In public sector governance periods of greater leeway to sub-systemic unit autonomy have followed periods of contraction and stronger central control, and vice versa. This enduring tension is also apparent in the university sector – a sector that has undergone major changes in coordination modes and systemic governance. Recent governance reforms have been underpinned by an ideology contending that strategic organisational actorhood of universities leads to “healthy” systemic diversity, whereby each university accommodates the needs of various stakeholders, incl. students and industry, and competition between institutions is the major coordinating mechanism at the system level. This paper’s research questions are formulated as follows: How have university reforms been enacted and what have been the effects of these reforms on the balance between political control of university systems and university autonomy? How have government reforms in turn and over time interpreted and incorporated these effects? Drawing on institutional theory changes in the formal autonomy of the university as well as in its practical room to manoeuvre are examined. In the paper’s analytical framework we assume that government reforms influence, but not determine university dynamics. An institutional approach emphasizes the robustness of universities and their resilience against changing environments and deliberate reform efforts. Through this specific conceptual lenses we account for variations in reform impact and explain responses within the university itself as well as more general changes and institutional defences in the governance relationship between government and universities
The empirical basis of this paper is drawn from an on-going study of universities in eight smaller west-European countries. At system level we analyse the reforms in higher education of the last ten years and at institution level we look at eleven universities and investigate how they interpret and react to changes in formal institutional autonomy and means of government control.
