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The purpose of this paper is to investigate and assess the role played by university governance in the effectiveness and efficiency of the higher education system through literature analysis and the management evaluation method of Organization and Methods (the O and M technique) and argue for a more radical change in, and greater scrutiny of, university governance so as to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of university operations and thus yield a more optimal satisfaction of social needs.

The paper employs the O and M technique in order to investigate and assess the role played by university governance in the effectiveness and efficiency of the higher education system.

The “objective” is education and knowledge and there is no room for experimentation in the system. The higher education sector does not need experiments to develop further. Rather, it deserves cautious, creative and innovative consideration and needs a very distinctive treatment of national problems. No matter the policy orientation of the system, higher education policy makers should not forget that higher education has a tremendous influence on peoples’ attitudes and beliefs so the focus should be on the actual knowledge on social responsibility and on the commitment of higher education to serve social interests and needs.

The analysis developed in this study would benefit from a deeper exploration by investigating more numerous and diverse examples from the international arena of higher education.

This study acts as a complement to previous research on higher education governance since it develops further the analysis and the understanding of university governance. By using as examples two countries with different orientation in their higher education system (mainly due to differences in cultural and ideological perceptions) and keeping in mind that there is no ideal model for university governance, this study could enlighten decision makers in any country to develop a more effective and constructive model of university governance that would serve societal interests more effectively.

This paper focuses on governance in higher education in China. It sees that governance as distinctive on the world scale and the potential source of distinctiveness in other domains of higher education. By taking an historical approach, reviewing relevant literature and drawing on empirical research on governance at one leading research university, the paper discusses system organisation, government–university relations and the role of the Communist Party (CCP), centralisation and devolution, institutional leadership, interior governance, academic freedom and responsibility, and the relevance of collegial norms. It concludes that the party-state and Chinese higher education will need to find a Way in governance that leads into a fuller space for plural knowledges, ideas and approaches. This would advance both indigenous and global knowledge, so helping global society to also find its Way.

This chapter discusses the implications of New Public Management (NPM) and of alternative theories on the higher education sector. Three clusters of alternative concepts and theories are identified, positioned in relation to NPM, and discussed. The chapter concludes that the different theoretical approaches: (1) cannot always be distinguished easily, (2) entail a risk of normativity due to the position of higher education in society, and (3) demonstrate that higher education policy and research are in need of a multi-theoretical approach that is able to put higher education back into its social, political, and economic context. By formulating research questions on the role of higher education and on the impact of former reforms, it is suggested that policy and research look further than the current concepts and theoretical approaches to build a new agenda for future.

Tertiary education in the Anglophone Caribbean, particularly in Jamaica, has become highly competitive and complex and increasingly influenced by global neoliberal discourses. This free-market driven development is partly evidenced by the proliferation of national, regional, and international providers. Yet, within this seemingly unrelenting international influence, one can also detect more recent approaches by regional governments in concert and individually, through policy and systems of governance to reassert their sovereignty and retain some level of regulation and ownership of tertiary education. This chapter establishes an analytical framework for understanding these tertiary education governance changes by drawing on the principles of critical educational policy analysis. The chapter scrutinizes the multiple sources of power, international, regional, and national, that shape the rapid ongoing tertiary educational changes. Ultimately, the chapter argues that Jamaica’s tertiary education governance can be categorized as a shift from the governance mechanisms of “growth driven” to “regulatory control.” The chapter further posits that future regional shifts in tertiary education governance will be shaped by the continuing postcolonial struggles to adapt to the global order while protecting regional and national interests and aspirations.

Recent changes in university systems, debates on academic freedom, and changing roles of knowledge in society all point to questions regarding how higher education and research should be governed and the role of scientists and faculty in this. Rationalizations of systems of higher education and research have been accompanied by the questioning and erosion of faculty authority and challenges to academic collegiality. In light of these developments, we see a need for a more conceptually precise discussion about what academic collegiality is, how it is practiced, how collegial forms of governance may be supported or challenged by other forms of governance, and finally, why collegial governance of higher education and research is important.

We see collegiality as an institution of self-governance that includes formal rules and structures for decision-making, normative and cognitive underpinnings of identities and purposes, and specific practices. Studies of collegiality then, need to capture structures and rules as well as identities, norms, purposes and practices. Distinguishing between vertical and horizontal collegiality, we show how they balance and support each other.

Universities are subject to mixed modes of governance related to the many tasks and missions that higher education and research is expected to fulfill. Mixed modes of governance also stem from reforms based on widely held ideals of governance and organization. We examine university reforms and challenges to collegiality through the lenses of three ideal types of governance – collegiality, bureaucracy and enterprise – and combinations thereof.

This chapter offers to higher education research a theoretical and methodological proposal based on narrativity, pointing to the articulation between metanarratives, public, conceptual and individual narratives. Stemming from social constructionism, it draws on concepts such as floating signifiers and nodal points, borrowed from discourse analysis, to explore the conflict and struggle between discourses. The examples provided focus on how individual narratives enact discourses on higher education institutional governance, as expressed in public narratives, and on how narratives influence the perceptions of institutional actors. Our goal in this chapter is, on the one hand, to propose an operationalization of discourse analysis, and, on the other hand, to signal the contribution of the narrative approach in revealing research findings based on the process of meaning construction.

In terms of the role of myth in decision making, this paper focuses on the way myth obfuscates critical issues related to shared governance in higher education. The result of that obfuscation is a minimization of the realities that work against shared governance by favoring an untenable view based on an idealistic and unattainable vision of shared governance. First, however, a critique of myth is in order to demonstrate not only that myth is no more than ordinary interpretation but also that it is insufficiently based on rationality and can become a dangerous instrument in the hands of policy makers.

Due to scarcity of research in governance and accountability in private higher education in developing countries, the purpose of this paper is to explore the tensions surrounding good governance in legitimizing accountability in private universities in developing countries with reference to Bangladesh.

Mixed methods are employed: a quantitative survey of 1,576 students from all 79 private universities; qualitative interviews with 23 stakeholders; and policy documents including the Private University Acts, the World Bank Report and newspapers (1992-2015) were evaluated. The objectives of these mixed methods in this study are juxtaposed and generate complementary insights that together create a bigger picture surrounding governance and accountability issues.

Using Clark's (1983) triangle model (i.e. state control, academic oligarchy, and market forces together with the external influence of donors and boards of trustees as internal governance) and new institutional theory (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983), the major contributions of this study are explaining the root causes of the poor governance of private universities through three related factors: the substantial political power and autonomy held by boards of trustees; a lack of enforcement of Private University Act; and a lack of coordination among stakeholders. The coercive power of the state becomes powerless since the board of trustees ultimately enjoys political power and “does whatever it can.” The lack of coordination of the academic oligarchy (e.g. professors and academics) and market forces (represented by students) by the board of trustees creates a paradox of governance and hence a decoupling of formal policies and actual practice.

The findings have major policy implications for local and international policymakers for improving good governance in private universities in developing countries.

The novelty of the study's findings represents an initial effort to understand the complex and persistent phenomenon of prolonged poor governance of private universities in developing countries, which is largely neglected in the literature. This will undoubtedly contribute to literature and policy implications.

Despite the multitude of regional-based collaborations in higher education, regionalism theories have received relatively little attention in the literature on higher education. In view of this gap, this chapter seeks to make a case for the study of regionalism and explores how this field could enrich higher education research. This chapter discusses the context of the rise of the regional landscape vis-à-vis the acceleration of globalisation and internationalisation of higher education. It further probes into theoretical and empirical insights, elucidating in particular core regionalism concepts, theories and approaches within the more recent ‘turns’ in regionalism. Empirical cases from regions across the world are presented to help expound on the conceptual points raised.

The principal goal of the article is to examine how Singapore, one of the East Asian tiger economies, has attempted to diversify its higher education system by developing “transnational education” in the island state.

With particular reference to the most recent education reforms and changing higher education governance in Singapore, this article focuses on how the Singapore government has changed its higher education governance models in enhancing the global competitiveness of its higher education system by adopting more pro‐competition policy instruments and allowing the growth of transnational education in the city state.

The findings suggest the choice of policy tools (the choice of market forces in higher education and the rise of transnational education in the present case) is highly political and governments should pay particular attention to the particular socio‐economic and socio‐political contexts of their countries when making such choices.

The paper shows that the role of government in East Asia is still important, especially when there is a strong need for government to set up appropriate regulations, social protection and welfare, hence, governments in East Asia are very much conceived as a complement to the markets.