This paper suggests that as university missions have adapted to accommodate major developments associated with, for instance, mass higher education and internationalisation agendas, university workforces have diversified. They now, for instance, incorporate practitioners in areas such as health and social care, and professional staff who support…

In this article, we will argue that students played an important role at several crucial junctures of modern Czech history, which secured them a central position after 1989 in the new democratic model of higher education governance. However, over the last two decades students have largely lost this position owing to several factors: the growing…

The analysis begins with a comprehensive overview of legal provisions for student participation in higher education governance over the past few decades. How has the involvement of students in decision-making processes developed? The answer will be provided for the sub-institutional level of faculties and degree programmes; the institutional…

This article aims at analysing and discussing student participation in Portuguese higher education institutions and, specifically, in university governance. In a first moment, it describes this participation under both the previous (1988-2007) and the new legal frameworks (since 2007). A discussion of the changes introduced by this last framework…

The article discusses the question of student participation in higher education governance at the national and the institutional levels in Norway. Two ideal-type perspectives on governance are developed in order to illuminate the Norwegian case: a democratic perspective and a market perspective. The article provides a brief overview of the…

This article provides a synthesizing overview of the roles of students in higher education governance in Europe. We first review the existing literature on student involvement in higher education governance in order to locate the contribution of this special issue of "Tertiary Education and Management." Second, we summarize the key findings of the…

In the United Kingdom, the higher education landscape has undergone a transformation since the late 1980s as seen in the "massification" of higher education and the "quality revolution". These changes have resulted in an increased sense of accountability, to principle stakeholders: the government, the taxpayer and students themselves. This paper…

Leadership of academic units, in the guise of headship of departments, is crucial for the ongoing well-being of academic life and yet it remains a contested role. This paper argues for the role of heads of department (HODs) as academic leaders, with the managerial side of the role occupying an important but subsidiary place in its overall focus.…

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the decision-making styles of department chairs employed by three public institutions in Jordan. A total of 95 department chairs participated in the study by completing the General Decision-Making Styles survey. The results indicated that department chairs under study have the rational…

In the context of new public management reforms, many business management concepts were transferred to universities. Most studies on the transfer of business management concepts to universities show that transfers were not as successful as expected. These studies also provide nuances as to why it is such a delicate matter. However, a basic…

This article explores how budget cuts affected faculty in two departments--a physical sciences department and a humanities department--at one research university in the USA. Using theories of academic capitalism as a guide, the author focuses in particular on changes in governance structures and increasing competition between disciplines for…

This paper presents an empirical study which explored how deans at German universities accept their new role as manager, and which factors influence the acceptance of this role. Within a framework referring to Locke and Latham's goal setting theory, the acceptance of operative goals implemented in the faculties served as an indicator of how well…

This article reports on research to form an understanding of how to account whether and how quality management (QM) has been adopted in Greek higher education. Greece only recently introduced quality assurance policies. In this study, I will describe governmental reforms related to QM policies until 2010. An issue that is frequently addressed…

The functions of teaching and research in higher education institutions (HEIs) are being reassessed, with particular emphasis on the contribution they make to the welfare of their economic and social environment. To this end, HEIs need to engage in profitable relationships with various stakeholders and incorporate their respective visions into…

In the past three decades, higher education reforms have taken place almost everywhere in the world, and governance or the way that higher education is or should be coordinated has become a global topic. The governance reform in Chinese higher education emerged against such a background. The current studies on Chinese higher education reforms…