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Understanding change in higher education: an archetypal approach

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Abstract

During the past three decades, higher education institutions have been changing, moving away from the traditional bureaucratic archetype towards a more managerialist one. Empirical research already demonstrated that organisations tend to be in a hybrid area of archetypal change. Considering the specific case of a government-imposed reform in Portugal, and using a case study approach of six public universities, this study aims to explore archetypal hybridism through the lens of two main dimensions: systems and structures and interpretive scheme. The theoretical background lies on academic literature on organisational change in higher education and specifically on archetype theory. The findings drawn from document analysis and interviews outline the main characteristics of the hybrid archetype that we chose to name efficient-collegiality.

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Notes

  1. This timeframe applies mainly to the Anglo-Saxon world (the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand), where these pressures first began to be felt.

  2. It is not within the scope of this study to theorise on hybrids or hybridisation processes. We choose to write about ‘hybrid archetypes’ assuming that any form of hybridism is the result of a blur in boundaries and, within organisational studies ‘[hybrids] describe organizations that span institutional boundaries’ (Doherty et al. 2014). As such, we assume ‘hybrids’ as an organisational archetype, having the same characteristics as archetypes—structures and systems, and interpretive scheme. Hybrids can either be a transition between archetypes or become permanent archetypes themselves. Organisational change is permanently occurring, which makes it difficult to speak of permanent archetypes. However, some of them do prevail for long periods and those could be considered as ‘reference archetypes’.

  3. By organisational units we refer to the departments/faculties/schools that constitute the universities considered in the study. Therefore the interviewed directors are heads of these units. Those in these positions are elected or appointed among academic staff.Per university two different scientific areas have been chosen.

  4. The Portuguese governance model of public universities does not introduce professional managers in important decision-making positions (such as the rector and the unit director/president). As such, these are teachers (all of them chosen among academics within their own institution), and therefore should be seen as academic managers.

  5. These legal documents refer to the university statutes published between 2009 and 2010.

  6. For more detailed information on the external members taking part in the general council in the six public universities of this study see the work by Bruckmann in which the author identifies the professional background of 1st mandate and 2nd mandate external members. The study evidences a greater percentage of external members with business backgrounds in 1st mandate choices (Bruckmann, S. 2015. Shifting boundaries in universities’ governance models: the case of external stakeholders. In E. Reale & E. Primeri (Eds.), The Transformation of University Institutional and Organizational Boundaries (pp. 163–184). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.).

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under Grant number SFRH/BD/71581/2010, within POPH/FSE funding, and Grant EXCL/IVC-PEC/0789/2012.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social, Political and Territorial Sciences, University of Aveiro/CIPES, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193, Aveiro, Portugal

    Sofia Bruckmann & Teresa Carvalho

  2. CIPES–Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies, Rua 1° de Dezembro, 399, 4450-227, Matosinhos, Portugal

    Sofia Bruckmann & Teresa Carvalho

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  1. Sofia Bruckmann
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Correspondence to Sofia Bruckmann.

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Bruckmann, S., Carvalho, T. Understanding change in higher education: an archetypal approach. High Educ 76, 629–647 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-018-0229-2

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