In Europe and beyond, managerialism triggered the rise of "boardism" as a distinctive governance praxis in higher education, involving both normative assumptions and technical and practical elements. In this paper, we examine to what extent strategizing processes in Portuguese higher education institutions reflect the reconfiguration of power relationships at the institutional level. The paper draws on survey data to examine the perceptions of the teaching staff and non-teaching staff in public and private Portuguese higher education institutions. It aims at identifying what strategizing processes reveal about the implications of the decrease of academic self-governance, the increase of managerial governance and the increasing influence of external members in the composition of the governing bodies. The analysis of the Portuguese case contributes to the understanding of governance challenges in managing change in a context of uncertainty with an eye on how governance practitioners might deal with the issues it raises.