The Narrative Construction of Dying Universities.

Research on dying universities has so far been limited in higher education research, despite continuous interest in organizational termination in organization studies (Sutton 1987). Empirical “end of life”-observations of universities are rare, and it is difficult to imagine a research project that intentionally accompanies universities as they die. The closest are studies of merger processes that are sometimes initiated among higher education institutions in danger of failing (Pinheiro et al. 2016). The empirical approach is somewhat easier if one considers the narrative construction of “dying” or “failure”. In our research, we examine the extent to which university presidents narratively represent the “failure” and “dying” of a university. Different contextual factors favour the occurrence of such narratives in interviews with university presidents. Firstly, narratives of “dying” occur in connection with planned strategy changes; they can then relate to the university itself or use cautionary examples. Secondly, they tend to occur in cases where universities occupy a niche that threatens to become precarious. Thirdly, they can be used to describe precarious situations in the context of staff changes, such as new appointments. Drawing on 20 interviews with university presidents, we analyse the narrative construction of the dying of universities. We also look at the role that these narratives of “dying” and “failure” play for the presidential interview in a broader context and the strategic purpose with which presidents incorporate such narratives into their plots. Pinheiro, R., Geschwind, L., & Aarrevaara, T. (2015). Mergers in higher education. European Journal of Higher Education, 6(1), 2–6. Sutton, R.I. (1987). The process of organizational death. Disbanding and reconnecting, Administrative Science Quarterly, 32 (4), 542-569.