity. In this paper university governance is analysed in terms of classic agency analysis, in the Jensen and Meckling tradition. This suggests that governance of and in the system is complex and that, although inherited structures may indeed be deficient, the prescription of the Lambert Review is profoundly flawed and would be unlikely to achieve improvement in UK universities’ competitiveness or attainment of mission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers tensions between‘corporate’ models of governance focused on the governing body and more traditional,‘consensual’ academic approaches. It argues that despite these tensions, a decline in the role of the academic community in matters of institutional governance (‘shared governance’) is neither desirable nor inevitable, and that successful academic participation is possible through a combination of the corporate and consensual modes. Tracing a decline in academic participation from its height in the 1970s, the paper evaluates the problematic nature of more recent corporate approaches to university governance and the work ofand Deem is used to reflect on‘tensions between the logic of managerial control and the conventions of professional autonomy’ (, p. 52). The paper ends by offering a broad and flexible model for successful shared governance, drawing on the role of academic departments and Clark’s strengthened steering core (1998). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of reviews over the past six years– from Dearing () to Lambert ()– have addressed the question of whether the structure and process of‘governance’ in higher education is fit for modern times. This is a proper question to ask as operating environments change and pressures on institutional resources increase. Indeed, it is not coincidental that both the recent government-sponsored reports and those of the previous decade (;) were associated with significant financial changes in the sector. There are further parallels in that both the reports of the 1980s and those of the later period heralded legislative changes that produced– or will produce– new patterns of higher education provision in the UK (;;).The messages from the reports and White Papers (;;) published in this twenty-year period have remained broadly similar, even though the wider environment has altered significantly.‘Increase efficiency, find new sources of income and improve performance across an ever-widening range of activities and services’ have been the watchwords of successive governments. Given the consistency of the message, it is useful to analyse the changes that universities have been making to meet these requirements and to consider what further changes may be needed in the light of new external challenges. The first part of the paper offers a historical perspective before addressing the evolution of leadership roles and management structures from the late 1980s. The second part considers some of the current drivers of internal and external change before discussing the kind of changes in internal governance that are emerging and that should be considered for the future. I conclude by arguing for a shift in focus from structure and roles to people and processes in the task of leading change in universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the positioning of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) outreach programmes within universities' operations. Though universities in many respects form a rather homogenous international community, there is wide diversity in regard to the provision of STEM outreach by different institutions. To explain this diversity, a conceptual framework was developed by using the Theory of Legitimacy as an organising concept. The framework considers two opposing scenarios that form a continuum between them, namely: 'top-down' initiative by the university governance versus 'bottom-up' grass-roots initiative. Using the Theory of Legitimacy, internal and external outreach relationships are characterised and explained under the two scenarios. The framework was applied to two settings chosen due to their essential differences in outreach provision, namely, Australia and Israel. The differences that were found in internal and external legitimacy provide a useful lens for examining the low-performing, fragile system in Australia as compared with the high-performing, thriving system in Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shared governance has been a key historical characteristic of higher education although this form of governance has come under increased pressure in recent decades. It is often argued that shared governance is less relevant for tackling the challenges related to a more dynamic environment of the sector. This paper discusses underlying premises for the current conceptions of shared governance and analyses how a sample of Nordic universities perceives the place and role of governance in their strategic development. It is found that most universities emphasise leadership and leadership development as a key measure to strengthen their governance capacity and it is argued that most universities seem to overlook the cultural and symbolic aspects of governance along the way. This may have serious consequences for the internal legitimacy and trust when universities enter into demanding change processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education in Germany and Australia is being subject to pressures of market forces, internationalisation and financial constraints. This had led to both systems experiencing significant crisis and change over the past 20 years. In this paper, frame analysis is used to compare the changing policies in each nation and examine the extent to which the landscapes of each system have been transformed. It is found that higher education policy in both nations underwent significant change in the late 1980s and again in the early 2000s, impacting on system structures and institutional forms. There is now evidence of further change occurring in both nations that may mark a transition to a ‘post-public era’ in higher education. This analysis reveals a degree of convergence in the neo-liberal policy trajectories of both nations but differences in the rate and nature of the transitions taking place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the empirical basis of six national studies (Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Denmark, Russia and South Africa), this paper examines the phenomenon of segmentation, defined as the solidification of deep hierarchies with little crossover between categories of institutions or individuals. The massification of higher education has brought about a great diversity of institutions and, concomitantly, stark differences among the professoriate. While the public sector has to some extent been able to protect its academic personnel, the for-profit sector is moving towards an unstable professoriate, poorly paid, hired mostly on a per-hour basis, and for whom sharing in academic governance is a distant dream. Some of this differentiation is emerging also within institutions and a new kind of academic who could be termed ‘just-in-time knowledge worker’ is on the rise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The governance of higher education has become a recognised cause for concern. Many academics lament the demise of an easy collegiality in the face of the rise of a harder managerialism that robs them of control. But outsiders to the system, concerned about the efficiency and effectiveness of higher education management, are critical of the extent to which academics seem all too eager and able to block changes that might lead to universities better addressing the needs of society. This paper rejects the simple nostrums of both those who hark back to a collegial golden age and those who make the case for a brave managerial future. It argues that universities that are capable of real strategic change in response to challenge are capable of transcending the dichotomy between collegiality and managerialism as modes of organisation. In these successful universities, academics must be involved and prepared to lead, but they must also work in partnership with administrators, in institutions that will be strong to the extent that there is a shared vision that makes the institution rather more than just the sum of warring departments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Postsecondary education in the United States is provided by public, not-for-profit and for-profit institutions. Public and not-for-profit institutions are expected to serve the public good due to state control or chartering requirements; for-profit institutions are not. Therefore, the decision to serve the public good is vested in the board. The for-profit director's role as representative of shareholders' interests does not ensure deference to the public good. Currently, national priorities are aligned with shareholder interests creating an environment ripe for expansion of for-profit education. However, there are implications as national priorities shift to positions that do not complement shareholder interests. Most critically, continued growth of for-profit postsecondary education may lead to a reduction of service of the public good by all institutions. Private institutions (not-for-profit or for-profit) exist in every large country; therefore, a thorough analysis of the legal distinctions among sectors is encouraged to understand the implications of growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the changing role of universities in the UK as they respond to an engagement agenda that stipulates a more immersive and visible interaction between academics and the public. It constitutes a survey of attitudes to public engagement in a selection of UK universities drawing on interviews with senior academics with managerial responsibility at the end of 2009. The results of this study reflect a mood of indecision and anxiety among respondents towards a public engagement agenda seen to influence the contours of their professional identities and working lives. The study situates academic accounts that contest the legitimacy of public engagement as a core academic activity and the role of academics in communicating with public groups. Moreover, it reveals a lack of agreement and consistency in the conceptualisation and application of public engagement in higher education contexts, certainly beyond an emergent discourse of research impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses reports within the issue including the conceptualization of academic freedom, the principal-agent theory in Indonesian universities, and the role of higher education in social mobility.

This article reviews changes in British university governance over a period of nearly a century. During this time there have been considerable changes in the way universities have distributed authority in governance although the legal frameworks, statutory and legislative, have remained largely unchanged. The article shows that there were distinct phases in the internal balances within governance structures and relates these to external pressures, mostly state driven. Critics of current trends in university governance tend to look back to a utopian traditional model but the evidence suggests that the internal balances were always to a considerable extent contingent on external conditions and fluctuated accordingly. There is no evidence that while the state applied pressure for change in various aspects of governance it substantially intervened to impose constitutional changes except in respect to the Higher Education corporation (HEC) structure for the former polytechnics in 1988 and that, in its most managerial details, was in response to demands from the polytechnic directors themselves. The changes in how authority is distributed were therefore decided by the institutions themselves albeit in response to external pressures. But the article suggests that institutions' responses were variable and that where a strong research culture existed the accumulation of social capital was such that radical changes in the distribution of authority were resisted. One consequence is that there is now much greater diversity in institutional governance structures with some pre-1992 universities leaning much more towards HEC models, some HECs edging towards more traditional models and some institutions preserving significant elements of authority which others would regard as utopian. In Britain, reputation, research success and brand image are closely associated with the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article introduces this special issue of Higher Education Quarterly in which results of a research project on 'European Flagship Universities: Balancing Academic Excellence and Socio-economic Relevance' are presented and discussed. The Flagship project aimed at contributing to a better understanding of the relationship between university reform agendas, with their underlying ideologies, and university practices, especially at the departmental level. The project focused on how selected Flagship universities in continental Europe interpret and use their institutional autonomy in two areas, research management and personnel policies. For this purpose an analytical framework was developed for studying how autonomy is interpreted and used inside the university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses changes with respect to university governance structures in six comprehensive universities in Europe. We present an analytical framework on the basis of which we conduct a comparative analysis of the university governance structures along four different dimensions: (a) the internal democratic nature of the governance structure, (b) the external involvement in university governance, (c) the level of centralisation of decision-making authority in the university and (d) the concentration of authority in an individual leadership position versus authority in a collective body or spread over various collective bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last decade has seen an acceleration of change in the way British universities have been governed, led and managed. This has substantially been driven by the instability of the external environment, which has encouraged a greater centralisation of decision-making leading to less governance and more management, but it is also a consequence of the growing convergence of the governance and management models of the pre- and post-1992 universities. The article identifies a rise in 'the executive' at the expense of the traditional components of university governance, governing bodies, senates, academic boards and faculty boards, and a growing tendency to push academic participation to the periphery. It describes the dangers implicit in such developments and suggests that they may lead to a loss in academic vitality and distinctiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A governance model is developed in which university governance is shared between the academic and governing bodies and is coordinated by the university executive. Viewing the university as a professional service organisation, and noting the importance of developing a flexible culture within a shifting, marketised external environment, it is argued that a degree of shared governance is necessary for the success of the modern university. Although the discussion is couched largely within the context and evolution of UK university governance over the past sixty years, it also draws on the US evidence and experience and the conclusions drawn are general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education has expanded to a remarkable extent in many countries in recent decades. Although this has led to high levels of participation, inequalities not only persist but are also strengthened. The persistence of inequalities is partly the result of policies for the widening of participation having been accompanied by institutional stratification with educational choices being unequal and socially defined. There is evidence that with the development of new university departments and the increase in the number of university entrants in Greece, a stratified system of higher education has emerged. This study draws on quantitative data that provides evidence that choice has been driven largely by the students' social class: the close relationship between social class and educational opportunities has remained intact. Furthermore, social inequalities in access and distribution in higher education persist, despite the substantial increase in participation in higher education. Social class is a key factor in the interpretation of choice of study, which, along with the performance in the national level examinations that determines entrance into universities, has also led to the increase in the stratification of higher education institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twentieth century governance models used in public universities are subject to increasing doubt across the English-speaking world. Governments question if public universities are being efficiently governed; if their boards of trustees are adequately fulfilling their trust obligations towards multiple stakeholders; and if collegial models of governance are working in increasingly complex educational environments. With declining public funding for tertiary education, growing international competition among institutions of higher learning in our information age and worrisome evidence of dysfunctional governance, critics question if established governance structures are able to meet these and other challenges. Some insist that members of faculty are most suited to govern public universities because they appreciate the vision and mission of the university. Others demand that boards of governors be skilled in financial matters and drawn primarily from corporate life. Yet others call for governance based on trust and confidence between those who govern and those who are governed. The article evaluates competing trends in models of university governance in the United Kingdom, the British Commonwealth and the United States. Arguing against a one-size-fits-all model, it sets out specific factors to consider in reforming governance models to meet the demands of our times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the well-known failures of many experimental colleges and programs in the 1960s and 1970s, policymakers and scholars are often cynical about the possibilities for organisational innovation, particularly within public universities. Public university innovation is possible, however, when organisational actors seek to institutionalise reform and use the legitimacy of reform to obtain adequate human and financial resources. An illustrative case study of California State University at Monterey Bay is used to describe how institutionalisation processes can be used to establish, support and expand public university innovation, which may be increasingly crucial to meet political and competitive demands for university adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the proposals put forward in the Lambert Report for reforms in university governance. It compares the recommendation for a Code with the analogue Combined Code which regulates corporate governance in companies and draws a distinction between attempts, from the Cadbury Report in 1992 to the Higgs Review in 2003, to create board structures which will reduce the prospect of misgovernance, and the underlying aim of Lambert to improve university performance through governance change. It argues that analogies between university governing bodies and company boards are misleading and that university governing bodies, on their own, are almost by definition unable to fulfill the criteria of an‘effective board’ laid down in the DTI Report on TransTec. It suggests that a Guide on Governance which encourages institutional self determination is a better basis for sustaining institutional autonomy, which is a key ingredient to encouraging high levels of performance, than a Government backed Code which risks reducing institutional diversity and cutting across existing legal instruments. It concludes that the proposed Code is a distraction from serious consideration of what factors encourage improved institutional performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutional responses to changes in the higher education environment have caused movements in the roles and identities of administrative managers in UK universities. These shifts have highlighted the problem for individuals of balancing traditional public service considerations of administration with institutional innovation and development. Administrative managers find themselves not only acting as independent arbiters, giving impartial advice on the basis of professional expertise, but also becoming involved in political judgements about institutional futures. They increasingly undertake an interpretive function between the various communities of the university and its external partners. As the boundaries of the university have become more permeable, administrative and academic management have inter-digitated, and hybrid roles have developed. In undertaking increasingly complex functions, therefore, administrative managers play a critical role in linking the academic and executive arms of governance in the university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governance is a means for realising institutional goals and in an ideal world should enable the institution to respond to the demands of the political environment by regulating its internal affairs accordingly. In the case of universities, not only is that environment increasingly differentiated but so also is the ability of universities to access it. Changes in state funding arrangements, accountability mechanisms, the contribution of the private sector, and the public definition of university education have placed numerous and varied pressures on institutions. Yet there is a studied reluctance by institutions to accept that their ability to respond to these pressures is equally variable, that they should tailor their ambitions to their capacities, and that their internal governance should be adapted using the principle of fitness for purpose. In the main, this is because the dominant ideological themes of higher education do not support the idea of distinct university functions of equal status. Rather, they encourage the erroneous belief that all universities are homogeneous in their functions – or, at least, that all have the potential to be homogeneous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]