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Perspectives on Islamic studies in higher education
... In the case of university policy, the inescapable importance of policy legacy is further reinforced by the intrinsic organizational qualities of HE systems and institutions (Clark 1983(Clark , 1984, which are so closely linked to the original nature of their mission, namely the treatment of knowledge. At the same time, the manner in which the sector's original valuesequality, excellence, responsibility, autonomy and efficiency (Premfors 1982) are articulated and formulated is of fundamental importance. ...
There is a parallel, at times convergent, development of the funding and assessment systems in the Italian higher education system. They were initially the instruments by which ample room for autonomous action was given to Italian universities. But they have gradually lost this role, as they are now the instruments by means of which governments try to introduce elements of central control into the university system. Given the difficulty of the Ministry to steer universities at a distance, the funding mechanisms and the assessment activities have changed their functions. Rather than being the key instruments that allow universities to exercise their autonomy, they have led to a return to a centralized system whereby universities are again completely dependent on inputs from governments.
... In the case of university policy, the inescapable importance of policy legacy is further reinforced by the intrinsic organizational qualities of HE systems and institutions (Clark 1983(Clark , 1984, which are so closely linked to the original nature of their mission, namely the treatment of knowledge. At the same time, the manner in which the sector's original valuesequality, excellence, responsibility, autonomy and efficiency (Premfors 1982) are articulated and formulated is of fundamental importance. ...
After a decade of debate, in 2010 a new law has been approved with the aim to redesign institutional governance as well as some relevant components of systemic governance. The main goals of that law were that of verticalizing institutional governance, of disempowering the collegial bodies and of simplifying the internal organization of universities. However, the first years of its implementation show that these objectives have been met only partly, while a number of unintended consequences have emerged. As regards systemic governance, the new main feature is the ‘excessive’ role that the national Agency for Evaluation of Universities, established in 2011, has come to play. Given the weakness of the ministerial bureaucracy and its inability to steer the university system, this Agency in a sense has become the real systemic policy-maker
... Since the early 1970s Burton Clark has pioneered work on distinctive colleges as cultures [13], the role of belief and loyalty in college organizations [14], and organizational sagas as tools for institutional identity [15]. Recent work has included the study of academic cultures [1,23,24], leadership [8,10,48], and the system of higher education as a culture [4,16]. Thus, a foundation has been prepared on which we can build a framework for studying culture in higher education. ...
This article presents a case study of a state college illustrating a framework to diagnose culture in collegiate institutions. It explains why organizational culture is a useful concept for understanding management and performance in higher education and outlines previous attempts to define culture in higher education. Essential elements of academic culture are highlighted.
This chapter presents a theoretical framework to analyse the content of governmental policy design in higher education (HE) policy. By assuming that the political and the technical capacities are the two main dimensions of governmental design, four design spaces are proposed as potentially viable for policy-makers. By focusing on the mechanisms through which these two capacity dimensions work, the authors show how a variable political capacity and a constantly poor technical capacity have affected the Italian reforms of HE governance over time.
This article explores the issues of trust, control, professional autonomy and accountability in higher education quality assurance in the UK. The main part of this article is conceptual, but it includes results from semi-structured interviews with academic staff that were conducted at two "new university" business schools. Both institutions are broadly similar in their key characteristics and have experienced a transformation to university status in the early 1990s. The article argues that there has been a change from informal "light-touch" quality control systems based on local practices and a significant amount of trust and professional autonomy in the early 1990s to a highly prescribed process of audit-based quality control today. The article argues that accountability and transparency are important principles that academics should wholeheartedly embrace, but that the audit format adopted in the UK introduces a one-way accountability and provides "rituals of verification" (Power 1997) instead of fostering trust, has high opportunity costs and may well be detrimental to innovative teaching and learning.
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