What is it about?
How to assess and enhance the strategic capacity of universities? The paper suggests a managerial perspective derived from evidence-based social science knowledge. It lists major facets any local strategizing should address. It underlines the key role endogenous organizational capabilities play to make it happen or not in a sustainable manner. Three sets of social properties are evidenced: the way academic human resources are actually managed, the cultural norms appropriated by its members about their affiliation to their institution as a community, the organizational governance at work between the various parts of the institution. Reminding that the capacity to strategize is an outcome of actual organizational fabrication processes, the paper also lists a series of booby-traps to avoid.
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Why is it important?
The findings have been generated by a major comparative field research programme of 17 universities located in six different countries - China, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and USA. It evidences how far the production of high academic quality varies according to the strategic positioning of such universities which in turn varies according to a combination of endogenous organisational factors. It also lists which are the basic components of a strategic capacity in the field of higher education and research.
Perspectives
The two co-authors do hope that readers will understand once for all that strategic capacity is not a top down construction outcome elaborated by the vert top level of the authority hierarchical level and that there are no one best ways to apply all around the world and even inside the same country so as to become leaders.
Jean-Claude Thoenig
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Higher Education Institutions as Strategic Actors, European Review, January 2018, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/s1062798717000540.
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