Embracing the future: Organizational aspiration and adaptability in higher education

Abstract

Following wide-sweeping organizational reform in higher education since the 1980s and across countries, universities and their sub-units have been attributed with responsibilities and are increasingly perceived as organizational actors (Bloch 2021; Krücken 2021), either through regulation or third-party devices (rankings, accreditations, press, competitions etc.). As such they are not mere objects of transformations in higher education or realtypes of the garbage can-model but positioned as acting entities – "complete organizations" (Brunsson and Sahlin-Andersson 2000; cf. Seeber et al. 2014) – crafting their own future. In anticipation of or reaction to their environment, universities draft mission statements, formulate strategic plans, apply for competitive funding, develop internationalization strategies, or define research clusters. As actors they embrace their future by communicating their aspirations and adapt to perceived threats and changes to persevere or improve into the future. Organizational aspiration and adaptations address both universities as a whole but also their sub-units, creating both ways to integrate into a holistic entity and points of divergence. The panel aims to draw together contributions that address the organizing of universities and their subunits to perform as actors with "inner desires" (Kerr 1991: 8) which projects itself into the future or morphs in form to adjust to regulative or normative environmental pressures. It thus aims to discuss the manyfold ways in which organizational aspiration is voiced, constructed, maintained or failed by contemporary universities – their presidency, administration, faculty or students –, but also research that addresses aspiration in its operation: the way universities adapt in view of (future) environmental expectations or fail to deliver on their promises. Questions can entail but are not limited to: ▪️ How do universities and their sub-units respond to environmental expectations of aspirational actorhood? ▪️ How do universities foster and build holocratic agency? ▪️ How do universities or their sub-units formulate and maintain aspirations (Mission statements, strategic plans, multi-team research conglomerates etc.), project identity? ▪️ What problems arise from organizing for organizational actorhood? ▪️ Do universities change as acting entities in view of their environment and to what end? References: Bloch, R. (2021). The actorhood imperative. On universities as organisational actors. European Journal of Higher Education, 11(sup1), 489-505. Brunsson, N., & Sahlin-Andersson, K. (2000). Constructing Organizations: The Example of Public Sector Reform. Organization Studies, 21(4), 721-746. Kerr, C. (1991). The New Race to Be Harvard or Berkeley or Stanford. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 23(3), 8-15 Krücken, G. (2021). Multiple competitions in higher education: a conceptual approach. Innovation, 23(2), 163-181. Seeber, M., Lepori, B., Montauti, M., Enders, J., Boer, H. de, Weyer, E., Bleiklie, I., Hope, K., Michelsen, S., Mathisen, G. N., Frølich, N., Scordato, L., Stensaker, B., Waagene, E., Dragsic, Z., Kretek, P., Krücken, G., Magalhães, A., Ribeiro, F. M., Reale, E. (2014). European Universities as Complete Organizations? Understanding Identity, Hierarchy and Rationality in Public Organizations. Public Management Review, 17(10), 1444-1474.

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