University Governance in Meso and Macro Perspectives

Abstract

This review explores the two sides of university governance. From a meso perspective, it deals with universities as organized structures where priorities have to be set, decisions made, budgets allocated, teaching programs developed, and research achieved. This perspective relates to the sociology of organizations, and this review first explores the four founding models that aimed to qualify university governance and how they have helped understanding the evolution of universities in recent years. But at a macro level, university governance deals with universities as a sector and focuses on how they interact with one another, their relationships to the state, and how they are affected by national as well as transnational and global transformations. University governance is studied as a state-steered national system, as a field, or as a competitive arena.