Importing organizational reform: The case of lay boards in Hungary

Abstract

Hungary initiated a major higher education reform program inthe early 1990s that included the establishment of boards at boththe national and institutional levels. This article exploresHungarians' engagement of the idea of boards, adaptations of theAmerican model, adoption of their own model and earlyimplementation. Importing an organizational reform like boardsoccurs within existing cultural and political norms. Thetraditional socialist norms, surrounding nature of the socialisteconomy and the concept of a “civil society” in countries likeHungary loom large in introducing new structures and values.

Structurally, boards at both the national and institutionallevels challenge not only the remnants of the Soviet model ofhigher education but also the classic continental model, uponwhich Hungarian universities were built, of a bimodaldistribution of power between the state and the professorate. Boards fall between the state and professorate and challengethese power centers. The decentralization that boards representruns counter to bureaucratic ministry control and threatens thenewly found power of institutional senates. In a larger,societal sense they also occupy that intermediate space betweenthe government and the individual or what many writers refer toas “civil society” that by most observers' accounts isunderdeveloped in countries like Hungary. Underdevelopment ofcivil society generally raises questions of societal readinessfor institutions like boards.

Politically, the introduction of boards demonstrates thecomplex nature of support for and opposition to change as well asthe personalized politics in reform movements in smallercountries. The changes that have occurred in governments alsoreveal how difficult institutionalization of reform can beespecially when combined with strong cultural norms that mitigateagainst change. While it is too early to tell whether boardswill flourish or wither, they have encountered rocky soil at thenational level and neglect at the institutional level in Hungary.