Session Information
32 SES 10, Developing Higher Education Organizations - Research in and for Universities
Paper Session
Contribution
Universities are a kind of organizations which is not only special (Perkins 1973; Kehm 2012) but also within a special change process (Audretsch et al 2016). Even if there are differences between the organizational forms of universities in different European countries, universities in general are characterized by the trinity of teaching, research, and service/administration.
Differences and tensions between their academic parts (researching and teaching staff oriented towards the norms, knowledge and practices of their academic disciplines) and their bureaucratic parts (administrative staff oriented towards the regulations of admission, of examination, of funding, of accounting and more) are elements of an university’s organizational culture. To survive as an organization (seen from a systemic perspective), each university has to handle these differences and tensions.
Another relation which implies tensions is the university’s relation to its environment. Seen from a neoinstitutionalist perspective each university is confronted with the expectations of the changing society. Universities compete against each other for staff as well as for students, for fundings as well as for reputation.
With the economization of universities in the Bologna process (Nitsch 2004) the inner-university efforts increase to optimize its standard procedures and to improve both its academic staff and its administration staff (Kosmützky/Borggräfe 2012).
The symposium discusses such efforts of developing higher education organizations by looking at the universities’ efforts to develop their academic and administrative staff. Which need for development can be found? Which formats are chosen by the universities to diagnose developmental needs? What do the universities to induce new staff into the university and to improve the staff’s competencies as well as the university’s standard procedures of teaching, research, and administration?
Three papers are presented which all are based on empirical data. Since the data of the presentations are gained from three universities in three different European countries, the symposium gives the possibility to compare certain aspects of the development of universities in Europe.
References
Audretsch, David et al (2016): University Evolution, Entrepreneurial Activity and Regional Competitiveness. Cham: Springer. Kehm, Barbara (2012): Hochschulen als besondere und unvollständige Organisationen? In: Wilkesmann, U.; Schmid, Ch. (Hg): Hochschule als Organisation. Wiesbaden: Springer, 17-26. Kosmützky, Anna; Borggräfe, Michael (2012): Zeitgenössische Hochschulreform und unternehmerischer Aktivitätsmodus. In: Wilkesmann, U.; Schmid, Ch. (Hg): Hochschule als Organisation. Wiesbaden: Springer, 69-86. Nitsch, Wolfgang (2004): Universities in the Bologna Process. Between Novel Economization and Politicization. Centre for South-North-Cooperation in Educational Research and Practice. Oldenburg: University Oldenburg. Perkins, James A. (ed.) (1973): The University as an Organization. A Report for the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education. New York: McGraw-Hill.
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