Changing the culture: The governance of the Australian pre-millennial university

Australian universities have undergone considerable reform in the past decade. What is seen as the 'unkindest cut of all' has been a more conservative federal government's substantial economic cut-backs in higher education from 1996 onwards. They have precipitated profound changes in its culture as the university becomes privatised, marketised, globalised and increasingly student-driven. In these shifts, the deregulated higher education sector is operating out of a 'busnocratic' rationality where choice and positional advantage are integral to market logic. This paper explores how universities are responding rapidly to fiscal stringency through the adoption of tactics and strategies which appropriate the operation of business for the governance of university culture