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New public management: global reform script or conceptual stretching? Analysis of university governance structures in the Napoleonic administrative tradition

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Abstract

Higher education (HE) reforms are usually inspired by New Public Management (NPM) global reform scripts. This article focuses on a pivotal object of NPM-driven reforms––central university governance structures. On the one hand, we present the founding ideas of NPM and sketch how they translate for these structures; on the other hand, two further ideal-type public management narratives to conceptualize reforms (Network Governance and Neo-Weberianism) are presented and we deduct the ideal-type institutional governance structures according to each. Then, we take Italy and Portugal as case studies––two countries in the Napoleonic administrative tradition where previous research has stressed that HE reforms differ from the NPM ideal––and we develop a multi-level analysis (at policy and university levels) to compare their central institutional governance structures with the NPM-driven ideal. Our findings show that both countries present hybrid reform outcomes with similar choices in several aspects that differ from the NPM-driven practical outcomes; thus, a specific regional variance is recognizable. Yet, these structures reflect the Neo-Weberian founding ideas rather than those of NPM. The research implications and possible explanations to reconcile the decoupling between discursive convergence on NPM global reform scripts and Neo-Weberian reform outcomes are discussed.

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Notes

  1. Models that in theory are thought to apply everywhere.

  2. See Donina and Hasanefendic (forthcoming) for a detailed summary of supranational recommendations on university central governance structures.

  3. From the name of the former Minister of Education, University and Research. The law is officially titled: Norme in materia di organizzazione delle Università, di personale accademico e reclutamento, nonché delega al Governo per incentivare la qualità e l’efficienza del sistema universitario.

  4. Regime Jurídico das Instituições de Ensino Superior.

  5. The process of breaking down, examining, comparing, conceptualizing, and categorizing data.

  6. Similar administrative traditions may be defined as “a historically based set of values, structures, and relationships with other institutions that define the nature of appropriate public administration within society” (Peters 2008).

  7. Spain is an exception within Napoleonic administrative tradition.

  8. For example, they are widely identified in Italy in both public administration (Kickert 2007; Kuhlmann 2010; Ongaro 2010) and HE literature (Capano 2014; Donina et al. 2015b; Dal Molin et al. 2017).

  9. Including (i) 55 universities, (ii) three polytechnics (which differ from traditional universities only insofar as they specialize in engineering and architecture), (iii) one university specialized in sports training, (iv) two universities for foreigners, and (v) five Istituti a ordinamento speciale (small institutions specializing in doctoral training).

  10. Departments have become the central organizational units within Italian universities due to the abolishment of faculties (Donina et al. 2017).

  11. Law 240/2010 claims minimum three external members out of 11, or two out of ten or less.

  12. University of Trento is the sole state university in Italy where public funding does not come from the central government, but from the Province (which is granted a special statute within the Italian state).

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the three anonymous referees for their insightful comments that helped us in enhancing our contribution. We also thank Sandra Hasanefendic, the participants of the Panel “Policy translation and adaptation in higher education systems and organizations” at ECPR General Conference in Oslo and those of CHER Conference in Moscow for their useful comments and suggestions. Finally, we acknowledge the support by the Italian Ministry of Education, University, and Research through the PRIN 2015: “Comparing Governance Regime Changes in Higher Education”.

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  1. CCSE – HERe, CisAlpino Institute for Comparative Studies in Europe, Higher Education Research Group, University of Bergamo, via Salvecchio 19, 24129, Bergamo (BG), Italy

    Davide Donina & Stefano Paleari

  2. Department of Management, Information and Production Engineering, University of Bergamo, via Pasubio 7b, 24044, Dalmine (BG), Italy

    Davide Donina & Stefano Paleari

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  1. Davide Donina
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Correspondence to Davide Donina.

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Donina, D., Paleari, S. New public management: global reform script or conceptual stretching? Analysis of university governance structures in the Napoleonic administrative tradition. High Educ 78, 193–219 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-018-0338-y

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