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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: [email protected]
PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE WITHOUT AUTHORS’ PERMISSION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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