Abstract
This article examines changes in the formal organization of two universities and two schools within these universities, the University of Oslo and Stanford University. We focus on role differentiation, rule formation, and resource seeking structures and describe organizational developments along these dimensions. We find that both these universities travel similar routes involving greater role differentiation, rule formation, and resource seeking activities. Both universities more explicitly function as organizational actors influenced by a global environment that favors the more socially embedded and the more managed university. However, we also find persistent differences in how these universities respond to the global environment, differences that reflect the different historical roots of different universities. A tradition of professorial self-governance at the University of Oslo, for example, fosters greater resistance to the managed university ideal. The latter emerges earlier and develops to a greater degree at Stanford University. We conclude that university routes are influenced both by common (now globalized) rules of the game and by their different organizational roots. We use ideas from the neo-institutional and path dependency perspectives to make sense of both growing commonalities and persistent differences.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
By NPM we mean the reform wave in public sector that emerged primarily in Australia and New Zealand in the early 1980s, spreading first to other Anglo-Saxon countries and then wider globally.NPM is characterized by strong vertical and horizontal structural specialization of the public apparatus, focus on market mechanisms, competitive tendering and efficiency concerns, but also emphasis on consumer orientation (Christensen and Lægreid 2007; Pollitt and Bouckaert 2011).
The National Research Council selects the centers of excellence, after a complicated application process. These centers are co-financed with the university, and will normally get 1.5 million dollars each year in 5–10 years.
In 1996 education was moved out and formed, together with other units, a new School of Educational Sciences.
References
Baumgartner, F., & Jones, B. (1993). Agendas and instability in American politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ben-David, J., & Zloczower, A. (1962). Universities and academic systems in modern societies. European Journal of Sociology, 3, 45–85.
Bleiklie, I. (2009). Norway: From tortoise to eager beaver? In C. Paradeise, E. Reale, I. Bleiklie, & E. Ferlie (Eds.), University Governance. Western European comparative perspectives. Berlin: Springer.
Brunsson, N., & Olsen, J. P. (1993). The reforming organization. London: Routledge.
Christensen, T. (2011). University governance reforms: potential problems of more autonomy? Higher Education, 62, 503–517.
Christensen, T., & Lægreid, P. (2007). Transcending New Public Management. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Christensen, T., & Peters, B. G. (1999). Structure, culture, and governance. A comparison of Norway and the United States. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Clark, B. (1983). The higher education system: Academic organization in cross-national perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Collett, J. P. (1999). Historien om Universitetet i Oslo (The history about the University of Oslo). Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
Collins. (1979). The credential society. New York: Academic Press.
DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48(2), 147–160.
Egeberg, M. (2003). How bureaucratic structure matters: An organizational perspective. In B. G. Peters & J. Pierre (Eds.), Handbook of public administration. London: Sage.
Flexner, A. (1930). Universities: American, English, German. New York: Oxford University Press.
Gelber, S. M. (2011). The University and the people: Envisioning American higher education in an era of populist protest. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Kingdon, John. (1984). Agendas, alternatives, and public policies. Boston: Little, Brown.
Krucken, G., & Meier, F. (2006). Turning the university into an organizational actor. In G. Drori, J. W. Meyer, & H. Hwang (Eds.), Globalization and organization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Labree, D. (2011). The power of the parochial in shaping the American system of higher education. Paper presented at conference on “The Role of Space in Education”, Nuremburg, November.
Lowen, R. (1997). Creating the Cold War University: The transformation of Stanford. Berkeley: University of California Press.
March, J. G., & Olsen, J. P. (1989). Rediscovering institutions: The organizational basis of politics. New York: The Free Press.
Meyer, J. W., Boli, J., Thomas, G. M., & Ramirez, F. (1997). World society and the Nation-State. American Journal of Sociology, 103(1), 144–181.
Meyer, J. W., & Rowan, B. (1977). Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, 83(September), 340–363.
Paradeise, C., Reale, E., Bleiklie, I., & Ferlie, E. (Eds.). (2009). University governance. Western European comparative perspectives. Berlin: Springer.
Peters, B. G. (2011). Institutional theory in political science: The “New Institutionalism” (3rd ed.). New York: Continuum.
Pierson, P. (2004). Politics in time: History, institutions and social analysis. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Pollitt, C., & Bouckaert, G. (2011). Public management reform: A comparative analysis (3rd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ramirez, F. O. (2006). The Rationalization of the University. In M.-L. Dejelic & K. Sahlin-Anderson (Eds.), Transnational governance: Institutional dynamics of regulation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ramirez, F. O. (2010). Accounting for excellence: Transforming universities into organizational actors. In V. Rust, L. Portnoi, & S. Bagely (Eds.), Higher education, policy, and the global competition phenomenon. London: Palgrave.
Rubinson, R. (1986). Class formation, politics, and institutions: Schooling in the United States. American Journal of Sociology, 92(3), 519–548.
Sahlin-Andersson, K. (2001). National, international and transnational construction of New Public Management. In T. Christensen & P. Lægreid (Eds.), New Public Management. The transformation of Ideas and Practice. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Selznick, P. (1957). Leadership in administration. New York: Harper & Row.
Stinchcombe, A. (1965). Social structure and organizations. In James March (Ed.), Handbook of organizations (pp. 142–193). Chicago: Rand MacNally.
Thelen, K. (1999). Historical institutionalism in comparative politics. Annual Review of Political Science, 2, 369–404.
Thelen, K., & Steinmo, S. H. (1992). Historical institutionalism in comparative politics. In S. Steinmo, K. Thelen, & F. Longstreth (Eds.), Structuring politics: Historical institutionalism in comparative analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Thue, F., & Helsvig, K. (2011). Universitetet i Oslo 1811-2011. Bok 5. 1945-1975. Den store transformasjonen (University of Oslo 1811-2011. Book 5. 1945-1975. The large transformation). Oslo: Unipub.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ramirez, F.O., Christensen, T. The formalization of the university: rules, roots, and routes. High Educ 65, 695–708 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-012-9571-y
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-012-9571-y