Advancing theory on knowledge governance in universities: a case study of a higher education merger

Abstract

The deep structure of university knowledge governance system is uncharted. In an exploratory case study of a university merger with an art college, this study inductively examines how knowledge governance structures in universities affect (and are affected by) the creation and passing on of knowledge. The authors found the university governance system to provide advantages primarily for the management of core academic activities of knowledge creation through articulation and for the passing on and dissemination of knowledge through replication. It is also conducive to the coordination and integration of specialized administrative expertise. However, despite insistent calls for more inter-disciplinary research, it tends to discourage the pursuit of innovative, inter-disciplinary combinations of knowledge. These findings shed light on the characteristics of the deep structure of university knowledge governance systems in academic work, namely academic staff identification with, and allegiance to, individual disciplines, as well as the independence of academic work from its particular organizational setting.

Keywords:

• universities
• knowledge governance
• combination
• interdisciplinarity
• epistemic communities
• mergers

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Mehdi Safavi http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2194-2948

Notes

1. Here, and in the following we use the term ‘governance’ in the broad sense common in the literature on knowledge governance and strategic management. Following Michailova and Foss (2009, 8), it includes the choice of

governance structures (e.g. markets, hybrids, hierarchies) … and governance and coordination mechanisms (contracts, directives, reward schemes, incentives, trust, management styles, organizational culture, etc.) so as to favorably influence processes of transferring, sharing, integrating, using, and creating knowledge … The governance mechanisms can be both formal, such as goal setting, planning, directives, rules and regulations, and residual rights of control … and informal, such as trust, management styles, organizational cultures, communication flows, and channels.

2. These are found not only in elite universities with reputational standings based on excellence in discipline-based research (Becher and Parry 2005). Salient features of a general university governance model can also be observed in newer universities, where institutional structures encourage ‘practice-oriented’, applied research and vocationally oriented training programmes around new, often transdisciplinary fields, such as tourism, sustainability, sports management or journalism. In pursuit of societal recognition and academic legitimacy, these new fields of study tend over time to develop their own distinct social and cognitive characteristics, professional identities and methodological orthodoxies. As Henkel (2005, 155) notes:

… the socio-epistemological structure of the discipline, the idea of an epistemic community defining its territory, the problems it will address and the main conceptual, theoretical and methodological frameworks which it will deploy, and organising its review systems and publication outlets, is reproduced by emerging inter-disciplinary communities.

3. This literature is too large to review here but includes, for example, Dosi, Faillo, and Marengo (2008), Felin and Hesterley (2007), Foss (1996a, 1996b), Galunic, Rodan, and Rodan (1998), Foss (1996a, 1996b), Håkanson (2010), Kogut and Zander (1992, 1993, 1996), Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998), Spender (1996), Szulanski (1996) and Tsoukas (1996).

4. Differentiating between actions, surface regulations and deep structures, Nooteboom (2008) describes surface regulations as systematic rules that concern and shape specific actions within organizations and deep structures as underlying more fundamental notions, logics, principles or cognitive categories that form the basis for the surface regulations. Other scholars also differentiate between a more accessible level of systematic controls and a deeper cognition that shapes those control systems. For example, Simon (1976) acknowledges that an organization controls not only the decisions made by its employees but also the premises shaping those actions. Is a similar vein, Nelson and Winter (1982) make a distinction between routines and ‘meta-routines’ which control and guide the development of organizational routines. Nooteboom’s notion of deep structure is traceable to Bourdieu’s (1990) notion of habitus of organizations or communities.

5. These abbreviations are used here in order to better indicate the triangulation of our data sources (If = Informant; In = Interview; U/C = from University/College). The numbers are derived from the chronological order of the interviews and they are not in accordance with the ordering in the tables indicating interviews and interviewees.

6. The governance of such relationships requires specific institutional regulations due to the moral hazards of undue exploitation of the apprentice’s services on the one hand, and the misappropriation of the knowledge imparted, on the other. In professional service firms, similar problems have traditionally been resolved in the master’s favour through ‘tournament career systems’ and ‘up or out’ systems of promotion (Baden-Fuller and Bateson 1990; Becker and Huselid 1992). Parallel patterns can be found in many universities.