This article will show how the 2015 higher education reform in Albania, instead of increasing the autonomy and the quality of teaching and research as it officially aims, is broadening the control of the government over public universities. After discussing the concepts of reform and autonomy, I will analyse the new law to track the transformation…

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the trend of research on universities and accountability (UAA) in Southeast Asian (SEA) countries. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 115 journal articles, conference papers, books and book chapters were obtained from the Scopus database spanning the years 1996-2023. These documents were subsequently…

Purpose: This article's purpose is to examine how the balance between autonomy (stewardship) and control (principal-agent) has evolved over 2 decades through a comparative longitudinal study of university governance reforms in Denmark and Sweden. Design/methodology/approach: Employing a longitudinal comparative case study design, the study draws…

Agreements between national public authorities and higher education institutions serve as a governance instrument in many European countries. In Norway, these agreements are currently undergoing change, as the state now invites the institutions to propose their own goals and parameters in the agreements. This study seeks to understand the…

This chapter discusses the two concepts of heightened attention in Vietnamese higher education recently, namely "university autonomy" and "quality assurance". The chapter first introduces a brief definition of the two concepts and reviews the debate on whether quality assurance facilitates or conflicts with university autonomy.…

This paper offers a historical analysis of organizational identity development at a particular Dutch university, the Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam. Our analysis contributes to the discussion on what factors contribute to organizational identity maintenance and evolution. Whereas the literature suggests a rather straightforward development,…

Despite extensive research into English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) in higher education, few if any studies have explored the role of higher education autonomy in driving EMI. This paper tests the novel hypothesis that university autonomy--spearheaded across European higher education through neoliberally predicated 'steering at a distance'…

This study comparatively examines state policies of university autonomy in the Eastern Neighborhood countries of the European Union, with a particular focus on Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova. Guided by the principles outlined in the 2007 Lisbon Declaration, the research investigates how university autonomy is shaped by state policies in these three…

This paper explores the evolution of autonomy in Hungarian model-changing institutions, focusing on how reforms have altered governance dynamics. By examining both the university's distance from the state and the degree of self-governance of the academic community, the study employs property rights theory to analyse how governance rights are…

The construction of an organization aims to enhance the performance and versatility of the organization for society. Consequently, as a platform for training human resources, universities have to develop constantly, following the community's insistence. In 2022, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology specified there are 21…

As part of the broader political assault on college and university autonomy, shared governance, and academic freedom, some state legislatures recently have restricted or eliminated the authority and independence of faculty senates and other similar representative bodies. Such actions go against long­standing principles of academic governance and,…

The internationalization of higher education (IHE) has become a key policy issue for governments, a research field for scholars, a strategic priority for universities, and a career orientation for administrative staff. Yet, with recent social, political, and economic trends heavily embellished by globalization and neoliberalism, the term IHE has…

In the United States and Europe, "para-university" institutions have often been viewed as postsecondary institutions that satisfy some needs not addressed by universities. Such para-universities might be technical institutes or research centers affiliated with a parent university and/or a nation-state. In stateless nations, however,…

This study applies resource dependence theory to address the question of how the critical resource dependence relationship emerges in the context of a university's performance agreement. This study focuses on two Nordic universities that have adopted performance agreements while simultaneously using strong performance-based state funding. Resource…

Legislation in the 1970s, 1990s and 2003 made major changes to the status and operations of Danish universities and the role they should play in creating different imaginaries of Denmark and its place in the world. In the education literature, 'institutional autonomy' is key indicator of shifts in the idea and role of the university but this was…