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Finding Societal Mandates in Public Universities Through Analysis of their

Strategic Plans

Paper in Symposium 1034 at ECER 2016, Dublin 22-26 August:

Formation and Academic Development: The Roles and

Responsibilities of Academic Developers

22 SES 12 B

22. Research in Higher Education:

Chair/Discussant: Molly Sutphen/ Arto Jauhiaine

Authors:

Molly Sutphen, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, US

Tone Dyrdal Solbrekke, University of Oslo, Norway,

Ciaran Sugrue, University College of Dublin, Ireland,

Corresponding author: mollysutphen@gmail.com

PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE WITHOUT AUTHORS’ PERMISSION

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Finding Societal Mandates in Public Universities Through Analysis of their

Strategic Plans

Abstract

Public universities draw on considerable public resources and, in turn, are expected to fulfill a

societal mandate through teaching and research. University strategic plans are one of the few

public documents that express how universities aspire to fulfill these societal mandates.

Although valuable as compact, public resources, university strategic plans are snapshots that

leave out or blur the contingencies that shape the aspirations in the plans. We suggest a two-

phased method to analyse universities’ aspirations to uphold their societal mandate. First,

drawing on the work of several researchers on higher education, this paper proposes an

analytical framework for identifying university orientations (traditional, scientific,

entrepreneurial and bureaucratic) that demarcate how a university defines its societal

mandate. Second, using the orientations, we analyse strategic plans from our home

universities using an ‘insider-outsider’ approach that seeks to fill in the one-dimensional

snapshot provided in strategic plans. Finally, we discuss the implications of universities’

orientations on the societal mandates they articulate.

Key words: research-intensive university, strategic plans, formation, university orientation.

Introduction

In exchange for public funding, public universities play a formative role in contemporary

societies by providing advanced knowledge through cutting-edge research and highly

qualified graduates who are ready to engage fully as citizens in society (Bergan, Harkavy and

Land 2013). However, how this “pact” (Solbrekke & Karseth 2006) with society is interpreted

and enacted varies considerably due to unique historical, regional, national, political, and

economic contingencies (Delanty 2001; Olsen 2007; Tierney and Lanford 2015). For

example, some public universities are increasingly pressed to respond to national, state, or

local policy-makers’ growing concerns about economic returns on public investment in

education, which are in turn measured by graduate employment or regional economic

development (Barnett 2011; Brankovic et al 2014; Felt et al 2013; Kalleberg 2011; McArthur

2011; MacFarlane 2011; Olsen 2007; Pinheiro and Stensaker 2014; Sugrue & Solbrekke,

2015; Tight 2013; Zelier 2011). Or, ranking agencies and external accreditors may influence

how public universities define how they aspire to meet their societal mandate (Solbrekke &

Sugrue, 2014; Sugrue & Solbrekke 2015). In Europe, international organisations (such as the

OECD, EU), as well as government quality assurance systems that determine ‘value for

money’ (Stensaker & Harvey 2011) may also directly affect the structures and directions of

public universities’ perceived mandates. Finally, the expectations of students and academic

staff influence how public universities reconcile their priorities (Bento 2013).

Tensions too may arise between those who see the university as an autonomous institution,

detached from the interests of external ‘stakeholders,’ and those who see the university as an

instrument to meet societal needs as defined by shifting national politics and external

‘customers,’ (Olsen 2007:29). Within this multifaceted context, policy makers who hold

expectations that public universities must increase the commodification of research may be at

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odds with students and academic staff who uphold ‘traditional’ cultural and social purposes of

higher education (Bok 2003; Olssen and Peters 2005). Thus as Altbach (2015:2) puts it,

higher education may be seen as an ‘internationally traded commodity and less as a set of

skills, attitudes, and values required for citizenship and effective participation in modern

society—a key contribution to the common good of any society.’

As literature indicates, public universities face expectations from all sides. How universities

face at least some of these expectations can be found in their strategic plans. As public

documents and increasingly important tools in the new governance of universities, university

strategic plans bring together in one document a university’s: 1) policies and formal

ambitions; 2) a definition of and aspirations for meeting their societal mandates 3) specific

tasks it will undertake; 4) and marketing for students, staff, and political support (Fumasoli,

Pinheiro and Stensaker 2014). A strategic plan tells us which intentions and goals are

prioritised, and when compared to other plans, which priorities are left aside (Saarinen 2008).

Such texts position individuals organisationally and highlight expectations for actors and

provide guidelines for actions (Saarinen 2008). Strategic plans are also policy documents, and

as such, research indicates that ‘policy words are not mere rhetoric; they are policy,’ or at

least that ‘policies are textual interventions into practice’ (Ball 1993, p.12).

Although university strategic plans are valuable as compact, public sources, analysis of them

presents several challenges. First, they are written for different audiences; those outside as

well as inside the university. While those inside a university may be expected to use a

strategic plan, the texts do not allow us to make claims about how an institution’s aspirations

are “lived out” in practice (Goodlad et al. 1979). Second, they serve many purposes, including

to: promote and market the university; signal general directions for a defined period; and

inspire students, staff, and other stakeholders. As such, they may serve more as schematic

maps full of symbols rather than as detailed road maps. A plan may give concrete or vague

directions for priorities to be taken within the university, or strong or weak signals to

stakeholders outside the university. Third, the context for strategic plans are unique to each

university. A strategic plan is also merely a snapshot that may not contain explanations of the

contingencies shaping the plan. For example, new and detailed goals for a university to secure

external funds may be a hedge against a sharp decline in government funding, or reflect

concern over a report that a university has declined in global ranking.

Despite the challenges they pose, and unlike self-study reports for accreditation, strategic

plans are public documents, often published in prominent spots on a university’s website. As

a genre, their purpose is to outline how universities conceive of their institutional purposes

and what is at stake for them as organisations. Because they are public documents that serve

several purposes, we suggest that analysis of the genre calls for local knowledge of the

context in which a plan was written. For this reason, we will present three cases studies of

our home universities’ strategic plans. Our purpose is to draw out of the plans how each of

our home universities -- University College, Dublin (UCD); the University of North Carolina

at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH); and University of Oslo (UiO) – articulates its societal mandate.

The case studies take an ‘insider-outsider” approach (Jacobs, 2005; Solbrekke & Sugrue,

2014) that seeks to fill in the one-dimensional snapshot of the goals, plans, and priorities

expressed in strategic plans. As either the oldest or second oldest public universities in our

respective countries and research- intensive institutions, the three universities have long been

expected to produce cutting-edge research and graduate students who will engage as

responsible professionals and citizens in their local and national communities. Although each

strategic plan is specific to a time and place, we attempt to discern wider trends of how public

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universities define their societal mandates in light of current, global pressures in higher

education reported in the research literature,.

For the purpose of identifying universities’ understanding of their societal mandates, and their

articulated ways of fulfilling such mandates, we propose an analytical framework for

identifying university orientations (traditional, scientific, entrepreneurial and bureaucratic)

that primarily draws on the work of Ron Barnett work (Barnett 1990; 2011;) as well as others

(Clark, 1983; Olsen, 2007; Pinheiro and Stensaker, 2014). We also suggest that the

identification of orientations provides a common language for discussing general themes in

strategic plans, especially given that a strategic plan is a place for a university to define its

own mandate and its aspirations of meeting its responsibilities. As do strategic plans,

orientations include the language of potential and aspirations, and thus we ask:

What orientations does a university’s strategic plan portray?

Given the universities’ orientations, what are the societal mandates expressed in

university strategic plans and how do they aspire to fulfil these aspirations?

The paper has five sections: First, the background to and content of the analytical

framework is described. Second, an account is provided of the methods deployed. Third, a

very succinct description of each of the three universities is included. Fourth, analysis of

evidence is followed by discussion. Fifth, in conclusion, and more speculatively, we

outline possible further uses of our methods as well as research questions to investigate.

Analytical Framework

An initial analysis of universities’ strategic plans (UCD, UNC-CH, UiO, University of

Helsinki, and University of Uppsala) identified a set of aspirations describing the general

orientations of each university with some having similar goals and values (Solbrekke, et al,

2013). We drew on notions of old (traditional) and new (entrepreneurial) archetypes of

universities (Clark 1983; Pinheiro and Stensaker 2014) and positioned the five universities on

a simple continuum, with one end being what we called a traditional orientation and the other

an entrepreneurial orientation. After this initial analysis, we acknowledged that we needed a

more elaborate way to describe the general direction that the strategic plans pointed to,

including more of the distinct features current universities aim to include (Olsen 2007). We

found Barnett’s four orientations for universities: metaphysical, scientific, entrepreneurial,

and bureaucratic (Barnett, 2011, chapters 1-4, pp. 11-56) to be particularly useful to extend

the number of possible orientations a university sets in its strategic plan. For our analytical

framework, we found that when we ‘tested’ the orientations against what we found in a

strategic plan, we needed to refine Barnett’s types. We found that the ‘metaphysical’ did not

describe what we found. Thus we completely overhauled Barnett’s ‘metaphysical’ and

replaced it with a redefined ‘traditional’ orientation. As he (2011) points out, a metaphysical

university was generally perceived from the Enlightenment onwards to be a place where,

paradoxically, in order to engage with the world, it was necessary to be set apart from it, and

he readily acknowledges that in the 21st century such views are being challenged in a variety

of ways.

Our analytical framework evolved through iterative process among the three authors, and

moved back and forth between theory and readings of the strategic plans. One goal has been

to benefit from an ‘insider/outsider’ researcher perspective (Jacobs, 2005; Solbrekke and

Sugure, 2014) in interpretation and analysis of the strategic plans. We applied an abductive

mode of analysis inspired by what Alvesson and Sköldberg (2000) describe as ‘reflexive

interpretation’ (247) characterized by iterative and critical reading of interpretations of the

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data. In this process, we benefitted from the insider researcher’s context knowledge of their

home university and the critical stances from the distanced views of the two outsider

researchers.

We agreed with Barnett that pure types of university orientations co-exist and inhabit the

same campus in consonant or dissonant ways (Barnett, 2011). We found university

orientations to be porous, especially concerning the uses and production of knowledge that are

referenced in the traditional and scientific orientations. Thus in both orientations, we use the

word scientific to describe knowledge and approaches from the natural sciences disciplines, as

well as the more general knowledge and approaches of wissenschaft. The reading and critical

scrutiny of each other’s analyses evolved in tandem with an emerging consensus on the

characterisation of the orientations. Thus this process led us to redefine or refine Barnett’s

orientations of metaphysical and entrepreneurial. As a further distillation, each author

provided a summary statement of the key features of the orientations that led us to a

comprehensive, succinct descriptions of each orientation (see Table 1).

Table 1. Summary statements for each orientation

Traditional Scientific Entrepreneurial Bureaucratic

The traditional

orientation describes

policies or programs

designed to

transform

individuals, as well

as support a

community of

scholars and peers

who uphold the ideal

of academic freedom

and create

knowledge for its

own sake. Values

associated with the

orientation include

being independent,

intellectual, and

critical.

The scientific

orientation describes

policies or programs

that create a

community of

scholars driven to

solve problems, by

generating new and

applied knowledge,

using reasoning that

is sceptical in the

absence of empirical

evidence. Such

endeavours aspire to

exploit new

knowledge. Values

associated with the

orientation include

being rigorous,

cutting edge, and

useful.

The entrepreneurial

orientation describes

policies or programs

that seek to

commercialise a

university’s

knowledge

breakthroughs and

contribute to

economic and social

development, while

allowing the

university to

measure regularly its

goals. Values

associated with the

orientation include

being innovative,

flexible, and

internationally

competitive.

The bureaucratic

orientation describes

policies or programs

that privilege the

application of rules,

procedures and the

accumulation of

data. To achieve

end, universities use

technologies of

control to ensure

high quality. Values

associated with the

orientation include

being transparent,

predictable, and

accountable.

Method

Our methodological intent was to ‘test’ the extent to which the analytical framework we

developed had traction for our home universities. Our methods consisted of three phases

during which all three universities’ strategic plans were closely read individually, coded, and

analysed by the ‘insider’ on the research team (Solbrekke for UiO; Sutphen for UNC-CH; and

Sugrue for UCD). This provided the opportunity to benefit from insider’s knowledge about

the national and institutional context and include appropriate context for the analytical

process.

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During phase one of our analysis, we colour coded the three plans using different colours to

indicate the dominant university orientation from our analytical framework. However, such

coding was complicated since within a sentence the coding might change, chameleon-like,

with some words in green and others in red or blue, signifying different orientations or

emphases. In order to follow this transmogrification, elements of critical discourse analysis

were deployed. Therefore, we paid particular attention to language as it recurred throughout

the texts, and looked for the dominant discursive orientation about what is valued (Gee,

2011).

During the second phase of analysis, we used an ‘insider-outsider’ approach, where each of

the two ‘outsiders’ scrutinized and questioned the interpretations of the ‘insider’– which in

some cases led to reinterpretation of the texts. Integral to the abductive approach (Alvesson &

Sköldberg 2001) we further discussed, deliberated, and moved among the data to develop our

theoretical understandings and articulations of the university orientations. As ‘insiders,’ we

used our different theoretical and experience based ’biases’ to critically interrogate and

question our individual preconceptions and interpretations. Through multiple face-to-face

meetings as well as ’skype conversations’ we de-and re-constructed together our

preconceptions and gained a greater shared understanding of each of the orientations.

During the last phase, two further elements were added as a means of triangulation. We

refined and agreed on our summary orientation statements (see Table 1), while consensus was

reached regarding the primary and secondary orientations of each of the universities based on

the evidentiary warrants arrived at by coding and analysis of the plans.

Findings and analysis

The following is a brief summary of the strategic plans available on each university’s web-

site:

“University College Dublin Ireland’s Global University Strategy 2015-2020,”

indicates that it is Ireland’s largest university, with a global sense of its positioning

and reach. Its 25 pages clearly set out the institution’s mission, values and ambitions

to be achieved by a series of ten objectives, culminating in being “solidly in the world

top 100 universities by 2020”

(http://www.ucd.ie/president/speechespublications/publications/strategicplan/)

“Reach Carolina”, UNC-CH was completed in 2011 and its purpose was to articulate

for the oldest public university in the US the “principles and concrete steps by which

faculty, students, and staff can attain levels of accomplishment and distinction

befitting Carolina’s mission as a leading public university.” The plan includes specific

benchmarks that the University publishes on the Provost’s website reporting when

these benchmarks are met. (http://academicplan.unc.edu)have been accomplished.

(http://academicplan.unc.edu)

“Strategy2020,” University of Oslo, was completed in 2010. Its purpose is to serve as

a framework and give directions for leaders and other staff to develop their own

strategies to realize UiO’s articulated ambitions. Its 15 pages include 5 main

objectives and 28 strategies with a set of indicators of the goals. The overall aim is to

help UiO increase its international visibility as a leading research-intensive university

by integrating research, education, communication and innovation, while also

providing broad and comprehensive education.

(http://www.uio.no/english/about/strategy/)

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Institutional Orientations of UCD, UNC-CH, and UiO

Having coded and analysed the plans, there was consensus that identifying a primary

orientation did not do justice to the strategic plans, thus to capture the nuance of the three

strategic plans, we identified a primary orientation and secondary or subsidiary orientations,

summarized in Table 2.

Table 2. Universities’ primary and secondary orientations

Univeristy Primary Orientation Secondary Orientation

UCD Entrepreneurial Bureaucratic

UNCH-CH Traditional Entrepreneurial blurring to

Bureaucratic

UiO Scientific Traditional blurring to

Entrepreneurial

UCD: Entrepreneurial/Bureaucratic

UCD’s Strategy seeks to embrace multiple orientations of the university. Words such as

holistic, partnership, community and ‘the value of a great public university’ appear, as well as

John Henry Newman’s historical legacy, encapsulated in the plan as a goal for students and

staff to ‘flourish’ while appealing to his ‘The Idea of a University,’ as the institution’s founder

and first rector (1854) (see, Turner, 1891/1996).

However, the strategic plan in its entirety leaves little doubt that its primary orientation is

entrepreneurial, as evidenced in its mission statement: ‘We will be distinctive in our agility,

innovativeness, commitment to justice, inclusiveness and friendliness.’ Though this carefully

crafted collection of words is intended to have broad appeal, success will be ‘measured’ by

being ‘solidly in the world top 100 universities by 2020,’ some distance from where it is

currently positioned (176) according to the most recent Times Higher Education rankings

(https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/where-to-study/study-in-ireland). It seeks to

position itself as entrepreneurial by recognising that:

The competitiveness of Ireland is dependent on the competitiveness of its universities,

as it is the universities which educate our future leaders in all spheres of life and

generate the intellectual property and innovation which provide the country with its

competitive edge.

This entrepreneurial ambition and ‘reading’ of the contemporary landscape of university

education are tempered by an acknowledgement of the more traditional role of such

institutions. The strategy goes on to state that: ‘the flourishing of Ireland requires more than

just material contributions’ thus it should also embrace ‘study and discussion of people,

society, culture, languages and the creative arts’ as these pursuits too ‘are also characteristics

of a flourishing society.’ Faced with this evident tension between the push of

entrepreneurialism and the pull of tradition, the strategy recognises that ‘as Ireland’s largest

university, . . . UCD has a duty to make significant contributions in each of these domains.’

Throughout the document, there are concerns regarding the necessity for, as well as awareness

of, the constraining influences of bureaucracy. In a climate where there has been consistent

reduction in public funding due to austerity (77.5 million Euro since 2008), this consequent

pressure is underscored as a need to: ‘act in a more business-like manner [and] in many cases

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this has resulted in a more centralised or ‘managerial’ approach to the operation of

universities.’ Despite massive reduction in state funding, there has been an increased

tendency, according to the strategic plan, to exert control over the University’s priorities to

the point where ‘this approach has significantly compromised the autonomy of our

universities and threatens to undermine our ability to conduct world-class research and

education and to act in an independent and entrepreneurial manner to develop alternative non-

exchequer funding streams.’ This increased external bureaucratisation has also created a

tendency towards increased internal centralised managerialism. The plan recognises that such

structures and mindset ‘sometimes fails to fully utilise the capabilities of leadership at unit

level and the commitment and enterprise present within the organisation.’

In summary therefore, the evidence strongly suggests that UCD’s strategic plan is

unapologetically entrepreneurial in its primary orientation, while it also recognises that, due to

contemporary conditions, internal and external, there is a tendency towards increased

bureaucratisation that is constraining its entrepreneurial vision, while it wishes to retain

Newman’s legacy of ‘flourishing’ in pursuits of patents, resources, greater autonomy, as well

as the minds and hearts of students on the global stage. In the appeal to flourishing, and

against the tide of entrepreneurialism, innovation and agility, there is recognition too of a

social and cultural mandate.

UNC-CH: Traditional/ Entrepreneurial/ Scientific

Of the three strategic plans studied, UNC-CH articulates goals, values, and plans that most

closely describe a traditional university, though it also has a strong bureaucratic orientation.

UCN-CH’s traditional orientation is most evident in its aspirations for students, claiming that:

‘every student at Carolina — undergraduate, graduate, and professional — will have a

transformational academic experience here.’ At the heart of a traditional orientation is the

importance of an individual’s formation in a community of scholars. The plan explains this

goal as being part of an ‘historic commitment to teaching, learning, research, and discovery,’

and proposes ‘initiatives that will continually re-invigorate the academic experience at

Carolina and transform our students' intellectual skills, knowledge of the world, preparation

for citizenship, and vision of our common future.’ The plan emphasizes the character of

students, who are supposed to be ‘motivated’ and ‘able to grow and meet their potential.’ In

keeping with the traditional orientation, students are to be educated on campus through

‘meaningful experiences with faculty.’ Students are to share a sense of common purpose with

each other through life-changing courses that tackle big questions and to have written an

Honors Thesis, a final piece of writing or performance on a topic of a student’s choice and

completed at the end of their undergraduate career. Finally, the University must be

responsible for ‘guaranteeing that each student has a fair and equitable opportunity to learn,

grow, and discover his or her unique potential.’

While expectations for students are markedly traditional in orientation, the expectations for

academic staff are more entrepreneurial and scientific. Those who teach at UNC-CH will

teach in teams from multiple disciplines or take interdisciplinary approaches; have

international expertise; and conduct research of the highest calibre. The international outlook,

interdisciplinary aspirations, and support for being successful in a competitive field are strong

indicators of the entrepreneurial bent.

As indicated above, orientation boundaries are porous. For example, entrepreneurial and

scientific orientations meld in one recommendation to create a Provost’s committee to

investigate how to remove university regulations that impede innovative pedagogies, with

preference for ‘a system that enables students and faculty to develop exploratory learning

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opportunities and new models and programs of study, rather than negotiating regulations that

inhibit discovery and learning.’ The exploratory learning speaks to a scientific orientation,

while the removal of regulation to a more neo-liberal version of entrepreneurialism. In

keeping with a scientific orientation, the plan contends that academic staff ‘will always be the

engine of the University's research, the driver that generates new insights into the past and

future and fresh approaches to the challenges and opportunities we face today.’ The emphasis

is on cutting-edge research to solve problems with new ideas and knowledge.

Further evidence of the entrepreneurial orientation is evident in recommendations for

academic staff and students to be prepared to meet the challenges of a changing world. As the

economy of the state shifts, ‘from textiles, tobacco, and furniture toward banking, technology,

and health care, UNC-Chapel Hill must prepare students to excel in this fast-changing world,

whether they live in North Carolina, elsewhere in the United States, or abroad’. Additionally,

‘our research must address evolving challenges in this interconnected world to help local

communities, the state, the nation, and the world. Our challenge is to enhance Carolina's

global prominence while fulfilling our public mission.’

In short, UNC-CH aspires to be a place where Interdisciplinary or cross-disciplinary teaching

and research are undertaken to provide fresh approaches to the world’s problems, as well as

the nation and state of North Carolina.

UiO: Scientific/Traditional/Entrepreneurial

In comparison with the other two plans., ‘Strategy 2020’ does not have an obvious primary

orientation. Its cover page indicates both a scientific and entrepreneurial orientation in its

strategic objective to: ‘strengthen its international position as a leading research-intensive

university through a close interaction across research, education, communication and

innovation.’ However, in the foreword written by the Rector and the University director, as

well as in the opening sentence in the section describing the objective, profile and core values,

there is a wandering among scientific, traditional and entrepreneurial orientations. For

example, the plan positions UiO as a research-intensive university ‘grounded in the European

scientific tradition,’ immediately followed by an acknowledgment of the ‘ongoing tension

between tradition and renewal’ in which renewal points to the entrepreneurial orientation by

defining the university as an ‘academic innovative centre.’

We found the traditional values in the claims that the plan is grounded in a ‘spirit of academic

freedom and collegiality’ and that ‘UiO will provide an environment where employees and

students can perform at their best, challenge academic dogma and existing notions and

thereby go beyond their own boundaries.’ It embraces ‘critical reflection and debate, a critical

attitude towards established norms, and a place where objectivity and freedom from prejudice

flourish. . . fellowship of working and learning that is based on equality, respect and

openness . . . academic fellowship . . . impetus for self-formation. . . insight into traditions of

knowledge and an awareness of norms and cultural premises in academic fields and in

society.’

The traditional values are however closely intertwined with both scientific and entrepreneurial

orientations, which are visible in a strong emphasis on international mobility and competition.

Strategy 2020 also promotes a governance strategy with systems of quality assurance and

accountability inspired by the rational of NPM. Thus scholars have a responsibility to apply

new research-based knowledge to solve global environmental and climate-related challenges.

Research and education are to be intertwined, with UiO to be more selective and cooperate

more with strategic partners. Its aspirations is to be one of the best international research and

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educational institutions. Throughout the document there are concerns regarding the necessity

to increase UiO’s ability to compete and promote quality. Faculties and academic units are

urged to improve recruiting practices through active searches in international academic units.

There is an aspiration to commercialise and adapt to the rules of the market as the following

statement illustrates: ‘UiO will intensify its efforts to commercialise research results and

cultivate entrepreneurship among its researchers and students. . . UiO will review its policy

instruments. . . [,] which include[s] the sharing and development of knowledge between UiO

and the business sector, the authorities and other organisations. Innovation will be integrated

to a greater extent into programmes of study and research.’

To summarise, Strategy 2020 aims at maintaining the scientific, traditional orientations while

also embracing an entrepreneurial orientation. The emphasis on academic freedom and for the

University to ‘respect the right to pursue one’s own research questions’ is clear, but

simultaneously there is an expectation for scholars to engage more with external stakeholders

and develop a closer dialogue with ‘potential sources of funding.’ Although UiO is supposed

to be a place ‘where students and staff are able to realise their potential,’ there is also an

expectation that only the fittest will survive. Thus, academic units that ‘face quality-oriented

challenges will be assessed to determine whether they should be further developed or phased

out.’ There are arguments for breadth in education yet also an orientation to ‘educational

pathways with clearer vocational relevance to society’s needs for competence.’ As the leading

public Norwegian university, UiO enjoys a high level of autonomy, and although academic

freedom and collegiality are valued, there is increased concern with strong leadership,

flexibility, predictability, and ‘the ability to re-allocate resources according to well known,

legitimate criteria.’

Discussion

Although all three strategic plans share common orientations, assumptions, themes, and even

language, each defines its societal mandates slightly differently. According to the strategic

plan, the UCD’s societal mandate is twofold: 1) to provide graduates who will be leaders of

the country and 2) to produce the innovation and subsequent intellectual property that will

invigorate the Irish economy. The measure of UCD’s effectiveness in meeting its societal

mandate will be a simple score supplied by the Times Higher Education ranking, which will

indicate whether it has gone up or down in the global marketplace of universities. Although

the graduation of students who are readily employable in a globalised world is one of its

aspirations for meeting its responsibilities to Irish society, the commodification of its research

is at the centre of its aspirations. The relationship between research and its worth in the global

marketplace may not be surprising, given that UCD’s Global University Strategy was

developed in the shadow of Ireland’s recovery from the 2008 world financial crises. The

emphasis on a global perspective may also come from Professor Andrew Deeks, UCD’s

President at the time of the plan’s writing, who came to UCD in 2014 by way of University of

Western Australia and Durham University, where in both places he had developed

international partnerships with other universities. At Durham he also began to develop

university-business partnerships.

UNC-CH aspires to meet its societal mandate through the transformation of its students

through cross-disciplinary teaching that includes the development of a community of scholars

and ‘meaningful’ experiences with academic staff, as well as through research that solves

substantive problems, whether they be local, national, international, or interconnected

geographically. The goals for student transformation need to be seen in light of the 2008

financial crisis, when more undergraduates were accepted, with a concomitant expectation

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that classes would increase in size. There is also an expectation that 80% of undergraduates

will be residents of the state, who, because they are residents, pay less tuition than out of state

students. There is a strong emphasis that graduating students will live and work in a

globalised economy, an emphasis that comes with certain assumptions about trends in the

economy of North Carolina. Over the last two decades, the local economy has shifted from

manufacturing and large-scale tobacco and cotton production to banking, with Bank of

America, one of the largest banks in the U.S. based in the state. The emphasis on research to

solve global problems is consonant with the emphasis on the University’s students learning

competing in a globalised. Staff are encouraged to compete for national and international

grant funds, with overhead coming to the University, to solve global problems.

UiO sets its societal mandate as contributing to solving global challenges through high quality

research and education. To fulfill this ambition students and staff are offered an environment

to realise their potential. As a comprehensive public university UiO will provide breadth in

education and research, yet also give priority to cutting-edge research. Being situated in

Norway, it is constrained by a policy context committed to traditional social democratic

values, including support of equality and a strong public ethos in a welfare society, where

higher education is free. Values such as competition and performativity are to some extent at

odds with the tradition of Norwegian higher education. The emerging emphasis on an

entrepreneurial orientation identified in Strategy 2020 thus seems to represent a change in the

orientation of the university. UiO’s current ambition to enter the “top league” of universities

may create a tension between democratic values encouraging all employees and students to

realise their potential.

Common to all the plans is a faith that the powers of mobility and transparency will create

possibilities for exchange of students and staff across national borders to ensure employability

and to meet both social and economic challenges (Olsen 2007; Tierney and Lanford 2015).

All three plans appear committed to the assumption that it is necessary to make universities

explicitly re-engaged in what is defined as the ‘third mission,’ or helping to tackle the great

challenges facing societies and local communities under the mantra of ‘relevance’ and ‘social

impact’ (Karseth & Solbrekke, 2015; Nowotny, Scott, and Gibbons 2002; Olsen 2007). As

demonstrated by Pinheiro et al. (2015) ’third-mission activities’ are expected to be infused in

universities’ core (teaching and research) activities, and manifest itself in the form of top-

down strategic planning, changes in leadership and organizational structures and institutional

profiling.

The three strategic plans also hold in common entrepreneurial and bureaucratic orientations.

The latter is consistent with trends others have found (e.g. Pinheiro & Stensaker 2014;

Pinheiro et al 2015; Rinne, Jauhiainen, Koivula 2013) for increased rationalisation of

academic structures, professional-administrative bureaucratisation, and a centralisation of

decision-making powers. Another more general trend we see as a top priority in the strategic

plans is to prepare students for life in a globalised world.

Depending on the goals identified in strategic plans and how they are met, there are evident

tensions. For example, entrepreneurial and bureaucratic orientations can lead to a ‘utilitarian

ethos’ (Brint, 1994), where one possible risk for the university is that the pressure of being

held accountable for public funds (Huisman & Currie, 2004) might eclipse research and

teaching that lack immediate utility, market value, products or results. An expectation for

employment or utility valued above all others may crowd out other goals that are less easily

measured on a one-dimensional scale, goals that are more evident in traditional and scientific

universities. What happens at universities with strong traditional or scientific orientations,

12

where research is valued whether it yields immediate uses in a market economy or not? Does

an entrepreneurial orientation, with its pressure to climb the ‘ranking ladder’ place academics

and students in positions of being ‘pawns’ (Tight 2013: 300-301) – to work for the interest of

the university as an organization/institution that delivers and sells products rather than being

active participants and agents contributing to democracy and wellbeing of individuals?

Universities with strong entrepreneurial orientations, such as UCD, are under pressure to

contribute to society through research and its commodification and graduate employable

students. As a result, these institutions may privilege employability taught as a suite of

narrow, ‘technical skills’, at the expense of a broader formation ofthus enabling students to

live rich and enriching lives as they act according to wider moral and societal perspectives

(e.g. Bergan, Harkavy and Land 2013; de la Fuente and Egron-Polak 2010; Kalleberg, 2010;

McArthur, 2011; Zelier, 2011). Narrow goals focused exclusively on employability (Karseth

& Solbrekke, 2006) may lead those in higher education to lose sight of the traditional

responsibilities to prepare students for citizenship with service to and for the public ‘good’

(Gadamer, 1975/1989; Gardner, 2004, 2007, 2008; Gardner, Csikszentmihalyi, & Damon,

2001; Sullivan 2005) and in solidarity with others (Beck et al 2014; Bergan et al 2013).

Concluding remarks

Although establishing a university’s primary orientation is a useful exercise as a kind of short-

hand for what it stands for, it is only a beginning, and we offer some suggestions for further

research on the methods and implications of our findings. First, we need to test further the

elaborations on the orientations introduced, as well as test the veracity and potential traction

of the abductive methods deployed here by analysing the strategic plans of other universities

similar and dissimilar to the three discussed in this paper.

Second, we identified primary and secondary orientations; is there convergence of university

orientations? A growing literature points to current global political, cultural, and financial

instabilities that have moved universities generally towards convergence along the lines of

governance, organization, and structure. Despite national translations of transnational

guidelines (Karseth & Solbrekke, 2010), isomorphic tendencies are observable. In Europe,

for example, the policy for a common European Higher Education Area is pushing

universities towards more standardized framing of higher education. Almost all European

countries, both within and outside the EU, are playing the Bologna game. ‘Policies may not

necessarily be the same’, Ravinet argues, but ‘it is no longer possible to create national higher

education policies that are anti-Bologna’ (Ravinet, 2008, p. 353). The European model has the

potential to gain traction in other parts of the world, as argued by Clifford Adelman (2008, p.

2) that the Bologna Process ‘has sufficient momentum to become the dominant global model

of higher education within two decades.’ Croucher and Woelert (2015) also conclude that

there is significant convergence in terms of formal organizational structures and students and

staff numbers in the majority of Australian universities.

Finally, strategic plans are schematics rather than detailed road maps, with only general

suggestions for change and directions. The desirability for general directions is evident in the

educational leadership literature, which generally recognises the significance of ‘vision’,

while strategic plans must strike the balance of expressing a direction but avoiding specific

prescriptions in case unexpected contingencies or events arise. Regardless of how vague or

specific the direction a public university takes to meet its perceived societal mandate can raise

tensions for its students and academic staff and (Hargeaves, Boyle, & Harris, 2014). This

tension begs the question as to what a strategic plan means for them. Thus, it is necessary to

dig deeper within these organisations to get to grips with what the societal mandates declared

13

in a strategic plan mean for the lived experience of students and academic staff in the wake

strategic plans being completed and disseminated.

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