This paper discusses the transformation of university governance through the introduction of new types of internal management structures through strategic councils. Through interviews with internal stakeholders at three Swedish universities with varying structural characteristics and disciplinary profiles, the study investigates how different interests and groups interface in university-wide councils and what implications their interactions carry for the traditional management structures within the line organization as well as the collegium, and for the ability of universities to cope with conflicting demands. The material is interpreted through a dual-layer framework where the perspectives of the interviewees are compared to a trustee-delegate spectrum of representativeness (Karlsson, 2013), and the roles of the strategic councils are viewed through a combined lens of resource dependence theory (Pfeffer and Salancik, 2003) and organisational hypocrisy (Brunsson, 2006).

Brunsson, N. (2006). The Organization of Hypocrisy: Talk, Decisions and Actions in Organizations. Malmö: Liber. Karlsson, M. (2013). Covering Distance: Essays on Representation and Political Communication. (Doctoral dissertation, Örebo University). Pfeffer, J., & Salancik, G.R. (2003). The External Control of Organizations: A Resource Dependence Perspective. Stanford: Stanford University Press.