Multi-Level Governance in Universities

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Governing universities is a complex and paradoxical endeavor. The studies featured in this book critically examine the repercussions of evolving governance logics, highlighting how conflicting demands for scholarly peer control, market responsiveness, public policy oversight, and democratization create governance paradoxes. While much academic literature has focused on external governance, this work shifts attention to the internal characteristics of organizations, enhancing our understanding of changing governance in universities. It responds to calls for a return to core organization theory in the study of organizational change, focusing on strategies, structures, and control mechanisms as interrelated elements of organizational design. The book employs a multi-level approach to explore how universities formulate strategies to navigate changes in their institutional environment (macro level), implement these strategies through structures and processes (meso level), and design mechanisms to regulate member behavior (micro level). Given their complexity as knowledge-based organizations, universities must ensure that their governance strategies, structures, and controls are responsive to the diverse demands from both internal and external stakeholders.