Evidence of hybrid institutional logics in the US public research university

ABSTRACT

While the ascendancy of market behaviours in public research universities is well documented, the extent to which universities have transformed themselves into industry-like organisations has been called into question. So to what extent are universities displaying transformation in their core values? The concept of institutional logics, with its focus on the relationship between organisational design and underlying beliefs and values, shows potential to address this question. Yet study of institutional logics at the campus level has to date been limited. This paper presents an empirical analysis of three US research universities’ organising principles as expressed in key mission and planning documents over a 15-year period. Of the multiple strategies at play in the universities’ responses to potentially competing values, the creation of new, hybrid logics is of particular interest. The concept of hybrid logics suggests a promising framework for understanding how universities can and do manage tensions in their mission.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• hybrid logics
• institutional logics
• mission
• public research universities
• values

Introduction

We will not be able to generate sufficient resources to preserve our university … if we do not find ways to defend the importance of both our public and our intellectual mission. We must not be preoccupied by internal quarrels or lose our resolve. We must find new ways to tell our story, while exemplifying the extent to which a public institution still inspires trust as well as commitment.

– Chancellor Nicholas B. Dirks, University of California-Berkeley, Inaugural Address (2013)

To what extent are universities displaying transformation in their core values? The ascendancy of market-like and market behaviours within and across public research universities has been well documented worldwide (e.g., Cantwell & Kauppinen, 2014; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004). In their market-like efforts, these universities engage in competitions for external sources of money from research funding, industry partnerships, professors’ entrepreneurship, and student tuition and fees. As part of their market initiatives, public research universities seek to generate profits from activities including patenting, licensing, and other partnerships and contracts that could open revenue streams (Slaughter & Leslie, 1997). Focusing on the nature of such changes, the research literature suggests some fundamental reorientations of universities from serving social functions to profit motives.

Yet some universities appear to show more blending in their organising principles than might be implied by this view. In recent years, research has questioned the extent to which public research universities have transformed themselves into industry-like, market-focused organisations (e.g., Bozeman & Boardman, 2013). Studies of student entrepreneurship, for instance, suggest that state-subsidised undergraduates leverage institutional and regional networks for social and environmental benefit (Mars & Rhoades, 2012). Such a finding, Mars and Rhoades conclude, indicates a ‘narrow organizational space that is a hybrid of two otherwise competing academic capitalist and public good knowledge/learning regime[s] ….’ (p. 453). Our opening quotation from Chancellor Dirks of the University of California-Berkeley suggests that the overarching orientation of higher education institutions may similarly encompass a level of hybridity. In Dirks’ vision, ‘public’ and ‘intellectual’ missions together form part of a single ‘story’ of the institution.

To advance further a conceptual understanding of this organisational arena, the literature on institutional logics – ‘material practices and symbolic constructions’ that constitute a field’s organising principles (Friedland & Alford, 1991, p. 248) – shows promising potential for application to higher education. Theory on logics has been used to examine topics as diverse as the higher education publishing industry (Thornton & Ocasio, 2008), mutual funds (Lounsbury, 2007), healthcare (Reay & Hinings, 2009), science (Berman, 2012), and postsecondary governance (Bastedo, 2009). While there has been some conceptualisation of institutional logics that underpin higher education (Gumport, 2000), Gumport’s (2002) case study of Stony Brook University, the University of California-Berkeley, and the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC) presents an all-too-rare empirical analysis of institutional logics at the campus level. Strikingly, the complexity of relationships among multiple logics remains less well understood than the ascendancy of one over the other (e.g., Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004).

We aim to contribute conceptually and practically to understanding the interaction among institutional logics within US public research universities. While we focus on the US, building directly on Gumport’s 2002 case studies over a more recent time frame, our findings from that country, rooted in a tertiary system of strong governmental decentralisation and market coordination, may also prove illuminating in respect of global trends in this arena. Rizvi (2006, p. 66) observes the ‘direction of change’ in higher education policies worldwide to be ‘remarkably similar’, and signs of resistance and tension are equally global. To cite by way of example the issue of university marketing, we see the relevance of our findings to experiences of both Nordic and Australian universities. There, recent research has shown how the confluence of different value systems has brought about conflict and compromise (Onsman, 2008; Sataøen, 2015).

Expanding on Gumport (2002), we draw on documentary materials to delineate the organising principles around which campus officials construct their articulation of university relevance. A cross-case comparative approach helps us tease apart variation in how each university may elaborate its own logic. Our study is thus situated within calls in the literature for theoretical development (e.g., Mars & Rhoades, 2012) and empirical analysis of how higher education leaders and managers express organisational positions on institutional relevance (Gumport, 2002).

We assume that public research universities are heterogeneous organisations whose various logics may not entirely be known or available to all campus constituents. The operationalisation of logics on campus, a subject beyond the scope of this paper, may very well reveal its own form of tension and hybridity. Nevertheless, it is not entirely unreasonable to assign particular import to those logics which campus officials present externally, for these constitute a predominant organisational perspective.

Background

Institutional logics are the ‘belief systems and associated practices that predominate in an organizational field’ (Scott, Ruef, Mendel, & Caronna, 2000, p. 170) and as such can serve as a ‘template for action’ for organisations in the field (Bastedo, 2009, p. 211). The value of logics lies in the contention that the ‘pattern of an organizational design is a function of an underlying interpretive scheme, or set of beliefs or values’ (Greenwood & Hinings, 1993, p. 1055). Institutional logics, with attention to cultural-cognitive dimensions of fields and organisations, address this relationship (Gumport, 2000). As we have noted, many public research universities have increasingly embraced market-like and market behaviours. A core concern is the extent to which publicly subsidised institutions have fundamentally shifted from using these resources to serve the public good to advancing self-interest in making money. In this section, we draw on logics to explore ascendancy, coexistence, competition, and hybridity among the core perspectives that underpin public research universities.

Researchers and analysts have recently focused on ways in which the field and policy environment constrains the logics available to organisations and individual actors. A field has been defined as ‘organizations that, in the aggregate, constitute a recognized area of institutional life: key suppliers, resource and product consumers, regulatory agencies, and other organizations that produce similar services or products’ (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983, p. 148). At the policy level, federal and state governments have increasingly incentivised the economic roles of research universities (e.g., Berman, 2012; Warshaw & Hearn, 2014). The targeted allocation of funding for research and development and workforce training in science and technology has been viewed as a primary trigger of academic capitalism (Cantwell & Kauppinen, 2014; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004). Additionally, the loosened legal and regulatory environment, which broadens the scope and facilitates the ownership of patenting and intellectual property rights, also spreads market-mindedness among many institutions (Geiger & Sá, 2008).

The field and policy environment does not control or predetermine organisational responses. But in behaviour and structure at least some universities appear to have repositioned research, teaching, and service around the interests of external stakeholders and markets. For example, institutional patenting of academic research was at first contested (i.e., pre-legitimate) but, following incentivisation by federal research policy and the rising biotechnology industry, became seen as potentially lucrative, normalised (i.e., legitimate) work for faculty, administrators, and campuses (Colyvas & Powell, 2006). Since the 1980s, within the context of state and federal economic competitiveness campaigns, US universities have increasingly articulated the economic value of their educational contributions to workforce and human capital development. Indeed, the community engagement activities of universities, ranging from student and faculty projects to consulting and training for local governments and leaders, are increasingly framed and categorised as serving economic development (Gais & Wright, 2012).

Claims of economic relevance could suggest shifts in rhetoric rather than core organising principles and templates for action (Kleinman, Habinek, & Vallas, 2011). Slaughter and Rhoades’ (2004) observation that most universities do not make money from their moves to the market may, on the one hand, suggest institutional adaptation to emulative/normative pressures within the field of higher education. But, on the other, foundational studies in this arena do detect coexistence of underlying logics that has hitherto been largely overlooked. As Slaughter and Rhoades acknowledge, ‘academic capitalism has not replaced the public good knowledge regime. The two coexist, intersect, and overlap’ (p. 29, emphasis added).

We see recent literature on logics as especially helpful because it focuses less on ascendancy and more on examples of entwinement of market efforts and commitment to the public good. We are particularly struck by Mars and Rhoades’ (2012, p. 455) caution against regarding academics and units within ‘the capitalist domain of the academy’ as being ‘disconnected entirely from the public good underpinnings of higher education’. Recognition that a new logic need not supplant an existing one within an organisation, but might equally coexist with it, has led to recent discussion of the hybrid organisational forms adopted to accommodate coexistence (Greenwood, Raynard, Kodeih, Micelotta, & Lounsbury, 2011; Mair, Mayer, & Lutz, 2015).

At the same time, emphases on coexistence may belie contestation and competition. As Clark Kerr (1995) has observed, the public research university has become so many things to so many different people that it must out of necessity be at war with itself. Analyses of coexistence may not quite detect ‘under the radar’ logics, which can emerge and take root when opportunities in the external environment open pathways for organisational change (Reay & Hinings, 2009).

The use of institutional logics to understand change and adaptation – organisational responses – of public research universities has remained somewhat neglected. Gumport’s 2002 study found that ‘social institution’ logic became ‘industry’ logic, motivating academic restructuring for short-term profits and positioning around the funding interests of external stakeholders. One institution, however, evinced market goals but affirmed in structure a ‘social institution’ logic, which to Gumport indicated a divergence between rhetoric and practice. Such complex interactions, she acknowledges, remain only partially understood.

It is to explore this complexity that we have undertaken the current study. We acknowledge the importance of examining triggers of market-like and market behaviours of public research universities, such as federal research policy, state finance and governance, and competition in the field of higher education. Yet our focus here is organisational responses as observed through relationships among logics within and across public research universities. To this end, we ask:

1. In what terms are the predominant organising principles of public research universities expressed?

2. What does this tell us about relationships among institutional logics, within and across public research universities over time?

Research design and method

Following Gumport (2002), our study data come from Stony Brook University, University of California-Berkeley, and UIC. The three are, Gumport concludes, appropriate for comparative analysis. All are public universities classified as ‘R1: Doctoral Universities (highest research activity)’ under the current Carnegie basic classification. Each experienced a marked decline in the share of its revenue coming from the state between 1980 and 1994. Despite some variation in this indicator, the trend continues downward (College Board, 2015). They face a somewhat comparable state-funding climate, a context of persistent ‘resource turbulence’ (Gumport, 2002, p. 57) and also, as research institutions, similar influences from federal research policy and resource competition.

Similarities notwithstanding, the three are by no means entirely comparable. Only two – Stony Brook and Berkeley – are members of the Association of American Universities for leading North American research universities. In size, Stony Brook and UIC are most alike with approximately 20–25,000 full-time equivalent students to Berkeley’s 35,000. Both are also relatively young, UIC tracing its foundations to 1946 and Stony Brook to 1957; by contrast, Berkeley is nearly 150 years old. While we have examined these universities partly to develop Gumport’s 2002 analysis and partly because we too observe fundamental similarities between them, such differences are themselves of interest. They have been founded at different times for different purposes and are located in different environments, evolving as organisations – in structure, operations, ambitions, and goals – in distinct ways. There is reason to believe, then, that each might articulate its core principles differently, so enriching our understanding of the interplay of logics.

We contend that the terms in which universities present their missions tell us something important about underlying institutional logics. To this end, our research explores the written record. Our evidence comprises publicly available documents from the universities’ websites. These covered the period 2000–2014 and included strategic plans, accreditation self-studies, and commissioned reports (see Tables A1–A3 in the Appendix). In addition to key mission and planning documents, we analysed all records in which campus leaders expressed a position on institutional relevance. Press releases and other short statements lacking significant contextualisation were discounted. Transcripts of speeches made by senior officers, addressing a range of audiences, were included.

While we are well aware that institutional practice may diverge from written policy, we maintain that the written record serves an important purpose. Despite criticism that such documents are simply ‘rhetorical pyrotechnics’ – ‘pretty to look at perhaps, but of little structural consequence’ – they play a complex yet important part in communicating underlying values (Morphew & Hartley, 2006, p. 456). We argue that strategic plans and self-studies have a particularly important role as generative documents (Prior, 2003), setting the boundaries for discussion of university form and purpose. What the universities choose to focus on points us towards the sources from which they seek to draw legitimacy.

We employed a mixed strategy for cross-case analysis (Miles, Huberman, & Saldaña, 2013). A first cycle of descriptive coding, undertaken in NVivo (QSR International, Doncaster, Victoria, Australia), coded all passages that mentioned one or more of the universities’ three core missions – research, teaching, and engagement. This enabled us to focus more closely on key passages from our data. Some 1,200 pages were subject to first-cycle coding, from which passages totalling approximately 200 pages were extracted under one or more of the three themes.

Our second-cycle coding was in part elaborative, taking account of the ‘theoretical constructs’ (Saldaña, 2013, p. 229) of Gumport’s (2002) findings. Our aim was not to recreate the previous research, but to probe the themes which emerged from it. Gumport’s research therefore served as a point of reference. The substantive focus of our coding, meanwhile, was the logics that were being expressed. While some are explicitly stated, many more are implicit in what is said. To capture both explicit and implicit value statements, we recorded what research, teaching or engagement activity was being discussed, what rationale or purpose was ascribed to it, and who specifically was being implicated (both within the university and externally). Repeated cross-referencing enabled us to identify tensions between statements, make connections between documents, and identify change or consistency over time. These elements were drawn together in a series of memos, one per institution for each theme, from which the cross-case analysis presented here emerged.

Our decision to focus solely on documentary evidence made available by the institutions occasions a note of caution. A decisive pronouncement on the mix of logics drawn on and operationalised by each university would require reference to a more comprehensive range of sources – interviews, observations, internal memoranda, and the like. It would also demand investigation of the interaction between university and field, including the university system within which each operates. Still, we see our study as building our understanding of the interplay of logics. Although we do not trace the (potentially conflictual) processes that have shaped these publicly available documents, as the outcome of those processes these documents present viewpoints that carry particular authority.

Findings

Our initial investigations identified the three core missions of research universities – research, teaching, and engagement with external communities – as the intersecting cross-case themes around which further analysis could best be structured. In answer to our first research question, we present our findings on each in turn below. Having done so, the following section draws these together in discussion of the relationships between different logics within and across our study institutions.

Research

For all three universities, research was inevitably of prime importance, what Berkeley’s 2002 strategic plan called the ‘energy’ that fuels the University’s mission. But beyond a shared commitment to research, how did each university express its research mission?

At his 2009 inauguration, Stony Brook’s President Stanley referenced the institution’s founding mission of ‘excellence in science and technology’, and this legacy has remained strong. Scientific and technological disciplines received notable attention in the documents studied. Partnership with the Brookhaven National Laboratory, for instance, appeared as a priority as early as the 2000–2005 strategic plan, reappeared in the 2008–2013 plan, and was highlighted as recently as the 2013 state of the university address.

At Berkeley, meanwhile, ‘breadth and depth’ of research disciplines was emphasised. Although 2012 saw publication of two reports detailing a narrower vision of Berkeley’s core disciplines, by 2013 Chancellor Dirks was using his inauguration speech to ‘resist the stark divide between … basic and applied research, between the arts and the sciences …,’ and to once again champion excellence and innovation across the broadly defined scope of Berkeley’s activities.

In discussing its research mission, UIC, rather more explicitly than either other institution, tied what is being researched to why. Like both Berkeley and Stony Brook, UIC championed interdisciplinarity. It also, as befits an institution with a long-standing commitment to the medical field, particularly emphasised health research. But most strikingly, in its 2006 strategic plan it described the contribution which UIC could make to ‘new knowledge … that produces unique perspectives, solutions and understanding of our lives, society and the natural world’.

This is not to say that the audience for university-generated knowledge was deemed to exist solely outside academia. All three universities repeatedly emphasised elements of what we might term a more purely ‘academic’ value set. Both UIC and Stony Brook identified their researchers as ‘pioneers’ operating at the ‘frontiers’ of research. This imagery found ultimate expression at Berkeley where at his inauguration Chancellor Birgeneau cited Chancellor Emeritus Seaborg thus:

The spirit of our pioneering past is the spirit we must seek for our present and future … . Learning and discovery are the New Worlds and the Old West, the lands of opportunity.

The pursuit of research excellence is a particularly interesting commitment since it ties to the institutions’ competitive context. The universities all stated their aspirations and achievements in terms of increased national and international standing. Nevertheless, there remained a degree of ambivalence towards such competition. Referring to the latest university rankings in his 2012 state of the university address, Stony Brook’s President Stanley succeeded in simultaneously appealing to and criticising them:

The recent U.S. News & World Report rankings placed us in the top 100 national universities and among the top 40 public universities – the highest ranking we have ever achieved. And while I am always skeptical of these ratings, I hope they reflect the real progress we have made.

Yet if rankings are a source of scepticism, why pay them attention? In part, the institutions’ own mission statements answer this question. Excellence in research appeared as a goal in its own right, and league table success as evidence of its successful pursuit. There was, however, a potential subtext, namely that evidencing excellence aids the quest for funding.

There are clear commonalities in the universities’ discussion of their research missions. Nonetheless, there are also differences in the degree to which they tended to promote one rationale over another. The first spectrum on which the institutions sit relates to who research is deemed to serve and how. Fairly firmly at the ‘scholarship’ end of the spectrum sits Berkeley, with Stony Brook tending more decisively to the ‘engagement’ end. While UIC noted that all research has a context, it sits somewhere between, embracing both academic and external communities. A second spectrum represents the extent of breadth or focus in the research mission. All three highlighted interdisciplinarity and its importance to excellent research. However, the founding principles of each led to somewhat different emphases: liberal arts at Berkeley, science and technology at Stony Brook, and healthcare and urban studies at UIC.

Students and teaching

As Stony Brook affirmed in its most recent accreditation self-study, ‘our students are at the core of what we are as a university, and why we do what we do’. To understand how each university articulates its teaching mission, three questions prove helpful. Who does the university say should be taught? What are they being taught? And why are they being taught those things?

The available documentary evidence suggests a recent shift in the universities’ understanding of who should constitute the student body. In 2007, for example, Berkeley highlighted the fact that 90% of its undergraduates were from in-state. By 2011, the target was to raise the out-of-state and international undergraduate population to 20% of the student body. ‘We cannot’, argued Birgeneau, ‘sustainably afford to educate significant numbers of Californians for whom we receive no state funding …’.

Stony Brook has similarly implemented a target of 30% for out-of-state and international students. Attracting students from outside the region, it noted, generates additional spending in the University and the wider economy. Interestingly, however, a year after the strategic plan pledged that in-state student numbers would fall to 70% of the total, President Stanley’s inaugural speech highlighted the fact that 85% of students were currently from in-state – in other words, that ‘we are educating New Yorkers’. This observation came in the context of a speech that described Stony Brook as ‘an absolutely vital part’ of New York’s economic recovery and made an emphatic case for increasing state funding of Stony Brook.

Wherever they may come from, what is it that students are being taught? Here, Berkeley stood apart from UIC and Stony Brook with a more explicit commitment to the primacy of a liberal arts education. UIC, in contrast, positioned itself predominantly as providing education that prepared students ‘for the world in which they will be citizens’. Where UIC made repeated reference to professional education, Stony Brook identified expansion in this area alongside creation of a ‘core curriculum’ for undergraduates that encourages critical thinking and ‘basic familiarity with the power of science, technology, the arts, humanities and social sciences’.

The relationship between breadth and purpose of the education mission is not a straightforward one. At the same time as drawing attention to the broad-based nature of what it teaches, in respect of outcomes Stony Brook focused clearly and repeatedly on the economic and workforce benefits of higher education. UIC, in an inversion of this pattern, placed professional education programmes far more centrally in its discussion of what was being taught, but defined the outcomes and beneficiaries of this education more broadly. The relationship might have been held at Berkeley, but elsewhere breadth of taught content – or at least the approximation of this offered by provision of a liberal arts education – and breadth of anticipated outcomes did not go hand in hand.

As to why the universities provide the education they do to the students whom they enrol, two related yet distinct forms of benefit were noted. Each university identified both forms, and so the distinction between them was a matter of degree. The first, broader interpretation of benefit envisaged positive social outcomes from higher education that included graduates who are willing and able to serve the public good as more productive, engaged citizens and better leaders. The second interpretation focused more exclusively on the private benefits of higher education. These included both individual benefits – notably improved employment prospects – and the advantages for the American economy attendant on this contribution to the workforce.

Berkeley stressed service to the public good more overtly and more frequently than did either other university, and in 2014 Chancellor Dirks expressed concern that ‘education is increasingly seen as a private good at best’. Both Stony Brook and UIC made repeated reference to their role of meeting workforce needs. Nevertheless, the social good – and particularly the need to instil the values of citizenship – remained a theme throughout the study period. In addition, there was some evidence that public and private benefits were regarded as complementary, as when Stony Brook identified success in placing graduates in the job market as evidence of its relevance to social needs. Similarly, improving access was promoted for both its public benefits (improving social justice) and its private (largely economic) ends.

Engagement with external communities

Engagement with external communities formed the third part of the institutions’ stated missions. What form of engagement was emphasised varied not only between institutions but according to the audience for a particular speech or report. The acknowledged benefits of engagement can be divided broadly into three categories. The first includes those accruing to industry, to the workforce, and to the economy more broadly. The second concentrates on quality of life and the benefits of engagement activities to society at large, with healthcare a particular focus of attention. Thirdly, the university itself was seen as a beneficiary, through engagement’s impact on research, on teaching, on university reputation, and on income flows. In the documents studied, the intersection of these varied outcomes with different audiences and scales of operation produced a complex picture.

At Berkeley, the emphasis tended towards engagement for the benefit of society. Specifically, service to ‘the people of California’ has been consistently stressed. This service is both direct, encompassing the benefits of research, and indirect, arising from the education of ‘a new generation of leaders, innovators, and educators’. The University’s liberal arts focus was considered central to this outcome. Successive chancellors have described the ‘privilege’ of being at Berkeley and the ‘obligation to give back to society’ attendant on it, and they have committed the University to ensuring that students ‘ask themselves and each other the most challenging moral and intellectual questions about meaning and purpose in our lives and in our society’.

Preparation of students for ‘public service’ and ‘leadership’ was central to Berkeley’s discussion of engagement. The economic mission, meanwhile, undoubtedly figured more strongly at Stony Brook than at Berkeley. While the latter acknowledges an economic function, emphasis was most pronounced between 2005 and 2012 and has since declined. The former’s rationales for engaging with third parties included acting as a ‘regional economic engine’, filling the gap left ‘as the private sector pulls out of the research arena’, and helping ‘to create student employment opportunities’. Yet the engagement mission even here remained tied to enhancing ‘quality of life’ more generally – including through contribution to the region’s health and a commitment to answering ‘the big questions, the questions that matter’.

UIC’s engagement mission was subtly different again. Where Stony Brook referenced the region and state, UIC defined itself as ‘inextricably tied to the city of Chicago’. Through its Great Cities initiative, the University has for over 20 years ‘sought to improve the quality of life’ in its home city (and in other ‘great cities’ worldwide). And although UIC, too, highlighted the economy as a key to urban development, in its references to ‘job-centered development’ and direct engagement between the UIC Center for Urban Economic Development and ‘community organizations, labor unions, employers and government’, there was a stronger sense of commitment to the people of Chicago than to its economy per se. It is manifest, then, that private and/or economic goals were not pursued in isolation from public and/or social ones.

Competition between universities was in evidence in the engagement mission as in research. In UIC’s 2013 strategic planning document, success in engagement was overtly linked to institutional reputation. At Berkeley, the 2008 vision document identified engagement activity as a source of competitive advantage: excellent performance coupled with accessibility to students from ‘across all socioeconomic levels’, it claimed, made the University ‘uniquely attractive to faculty who want to serve the public good’. This cannot, however, be taken to imply that the universities have complete control over the activities they pursue. Although discussion focused primarily on the universities’ chosen actions, certain phrases hinted that at least part of the engagement mission was externally driven. UIC’s strategic plan described how

the growing expectation of economic development as a component of university missions places greater emphasis on the creation of new knowledge and the commercialization of innovations.

Moreover, by focusing on the financial benefits to the institution of engagement activity, each university at times pointed to engagement being a means to an end rather than a core mission in its own right. This connection, though, remained largely unarticulated, and both Stony Brook and Berkeley also claimed to be incurring costs in fulfilment of their engagement missions.

Discussion

The findings presented above advance our understanding of the three universities’ application of institutional logics in a number of ways. Firstly, reinforcing Gumport’s 2002 findings, both ‘industry’ logic – in which appeals to legitimacy are made with reference to market forces, economic development and workforce skills – and ‘social institution’ logic – which draws legitimacy from social goals as well as ‘traditional academic ideals’ (p. 54) – continued to coexist. It would therefore seem that Gumport’s contention that ‘organizational discourse about goals and solutions came to be cast in an industry logic’ (p.73), that industry logics now predominate, cannot be wholly justified.

In our study, we do not observe a wholesale undermining of educational missions – that key part of the social institution logic (e.g., Bozeman & Boardman, 2013). Moreover, Colyvas and Powell (2006, p. 315) have suggested that ‘the presence, absence, onset, and cessation of commentary can be utilized to periodize the development of an institutional rule or organizational form and to develop simple categorical measures of legitimacy’. On this basis, mention throughout the study period of values that correspond with a social institution logic – from an ‘academic’ value set in the research mission to the social justice outcomes of engagement – implies that this logic remains a valid one.

In its unique balance of disciplines, each university displayed a distinct orientation. Gumport observed UIC’s health science focus, Berkeley’s comprehensive field coverage, and Stony Brook’s techno-scientific bent in 2002, and they remained apparent. Our data also highlighted persistent differences in the spatial scales with which the universities identify when undertaking engagement work. While Berkeley stressed its responsibility to the state of California, UIC defined itself as being ‘inextricably tied’ to its home city of Chicago. This calls into question the extent of institutional isomorphism across our study institutions (cf., DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). While the missions and values of the three universities have some similarities, they were emphatically not the same. Berkeley’s Chancellor Dirks proposed that only through continued adherence to long-held values will the University justify and support its existence. The professed importance of continuity of mission suggests that inter-university differences will persist.

This is not to deny tension and even contradiction between the logics employed within each university. Our findings show evidence that, on occasion, there is just such contradiction in the universities’ positions. Industry logics were employed in the study institutions, and evidence pointed to institutional behaviour having altered in response to external pressures. Recent shifts in the balance between in-state and out-of-state students, for example, were justified on the grounds that declining state appropriations necessitated them. Yet the picture is far more complicated than simple replacement of social institution logic with industry logic. In 2008, Stony Brook pledged to increase the proportion of out-of-state students in a move that, it argued, would bring new private spending to the University and region; conversely, in 2009 President Stanley used the fact that in-state student numbers remained high to make the case for state funding. While we might infer from the 2008 target that industry logic is driving a new approach, this selective use of figures suggests that something more complex is occurring.

A possible explanation is that we are observing a kind of system-gaming behaviour in which, when deemed expedient, symbolic adherence to one logic facilitates preservation of an identity tied to a separate logic (Greenwood et al., 2011). Identification with and adoption of particular logics is an inherently political process (Bastedo, 2009), and we cannot overlook the political capital to be gained by adopting particular positions as audience dictates. A diagnosis of symbolic adherence would certainly help to make sense of, for instance, the universities’ foregrounding sometimes of the rising proportion of out-of-state students – to demonstrate financial sustainability – and sometimes of continued high proportions from in-state – to demonstrate ongoing relevance to the state. System-gaming might also account for our observation that certain standpoints (that the state benefits economically from a highly educated population, for instance) were foregrounded even as others (such as the observation of growth in federal research funding levels) were relatively sidelined.

Elements of our data, however, appeared to show mutual dependence between the logics, in which adoption of an industry logic gave renewed impetus to a social institution logic. UIC’s self-defined role as ‘regional economic engine’, for instance, was linked to its commitment to improving quality of life among Chicagoans. Without reference to their social benefits, we can only partially understand the University’s economic development goals. Social goals, meanwhile, relied at least in part on a strategy of ‘job-centred development’ for their realisation. Similarly, in evaluating its relevance to social needs, Stony Brook identified graduate job market success as key evidence. Berkeley’s commitment to improving ‘agricultural and industrial productivity’ was made in the context of service to ‘the people of California’. To overlook this connection would be to apply a partial reading that misrepresents the interconnectedness of the economic and social goals.

Evidence from our study universities thus accords with Bastedo’s (2009) and Mair et al.’s (2015) identification of organisations that recognise the potential inherent in the combination of multiple logics. Whereas these studies describe the organisations as hybrids, with the logics remaining recognisably distinct, our own research points to hybridisation of the logics themselves. We argue that when elements of a university’s organising principles can only be understood in relation to the interaction between logics, those logics can no longer be regarded as truly separate.

Concluding remarks

Collectively our findings show multiple strategies at play in the universities’ responses to concurrent demands of social institution and industry logics. No single response can be observed, even within a single university. Of the responses we observed, we are most interested in hybridisation – the blending of industry and social institution logics to create a new form. Slaughter and Rhoades (2004, p. 336) conclude that: ‘Rather than simply seeking to maximize external revenue generation, academic capitalism could seek to enhance the social benefits of intellectual property and educational services’. In uncovering instances in which elements of an industry logic give renewed impetus to a social institution logic, we demonstrate (albeit in a limited way) that such an alternative is employed in some universities’ statements of institutional relevance.

The concept of hybrid or blended logics suggests a promising framework for understanding how universities can and do manage and exploit tensions in their missions. We have thus far looked at the largely theoretical world of mission definition and see merit in exploring the hybridisation of logics in practice. What examples of hybridisation can be identified in the practices of these and other universities? How is the hybrid logic brought about? And, importantly, what are the limits: under what circumstances will industry logic support social institution logic, and under what circumstances supplant it?

Sataøen (2015, p. 714) has called for research into ‘the process whereby core values … are negotiated and built’ so as to better understand how universities manage tensions in their mission. Further research into the role of hybrid logics would seem to answer that call. In addition to its potential descriptive power, we contend that such research could also make a valuable contribution to universities’ strategic planning processes. As universities seek to position themselves amid potentially contradictory or competing logics (Rizvi, 2006), answers to the questions posed above might allow us to better predict circumstances under which these logics could be aligned in a mutually beneficial, hybrid form. Appropriately applied, the findings could serve as another tool in universities’ multifaceted response to institutional complexity.

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, Washington, D.C., USA, November 2014. The authors gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments of Jim Hearn, Vijay Kanagala, and the editor and reviewers for this journal.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Appendix

Table A1. Stony Brook University, documents analysed.

2000	Five Year Plan: 2000
2008	Five Year Plan 2008–2013
	The Impact of Stony Brook University: Driving the Long Island Economy
2009	Inaugural Address, President Samuel L. Stanley Jr., M.D.
2010	State of the University Address 2010
	Written Testimony of President Stanley to the Joint Economic Committee, US Congress
2011	State of the University Address 2011
2012	State of the University Address 2012
2013	State of the University Address 2013
	Reimagining Stony Brook: A Strategic Vision for 2013–2018
2014	Institutional Self-Study

Table A2. University of California-Berkeley, documents analysed.

2002	UC Berkeley Strategic Academic Plan
2005	Frontiers of Knowledge, Frontiers of Education, Chancellor Birgeneau’s inaugural address
2007	A Modern Public University, Chancellor’s Commentary in Nature Materials
2008	The UC Berkeley Strategic Academic Plan: Five-Year Review
	Access and Excellence, Chancellor’s vision for campus
2011	State of the Campus Message from Chancellor Birgeneau
2012	International Strategy Taskforce Report
	Knowledge Made in America: A Private-Public Funding Model for Leading Public Research Universities
2013	Utopian Pasts and Futures, Chancellor Dirks’ inaugural address
	UC Berkeley Institutional Self-Study for Accreditation
	Guide for the Review of Existing Instructional Programs
2014	The Utopian Past and Future of the Public University: A View from Berkeley, Chancellor’s address to the Commonwealth Club

Table A3. University of Illinois-Chicago, documents analysed.

2005	UIC 2010 Strategic Thinking
2006	UIC Strategic Plan, Version 1.3
2007	UIC Higher Learning Commission 2007 Reaccreditation Self-Study
2010	State of the Campus, Chancellor’s remarks, 2010 Leadership Retreat
	The University Without Walls: UIC, Its Great Cities Commitment, and New City-Based Centers of Engagement, University ‘draft’ internal policy note, made publicly available online
	Urbanization, Globalization, Massification, and Technology, University ‘draft’ internal policy note, made publicly available online
2011	State of the Campus, Chancellor’s remarks, 2011 Leadership Retreat
	Bringing Administrators Together, Chancellor’s conference address
2013	Focusing on Urban Excellence: A Vision for Achieving Excellence at Chicago’s Public Research University