The Applicability of Institutional Goals to the University Organisation

Demands for greater accountability have emphasised the need for universities to clarify systematically their institutional goals. This article explores the issue of whether goal statements provide the essential framework and direction for the university's operation, or whether they are little more than idealistic rhetoric. Advocates for the use of goal strategy in universities have tended to adopt simplistic assumptions derived from business management models and overlook the considerable complexities and ambiguities of the university's operational reality: the fragmented professional structure, multiple goals, widely dispersed decision making, complex work, the rewards for extreme non-uniformity. Various problems and consequences of goal selection are outlined: problematic assumptions of a direct relationship between establishing qualitative statements of goals and achieving quantitative objectives, difficulties of goal valuation and measurement, goal interdependence, political processes that emphasise particular goals and de-emphasise others, and the goal diversity of stakeholder constituencies and interest groups. The article counsels universities against accepting unquestioningly an imposed system of goal setting, but rather to determine the minimum level of specificity needed to satisfy external demands and internal policy planning needs, while maintaining the university's essential character and purpose.