Universities as Economic Organizations (original) (raw)

Measuring institutional diversity across higher education systems

Research Evaluation, 2015

Institutional diversity—the variety of higher education institutions within a higher education system—has been a popular theme in higher education (policy) research. Despite the large amount of work, key challenges to a better understanding of institutional diversity have hardly been addressed. We argue that particularly the problems of conceptualizing and measuring diversity across higher education systems are underestimated. This article therefore focuses on selecting salient dimensions of difference (i.e. important dimensions of organizational action), setting the perimeter of the populations studied, dealing with outliers and choosing appropriate diversity measures. We highlight the careful steps that need to be taken to make comparisons across higher education systems meaningful and use European data to illustrate the consequences of particular choices.

Institutional Diversity in Higher Education: Factors, Benefits and Challenges

Journal of Educational and Behavioral Sciences, 2020

Democratization and higher education (HE) massification, nations' desire to cope up with the global knowledge-based economy, accompanied by the position of powerful global neoliberal forces and regional organizations have made HE institutional diversity a growing common phenomenon across the world. This paper tries to elaborate the various notions related to and the rationale for as well as the driving and inhibiting factors, and the impacts of HE institutional diversity based on the pertinent literature. The discussion shows that, although the driving and inhibiting factors vary from country to country, there are some communalities. Also, it demonstrates that, though HE institutional diversity has several benefits such as increasing access and promoting excellence, it can pose challenges such as reinforcing socioeconomic inequality, fostering institutional isomorphism and fragmentation of coordination in the sector unless properly managed. The paper concludes by raising some important issues that deserve attention by policy makers and researchers alike.

Understanding Institutional Diversity in American Higher Education

Research studies most frequently consider systemic diversity, and these concepts infl uence many other institutional diversity aspects identifi ed later. Th e Carnegie Classifi cations, the most widely referenced classifi cation scheme in higher education, creates a typology using six primary criteria: undergraduate instruction, graduate instruction, enrollment profi le, undergraduate profi le, size, and setting. Since the fi rst iteration in 1970, the Carnegie Classifi cations have undergone subtle and more dramatic changes in an attempt to refl ect the changes among higher education institutions. Despite the changes, the infl uence of the classifi cations remains substantial and results in the importance often being placed on systemic diff erences. Furthermore, the aspects of systemic diversity may appear separately but frequently occur together. For example, many small colleges are private institutions, while larger universities tend to be under public control. Research universities off er more graduate programs and typically enroll a larger student body with more full-time students. Th e relationship among the various characteristics of systemic diversity allows a categorizing of institutions that provides an easy shorthand for describing colleges and universities. As an example, if told to imagine what a private liberal arts college looks like, one might think of a small school, located in a rural or suburban area, with a collegial culture and a focus on teaching and student-faculty interactions. Although this would certainly not describe all private liberal arts colleges in the nation, the typical characteristics enable generalizations useful for daily practice.

Measuring changes in institutional diversity: the US context

Higher Education, 2019

The level of diversity present in a national higher education system plays an important role in enabling the system to respond to a variety of demands from society. Within the US context, diversity is often hailed as a strength although research has found a consistent decline in institutional diversity for the last 40 years. This article uses data from 1989 to 2014 to compare the level of diversity present across American higher education. The article draws on institutional theory to understand how institutions change in respond to environmental pressures impacting institutional diversity. The findings demonstrate that institutional diversity has continued to decrease and demonstrates how institutional decisions impact overall diversity present in the system. To conclude, the article discusses the causes and potential concerns for national systems that experience decreased institutional diversity. An improved understanding of the current state of institutional diversity provides useful measures for evaluating national higher education systems and raises critical questions for the mission and activities of higher education institutions themselves.

Diversification? Trends and explanations of the shape and size of higher education

Higher Education, 2008

Debates and policies in Europe as regards the diversity of higher education institutions and programmes have changed substantially over the years. When expansion of the rate of new entry students was expected to grow beyond 10%, diversification between types of higher education institutions became the most popular option, whereas no consensus emerged as far as the extent of diversity and the most desirable classifications are concerned. In the 1980s, attention shifted gradually towards ''vertical'' differences among institutions of formally the same type. Since the 1990s, more extreme modes of vertical diversity were more frequently advocated as options to embark into worldwide competition for ''world-class university''. The concurrent popular debates are criticized as blaming moderate vertical inter-institutional diversity, emphasis on intra-institutional diversity, efforts to put prime emphasis on a variety of profiles of any model other than extreme vertical diversity as counteracting ''quality'', although evidence for the superiority of the model praised is feeble. Keywords Expansion of higher education Á Diversity of higher education Á Higher education policies Á Levels of programmes and degrees Á Rankings Á Types of higher education institutions Á Ulrich Teichler • First, attention is often paid to the substance addressed, i.e. to knowledge. We must register, though, that this substantive core of higher education is addressed by specialists of the various disciplines as well as possibly by science researchers, but