From Loose to Tight Management: Seeking Evidence of Archetype Change in Dutch and English Higher Education

312 Pages·2018·6.96 MB·English

by  Elke Weyer (auth.)

Organization & Public Management
Elke Weyer
From Loose to
Tight Management
Seeking Evidence of Archetype
Change in Dutch and English
Higher Education
Organization & Public Management
Series editors
P. Hiller, Nordhausen, Germany
G. Krücken, Kassel, Germany
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/12613
Elke Weyer
From Loose to
Tight Management
Seeking Evidence of Archetype
Change in Dutch and English
Higher Education
Elke Weyer
Köln, Germany
Dissertation University of Bremen, Germany, 2017
Organization & Public Management
ISBN 978-3-658-19748-3 ISBN 978-3-658-19749-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-19749-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017954986
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Acknowledgements
This thesis was begun at the Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies
(CHEPS), University of Twente, and completed at the University of Bremen. It
is based on the Transforming Universities in Europe Project (TRUE) that was
carried out in the framework of the EuroHESC programme of the European Sci-
ence Foundation. I would like to point out that CHEPS provided me with finan-
cial as well as administrative support for the data collection and analysis.
I am extremely grateful to Professor Uwe Schimank for believing in my
work and for accepting to become my supervisor. I would like to thank him for
his continuous support and encouragement – there is no doubt that his contribu-
tion to this thesis had a major impact. Being a great admirer of his work, I appre-
ciated every moment that we spent discussing my research.
I would also like to thank my second supervisor, Dr. Jochen Gläser, for tak-
ing the time to discuss and enrich my work. Particularly his work on authority
relations set the stage and provided the necessary conceptual tools for developing
the key arguments of this dissertation. His input was invaluable and his ideas
challenged me in every respect.
Furthermore, a special word of thanks goes to Grit Laudel, who turned out
to be the best “mentor” I can think of. She was always generous with her time
and ideas and has given me more than she ever needed to. She deserves enor-
mous credit for not losing her patience with the numerous questions I asked her.
I am particularly grateful for what she taught me about research methodology, a
topic I knew little about when starting this thesis.
I would also like to thank all of the people who openly and warmly contrib-
uted their stories, histories and experiences about decision-making in Dutch and
English higher education institutions. Without this willingness to share, the em-
pirical chapters of this thesis could not have been written.
Lastly, I would like to thank my family for all their love and support and for
repeatedly encouraging me to finish my thesis – I finally got there in the end!
Elke Weyer
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ............................................................................................ V
1 The Transformation of the University - Reality or Myth? .................... 1
1.1 Decades of Higher Education Reform: Towards a New Social Contract .. 1
1.1.1 Redistributing Authority: An Empirical Question ............................. 5
1.1.2 Redistributing Authority: A Theoretical Question ............................. 9
1.2 Change and Transformation from the Perspective of Organisational
Sociology .............................................................................................. 13
1.2.1 Analysing the Organisational Transformation of the University
with the Help of Archetypes ............................................................ 14
1.2.2 Re-Phrasing the Research Questions: Explaining the
Organisational Transformation of the European University as a
Transition between Archetypes ....................................................... 17
1.3 Structure of the Study ........................................................................... 19
2 Analytical Framework ............................................................................ 21
2.1 Actor-Centred Institutionalism ............................................................. 21
2.2 Building the Archetype Template ......................................................... 27
2.2.1 The Archetype Template ................................................................. 36
2.3 Factors that Hinder or Facilitate Archetype Change............................. 39
3 Research Design ...................................................................................... 45
3.1 Comparative Case Studies .................................................................... 45
3.1.1 Country Selection ............................................................................ 47
3.1.2 Selection of Universities .................................................................. 48
3.1.3 Selection of Fields of Research ....................................................... 50
3.1.4 Selection of Decision-Making Cases ............................................... 51
3.2 Limitations............................................................................................ 59
3.3 Data Collection ..................................................................................... 61
3.3.1 Modelling the Authority Distributions of Archetypes ..................... 61
3.3.2 Building the Empirical Case Studies ............................................... 64
3.4 Data Analysis ....................................................................................... 65
VIII Table of Contents
4 Presentation of Archetypes ..................................................................... 69
4.1 Bifurcated Hollow University .............................................................. 69
4.2 State-Chartered Employment University .............................................. 71
4.3 Portfolio University .............................................................................. 73
5 Higher Education in the Netherlands .................................................... 79
5.1 The Dutch Higher Education System ................................................... 79
5.1.1 Key Actors in the Higher Education Landscape .............................. 85
5.2 Relevant Policy Developments ............................................................. 87
6 Seeking Evidence of Archetype Change in Dutch Higher Education . 95
6.1 University A1 ....................................................................................... 95
6.1.1 Research-Portfolio Decisions and the Selection of Research
Priority Areas ................................................................................... 96
6.1.2 Organisation of (Individual) Performance Evaluations ................. 105
6.1.3 Internal Resource Allocation at the Central and Faculty Levels .... 111
6.1.4 Observed Authority Distributions A1 ............................................ 115
6.1.5 Comparing A1’s Authority Distributions to the Post-Transition
Archetype Portfolio University ...................................................... 122
6.2 University A2 ..................................................................................... 125
6.2.1 Research-Portfolio Decisions and the Selection of Research
Priority Areas ................................................................................. 127
6.2.2 Organisation of (Individual) Performance Evaluation ................... 136
6.2.3 Internal Resource Allocation at the Central and Faculty Levels .... 140
6.2.4 Observed Authority Distributions A2 ............................................ 143
6.2.5 Comparing A2’s Authority Distributions to the Post-Transition
Archetype Portfolio University ...................................................... 149
6.3 Reflection on the Dutch Cases............................................................ 152
7 Higher Education in England ............................................................... 157
7.1 The English Higher Education System ............................................... 157
7.1.1 Key Actors in the Higher Education Landscape ............................ 163
7.1.2 Relevant Policy Developments ...................................................... 165
8 Seeking Evidence of Archetype Change in English Higher
Education ............................................................................................... 169
8.1 University B1 ..................................................................................... 169
8.1.1 Research-Portfolio Decisions and the Selection of Research
Priority Areas ................................................................................ 171
Table of Contents IX
8.1.2 Organisation of (Individual) Performance Evaluation ................... 177
8.1.3 Internal Resource Allocation at the Central and Faculty Levels .... 185
8.1.4 Observed Authority Distributions B1 ............................................ 189
8.1.5 Comparing B1’s Authority Distributions to the Post-Transition
Archetype Portfolio University ...................................................... 195
8.2 University B2 ..................................................................................... 198
8.2.1 Research-Portfolio Decisions and the Selection of Research
Priority Areas ................................................................................. 200
8.2.2 Organisation of (Individual) Performance Evaluation ................... 206
8.2.3 Internal Resource Allocation at the Central and Faculty Levels .... 215
8.2.4 Observed Authority Distributions B2 ............................................ 219
8.2.5 Comparing B2’s Authority Distributions to the Post-Transition
Archetype Portfolio University ...................................................... 225
8.3 Reflection on the English Cases ......................................................... 226
9 Conclusions ............................................................................................ 231
9.1 The Study in a Nutshell ...................................................................... 231
9.2 Answering the Research Question ...................................................... 232
9.2.1 Explaining Similarities in Observed Authority Patterns ................ 235
9.2.2 Explaining Differences in Authority Patterns with Variations in
National Policy Frameworks ......................................................... 239
9.2.3 Explaining Differences in Authority Patterns with Variations in
Epistemic Cultures ......................................................................... 241
9.3 University Autonomy and Authority in Use Revisited ....................... 242
9.4 Reflection on the Analytical Approach .............................................. 244
9.5 Avenues for Further Research ............................................................ 247
References ........................................................................................................ 251
Appendix .......................................................................................................... 269
List of Figures
Figure 1: Actor-Centred Institutionalism........................................................ 23
Figure 2: Types of actors. ............................................................................... 25
Figure 3: Interarchetype Change .................................................................... 40
Figure 4: The Variable Model ........................................................................ 43
Figure 5: Shifts in university governance in four different countries. ............ 48
Figure 6: Depicting Authority Relations in Box Charts. ................................ 76
Figure 7: Authority Patterns in the Area of Research Content ....................... 77
Figure 8: Authority Patterns in the Area of Research Evaluation ................... 78
Figure 9: Authority Patterns in the Area of Resource Allocation ................... 78
Figure 10: Authority Patterns in the Area of Research Content
(A1 versus the Portfolio University) ............................................. 123
Figure 11: Authority Patterns in the Area of Research Evaluation
(A1 versus the Portfolio University) ............................................. 124
Figure 12: Authority Patterns in the Area of Resource Allocation
(A1 versus the Portfolio University) ............................................. 125
Figure 13: Authority Patterns in the Area of Research Content
(A2 versus the Portfolio University) ............................................. 150
Figure 14: Authority Patterns in the Area of Research Evaluation
(A2 versus the Portfolio University) ............................................. 151
Figure 15: Authority Patterns in the Area of Resource Allocation
(A2 versus the Portfolio University) ............................................. 152
Figure 16: Authority Patterns in the Area of Research Content
(B1 versus the Portfolio University) ............................................. 196
Figure 17: Authority Patterns in the Area of Research Evaluation
(B1 versus the Portfolio University) ............................................. 197
Figure 18: Authority Patterns in Resource Allocation (B1 versus
the Portfolio University) ............................................................... 198
Figure 19: Authority Patterns in the Area of Research Content
(B2 versus the Portfolio University) ............................................. 226