# University Organisation Design [[The Structuring of Organisations|Mintzberg (1979)]] describes universities as hybrid organisations, that are both Professional Bureaucracies and Adhocracies. The nature of the bureaucracy is dependent on the activity [[Source - The Concept of Bureaucracy, an Empirical Assessment|Hall (1963)]]- while universities are teaching institutions they are the former model, and while research institutions they are the latter. The massification of Higher Education over the past few decades has forced increasing bureaucratisation of the teaching model, with modularisation and concepts such as learning outcomes increasingly in use [[Educational commodification and the (economic) sign value of learning outcomes|(Brancaleone & O’Brien, 2011)]]; [[Source - Redefinition of the relationships between academics and their university - Musselin|(Musselin, 2013)]]. Mintzberg also argues that as time goes on, adhocracies slowly become more like professional bureaucracies as institutions engage in value capture [[The Structuring of Organisations|Mintzberg (1979)]]- in the case of universities they transform research outcomes into learning outcomes for students, depending on their levels of capability. This is despite the argument that the outputs of both teaching and research (to a greater or lesser extent) defy easy quantification and systematisation. The Jarratt Report of 1985 first started the process of stratifying power and introducing management structures in UK Higher Education [[Source - Neo-collegiality restoring academic engagement in the managerial university|(Bacon, 2014)]]; [[On the Way towards New Public Management? The Governance of University Systems in England, the Netherlands, Austria, and Germany|de Boer H., Enders, J., & Schimank, U. (2007)]] and a move away from Humboltian higher education [[Understanding change in higher education- an archetypal approach|Bruckmann, S. & Carvalho, T. (2018)]]. It is widely seen as implementing New Public Management approaches to Higher Education [[Source - The Imperfect University The Jarratt Report 30 Years by Wonkhe|(Greatrix, 2015)]], and diminishing collegiality or democratic based decision making amongst the academy. It is also accused of starting the process by which academics have lost power to administrators and managers in UK HE, and the formulation of more unitary organisations [[Understanding change in higher education- an archetypal approach|Bruckmann, S. & Carvalho, T. (2018)]]. In a synthesis paper [[Source - Redefinition of the relationships between academics and their university - Musselin|(Musselin, 2013)]] agrees that power has shifted away from academics and towards managers, however he states that this process began earlier than many other assume, and before the end of the 20th Century. [[Source - Redefinition of the relationships between academics and their university - Musselin|(Musselin, 2013)]] also argues that universities are becoming institutional actors, with HR departments that enable university strategies including career pathways, [[Coaching]] etc. Introduces new category of academic managers who are collegiate in style yet are still driven by managerialism, and can work across both professional bureaucracies and adhocracies. There is, however, some who argue that power in UKHE has become reconfigured and shifted to becoming more hierarchical, and that actually this does not benefit one group over another [[Losing autonomy? Restructuring higher education institutions governance and relations between teaching and non-teaching staff|(Carvalho & Videira 2019)]]. Others have discussed the continued importance of collegiality in a hybridised system [[On striking the right notes- shifts in governance and the organisational transformation of universities.|Enders, J., De Boer, H., & Leisyte, L. (2008)]]. On their paper on University governance [[On the Way towards New Public Management? The Governance of University Systems in England, the Netherlands, Austria, and Germany|de Boer H., Enders, J., & Schimank, U. (2007)]] state that NPM exists across across northern Europe. They use an 'equaliser' metaphor to show the aspects of external influence on Higher Education governance, namely the levels of state regulation, stakeholder guidance, academic self-governance, managerial self-governance and competition. Only in one aspect was it found that England did not meet the NPM definition- state regulation was too high, and increasing. The impact of NPM on Universities is widely criticised across many articles. [[Managerialism- an ideal type|Shepherd, S. (2018)]] discusses the underpinnings of NPM as managerialism and neoliberalism, and finds that managerialism can be found in almost all aspects of UK Higher Education, despite that academia and teaching does not apply itself to quantification. [[Losing autonomy? Restructuring higher education institutions governance and relations between teaching and non-teaching staff|(Carvalho & Videira 2019)]] find that NPM challenges Professional Bureaucracies and collegiality. Some commentators have advocated to a return to collegiality, mixed with scientific management, or some principles of managerialism. [[Source - Neo-collegiality restoring academic engagement in the managerial university|(Bacon, 2014)]] critiques the current staff engagement levels within the Higher Education sector, and says that this is symptomatic of wider structural and cultural deficits, primarily caused by NPM. He advocates for a less hierarchical approach to power distribution, including through the principle of subsidiarity, and a return to collegiality, which he states is supported by modern arguments on intrinsic motivation theory. However [[Understanding change in higher education- an archetypal approach|Bruckmann, S. & Carvalho, T. (2018)]] argue that this hybrid model already exists, and that universities are still multi-vocal organisations that exemplify a 'efficient-collegial archetype'. This is corroborated by [[On striking the right notes- shifts in governance and the organisational transformation of universities.|Enders, J., De Boer, H., & Leisyte, L. (2008)]] who emphasise the importance of lateral and network relationships. Similarly [[Distributed Leadership in Higher Education|Bolden, Petrov and Gosling (2009)]] uses an Activity Theory approach to argue that the hierarchical nature of universities, and the resulting bureaucracy, is less problematic in universities due to the presence of distributed leadership, which provides for stratified decision making rights and formalised unit boundaries. [[Source - Supporting Academic Middle Managers in Higher Education- do we care?|(Floyd, 2016)]] critiques this view somewhat, in that he argues that academic middle managers are under-trained for the role, and are anyway ill-suited for the position as their values stand opposed to NPM. He argues that academic middle managers exist at the boundary between collegiality and managerialism or NPM, and it is their role to protect academics from performative systems of accountability. To a lesser extent, [[Source - Generating Knowledge in a Connected World|(Boisot 2011)]] advocates for alternative organisation design within universities through the ex emplar of the ATLAS experiment at CERN. He demonstrates that modern technology, in combination with extant cultures (i.e. collegiality) and an appropriate 'boundary object' can produce outstanding and world-leading research outcomes; the ATLAS project was a collaboration of more than 3000 physicists across 174 universities and laboratories, across 38 countries, where no formal hierarchies existed. ## AI Summary Overall, the organisation design of universities is a complex and evolving field, with different perspectives on the balance between collegiality and managerialism, and the impact of external influences such as NPM. While some argue for a return to collegiality or a hybrid model that balances both professional bureaucracy and adhocracy, others point to the importance of distributed leadership or alternative organisational designs. Ultimately, the challenge for universities is to balance these competing demands while continuing to deliver high-quality teaching and research outcomes.