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The academic career system in the Italian university is dealt with a particular focus on the period from late ‘90s to 2014, when it has been reformed several times. After having described the evolution of the professoriate from 1969 to 2014 and the general legal framework of the academic profession (i.e. recruitment and career system, contractual status, types of positions, salary scales) the chapter focuses on changes in the period cited above. In particular the following issues will be considered: 1. A historical perspective of how the Italian professoriate has evolved between the Second World War and 2010. 2. Reforms of academic recruitment between 1998 and 2010 highlighting the changes they aimed at introducing and the effects they produced. 3. The recruitment and career advancement logic characterized by the lasting corporative-patrimonialist informal arrangements in recruitment/advancement decision-making and the internal labour market dynamic of career progressions. 4. The process of institutionalisation of non-tenured and fixed-term academics, creating an academic periphery and a highly stratified profession. 5. The academics’ perceptions and about their career conditions, opportunities and perspectives drawn from the Changing Academic Profession survey.

During the last few decades, massification of the higher education systems in Europe has given women access to the academic profession. This quantitative improvement of access for women has been widely emphasized (Carnegie 1992 survey, Altbach 1996; Kogan and Teichler 2007, etc.), but important differences remain regarding the levels of status achieved (in other words, where women stand in the academic hierarchy) and the types of professional activities (the gendered division of work) (Goastellec and Pekari 2013; Goastellec and Crettaz Von Rotten forthcoming, 2016). Globally, large differences remain between academic markets and the dependent societies. Based on the EuroAC survey and additional research, this chapter is an attempt to reveal some of the mechanisms favouring gender (in)equality in the academic profession by comparing women in the Italian and Swiss University academic contexts.

Nell'ultimo decennio, il fenomeno degli spin-off universitari (Sou) ha attratto un crescente interesse. L'attenzione si č rivolta al mutamento dei sistemi e delle istituzioni di istruzione superiore - di cui gli Sou sono un aspetto - e alle ricadute che la creazione di Sou puň avere sullo sviluppo in un'economia basata sulla conoscenza. Dopo aver delineato il quadro dei mutamenti istituzionali nei quali il fenomeno degli Sou ha il suo radicamento, vengono presi in considerazione lo sviluppo degli Sou in Italia e il loro apporto allo sviluppo economico locale. Le informazioni presentate indicano la plausibilitŕ della relazione tra sviluppo degli Sou e trasformazione dell'ambiente istituzionale e dell'organizzazione delle universitŕ mentre non consentono ancora una piena valutazione del contributo degli Sou allo sviluppo locale. Gli elementi raccolti fanno tuttavia ritenere che gli Sou siano solo un elemento tra molti di un tessuto istituzionale favorevole allo sviluppo basato sulle alte tecnologie.

The aim of this article is to outline a theoretical framework to address Higher Education organizational change in a globalized and globalizing age. The paper will start with a brief description of trends characterizing the global landscape and their relationships with Higher Education policies and institutions. Although these trends are well known, their impact on HE institutions is to some large extent ambiguous and open to different and even diverging interpretations. In particular, is possible to identify two main and opposed interpretations concerning globalization outcomes: (1) the convergence thesis, that emphasizes the homogenization processes (2) the divergence thesis that, on the contrary, emphasizes different, pluralistic and localized responses to globalization processes. In terms of organizational change the debate focuses on isomorphic change vs. idiosyncratic strategic responses, translation processes and heterogeneity. Both grasp a part of the truth, but they tend to offer mutually exclusive explanations of responses to wider institutional processes and pressures. The article argues that these perspectives could be integrated in one differ- ent, offering an interpretation of change dynamics, based on the concept of organizational allomorphism. This concept is derived from linguistics and it used to point out a morpho- logical variant of a same morpheme depending on the context of use. A morphological variant is meant not to be something different or idiosyncratic, but something recognizable as a declension of one definite pattern or form. In organizational terms, this concept point out that, although organizations adapt or translate institutional patterns in the face of their formal struc- ture and arrangements, as well as of their social context, it is possible to identify a common set of institutionalized patterns, or institutional archetypes, which structure the organizational arrangements and behaviors.

From the second half of 1996, Italian higher education system has undergone a wide and deep reforming process, aiming at innovate its curricular, as well as its organizational and governance structures.

In more developed countries, processes of change within higher education are witnessing a new phase based on the rhetoric of excellence. Although excellence is as old as university, nonetheless its meaning and goals have historically changed through time. In the last decade, a further change has occurred. This change is embedded in, and is triggered by, globalisation and the emergence of so-called knowledge-based economy and society.

Since late ‘80s, higher education reform policies in Europe as well as in the most developed countries have been characterized by a strong emphasis on, and a commitment towards, the development of market or market-like logic and arrangements both in governing and organizing higher education sector and institutions. Generally, it is acknowledged that market-oriented reforms and policies in higher education are based on three main pillars: 1) awarding a larger and substantive autonomy to higher education institutions, paralleled by accountability and performance-based evaluation for allocating public resources; 2) a growing pressure on institutions to seek and retrieve entrepreneurially economic resources in order to complement, but also to expand, their financial budgets as the state growingly retrenched; 3) competition among institutions, as well as within individual institutions, on attracting students, scholars and economic resources (both public and private).