The Application of New Institutionalism and the Resource Dependence Theory for Studying Changes in Universities within Europe (original) (raw)
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The " Declarations " of the Sorbonne (1998) and Bologna (1999) can be considered the official starting point of a movement for institutional change in higher education policy on the European continent. As this European movement emerged, however, it joined with a process of change in the systems of higher education that had been going on for some time in the American, Asian and Australian continents. This paper intends to focus on some important elements which explain the links between the characteristics of institutional changes in higher education systems undertaken in some European countries in the late 1990s and those already in place at the supranational level in countries such as the United States, Japan and some emerging economies of the Asian continent (Hong Kong and Singapore). With this aim, the present work will draw on the analytical means of the neo-institutionalist approach and concentrate especially on the role of the institutional players and on the impact of funding methods as engines of change in the various higher education systems at home.
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