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BERIT ASKLING, MARIANNE BAUER AND SUSAN MARTON
SWEDISH UNIVERSITIES TOWARDS SELF-REGULATION:
A NEW LOOK AT INSTITUTIONAL AUTONOMY
ABSTRACT. Swedish universities are required to change towards more effective self-
regulation as the government has recently reduced state steering and devolved further
responsibilities to them. In this paper, ‘self-regulation’ is related to the concept of
‘autonomy’, a concept which is analysed on the two dimensions of ‘purpose’ and
‘authority’, resulting in four models of state governance and consequently in a different
‘space of action’ for the institutions. However, in order to develop self-regulation, the space
granted must also be used effectively to realise autonomy. Six Swedish higher education
institutions are analysed concerning how they have used their new space of action and whatrestrictions they have met in their efforts for self-regulation.
INTRODUCTION AND PURPOSE
In several countries, governments during the past decade have retreated
from detailed regulation and steering of higher education, instead
devolving decision making authority and responsibility to the institutions
and their leadership. Many factors have been attributed to these changes,
including the growth in student numbers and the increased diversity in
purposes and tasks which required increased flexibility and innovation
capacity in the institutions. Faced with restrictions in national budgets,
many governments also withdrew from being the sole financier of higher
education and attempted to introduce market-related elements to stimulate
the institutions’ sensitivity to external interests and to search for funding
on new markets. Governance by regulation, earlier a predominant model of
state governance in most European countries, was replaced by a model in
which the institutions are expected to shoulder a more active role as entities
with their own authority. This change in governance has been named a
shift from ‘State Control’ to ‘Self-Regulation’ of the institutions, with a
‘Supervising State’ as a consequence (Van Vught 1989).
In spite of the frequent use of the word self-regulation and somedevelopment of its implications (e.g. Kells 1992; Trow 1993; Maassen
1996) it is still a rather unspecified concept as to what is required
from a self-regulating higher education institution. Thus, another look
Tertiary Education and Management 5: 175–195, 1999.
© 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
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176 BERIT ASKLING ET AL.
at this concept is necessary. By relating self-regulation to institutional
autonomy and by analysing it in terms of the capacity of a university to
act within an available “space of action” granted by the state, we deduce
some requirements for self-regulating higher education institutions. Theserequirements are used here in our analysis of Swedish universities after the
decentralising reform of 1993. Our overall aim is to provide a better under-
standing of these various and new requirements on institutional leadership,
management and academic staff.
TOWARDS SELF-REGULATING UNIVERSITIES:
THE SWEDISH CASE
The Swedish Higher Education Reform of 1993 is like a text-book example
of transition from a ‘State Control’ model to ‘State Supervision’ (Bauer
1996; Marton 1996) in that it manifests the government’s intention tosteer the higher education institutions at a distance and to increase their
autonomy. Regulations were to be replaced by evaluations, ex ante steering
by ex post control. A strong academic leadership was requested and the
ultimate role of the rector as the institutional leader was emphasised.
Yet, it was easier to define what kind of governance was to be replaced
than to outline and set into action a new model. A resource allocation
system which linked resources for undergraduate education to both quan-
titative and qualitative performance was initially proposed. Development
of quality indicators was suggested, but this was heavily criticised and
eventually withdrawn by the government. However, in order to protect
quality, the new National Agency for Higher Education was instructed to
create a model for national audits of the institutions’ own systems and
programmes for quality assurance and development. The aim of the audits
was formulated by the agency in the following way:
Our aim is to strengthen the individual institution’s own ability to i) formulate goals
and choose strategies for its operations, and ii) make these goals and strategies manifest,
evident and openly communicable within the institution itself, as well as in its relations to
the government and other interested authorities, organisations and bodies (Högskoleverket
1996, p. 13).
It is in the instructions for these audits that the model of self-regulation
first underwent an explicit presentation in Sweden. A larger space of action
was made available to the institutions by the new government policy. This
space of action could be used in different ways however, not necessarilyalways contributing to increased self-regulation.
This possibility provided the focus for a recently completed study
(Bauer et al., in press) of the policy-making process and changes in the
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SWEDISH UNIVERSITIES TOWARDS SELF-REGULATION 177
Swedish higher education system and its impact on the institutions and
their internal workings. In this paper, we use empiry from that study to
analyse how Swedish universities are progressing towards self-regulation.
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
The concept of self-regulation
The strategy of self-regulation puts emphasis “on the self-regulatory
capacities of higher education institutions within a regulatory framework
provided by government. It is a combination of (less) governmental control
and (more) institutional autonomy” (Kells & Van Vught 1988, p. 17). For
our analysis of the process of self-regulation, we need a broad concep-
tual framework which includes variety in the demands placed on the
universities as well as variety in institutional management and collegialarrangements. We attempt to achieve this by deepening the analysis of
the meaning and implications of self-regulation and by relating it to
the concept of institutional autonomy. We also explore the relationship
between institutional autonomy and “realised autonomy” in order to better
understand the capacity of different levels to use the space of action
granted to them.
Institutional autonomy and space of action
Institutional autonomy is most commonly thought of as the degree of
freedom the university has to steer itself. However, this common concep-
tion does not necessarily make the task of defining the term easier. AsEric Ashby once stated, “the question as to what constitutes autonomy in
universities is anything but unambiguous, and the patterns of autonomy
which satisfy academics are very diverse” (Berdahl 1990a, p. 169).
In an effort to clarify the autonomy issue, Berdahl discusses two types
of autonomy – procedural and substantive:
Substantive autonomy is the power of the university or college in its corporate form to
determine its own goals and programmes – if you will, the what of academe. Procedural
autonomy is the power of the university or college in its corporate form to determine the
means by which its goals and programmes will be pursued – the how of academe (Berdahl
1990a, p. 172).
We still find this distinction between procedural and substantive somewhatdifficult to operationalise for empirical study. We would like to suggest
that it is helpful to think of substantive autonomy in terms of a dimen-
sion labelled ‘purpose’, i.e. what the role of higher education in society
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178 BERIT ASKLING ET AL.
is or should be along a continuum based on either cultural or utilitarian
values. Cultural values would emphasise the disinterested pursuit of know-
ledge, given the understanding that in such pursuit, the goals of society
are best met in the long run. Utilitarian values would on the other hand,emphasise that knowledge should be pursued/created in the process of
meeting socially determined goals.1
Using Ashby’s and Anderson’s (1966) components of institutional
autonomy2 and classifying them as components of Berdahl’s ‘procedural’
autonomy, we have a list which relates to the distribution of authority
from the national government to the institutions, which we will call
the “authority dimension”, running along a continuum from “centralised
to decentralised”. By combining the two dimensions of ‘purpose’ and
‘authority’, the following four types of state governance models emerge:
1) “security guard”, 2) “honour society”, 3) “social goals”, 4) “invisible
hand” (See Figure 1).
By analysing the concept of “institutional autonomy” within these fourtypes of state governance, it becomes evident that the degree of insti-
tutional autonomy varies among them. Thus, these four types of state
governance add depth to the institutional autonomy debate, moving beyond
the common conception of institutional autonomy as just related to the
vertical shift of authority from centralised to decentralised state authority
(Van Vught 1988), or the conception of institutional autonomy as being
related only to the purpose of the university (Tasker & Packham 1990).
Rather, institutional autonomy is intricately tied to understandings of both
the purpose of higher education and the way in which the state exercises
authority.3
The first typology which results from such a combination, here labelled“security guard”, strongly emphasises academic freedom and a very wide
degree of substantial autonomy, with the unity of science and teaching as
the key elements for the university. Referred to often as the Humboldtian
ideal, this tradition recognises that the nation-state is only to safeguard
and guarantee university autonomy so as to protect the university from
forces both on the outside of the university (religious powers for example),
and threats from within, such as internal power struggles (Bleiklie 1994).
This typology is not very restrictive upon institutional autonomy, since the
“state recognises and accepts the university’s own authority on the basis
of its scientific contributions” (Mayer 1997). However, the state can retain
some control over the universities in the appropriation of funds and in the
area of faculty appointments, where the appointment of senior professorsfor example is seen as a “civil service” issue.
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SWEDISH UNIVERSITIES TOWARDS SELF-REGULATION 179
The second typology, which we here call “honour society”, is most
closely associated with the example of the British autonomous institu-
tion. The primary goals are based on cultural values, emphasising the
disinterested pursuit of knowledge. In addition, there is a high aware-ness of the universities’ role in the “forming of student character” (Clark
1995, p. 58) as evidenced by the traditions of Oxford and Cambridge.
Academics have a large zone of substantive autonomy and they “set their
own objectives, evaluate each other by processes of peer review and accord
maximum autonomy to both individuals and the basic units in which they
work” (Kogan 1992, p. 1929). The role of central government is minimal,
with no role assumed as ‘protector’ of the institutions from outside (and
inside) forces. Thus a type of ‘trust’, an ‘honoring’ of one’s words, exists
between the central government and the universities. This model is the
least restrictive on all criteria for institutional autonomy.
The third typology, labelled “social goals”, is located on the other side
of the purpose dimension, where utilitarian values are dominant. Oftenreferred to as the ‘command/managerialist’ model in the higher education
literature, this type assumes a more limited degree of substantive autonomy
where “academic objectives are subsets of social objectives which can be
laid down by systems and university managers” (Kogan 1992, p. 1929).
The state exercises its power not only through legislation and budgetary
policy but also in areas that are viewed as traditionally ‘academic’ –
i.e. admission policies, type of curriculum, research agendas and assess-
ment methods, areas which are labelled as procedural. Given both the
authority of the state and the predominance of state goals, rather than of
the internal goals of the academics, this model strongly restricts the extent
of institutional autonomy.Our fourth typology, “invisible hand”, reflects the possibility of
academics functioning in an open market as providers of services to clients
who are willing to purchase them. Students will be buying courses, and
research will be supported by external sponsors and commissioned projects
(Gustavsson 1997; Kogan 1992). However, the state may act as a provider
of subsidies in this model, thus helping to set the terms of the market.
Under this ideal, often called the university as “corporate enterprise”, the
university “consists of a leadership and different functional (academic,
technical and administrative) staff groups servicing different user groups in
need of the services the enterprise offers” (Bleiklie 1994, p. 11). Efficiency
in delivering useful products (i.e. research and graduates) is a predominant
goal, and all ‘affected’ groups are entitled to input in university affairs.4
Thus, the extent of substantive autonomy is restricted by a variety of
‘affected’ groups, not just by the central government. This “invisible hand”
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180 BERIT ASKLING ET AL.
Figure 1. Four types of state governance resulting in different degrees of institutional
autonomy.
typology also puts procedural autonomy somewhat at risk as traditional
criteria such as the content of the curriculum and the agenda for research,
as well as methods of assessment, are in need of approval/support from
markets and customers.
Certainly, the models of state governance depicted above can be under-
stood as ‘snapshots’ of systems which can be changing frequently in
response to the political conflicts in society. But we hope that by defining
institutional autonomy in terms of criteria of procedural autonomy, and
locating them within the four types of state governance mentioned above,
the complexity of the concept can be grasped. Furthermore, any discussion
of institutional autonomy should also include a description of what is the
purpose of the higher education institutions. Given this combination, we
can now rank the four types of state governance in terms of the degree to
which they restrict institutional autonomy which is depicted in Figure 1.
In this paper, we are concerned not only with the degree of autonomy
which the universities have been granted, but also with the resulting
implications for the universities of such a change from a heavily regu-
lated “social goals” model to a self-regulating “invisible hand” model.We will investigate this change in autonomy by referring to a common
discussion in the social sciences – that of the actor-structure relationship
(Etzioni 1968; Lundqvist 1987).5 This model helps to illuminate an aspect
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SWEDISH UNIVERSITIES TOWARDS SELF-REGULATION 181
of the self-regulating university which is often overlooked – the capacity
of the academics and the institutional leaders to fulfil the responsibilities
which have been transferred to them during this change in models. In order
to develop a more self-regulating institution, the space granted must beeffectively used to realise autonomy. There is otherwise a risk that the new
freedom and authority can be overtaken by other public authorities, can be
lost to market forces or can become totally dispersed within the univer-
sity. The key point in “realised autonomy” is that the actor’s autonomy is
dependent upon the extent to which he succeeds in exploiting his space of
action and his capacity for action in order to realise his own preferences.
This distinction in conceptualising autonomy is substantial for all levels
of our study as we discuss the space of action given in relation to the capa-
city for action in the relationships between the higher education institutions
and the state, between the institutional leadership and the faculties, and
between the individual academic and his/her department.
DESIGN AND DATA
Design
A central theme in our study is the interplay between actors and structures
in a changing higher education system. We identify three major levels
where such interplay can be documented and the consequences of this are
empirically identified and analysed: These include the state (macro), the
higher education institutions (meso) and the individual and the academic
community (micro). These three levels form the basis for our empiricalstudies.
Data
The data for this investigation are derived from documents, statistics
and semi-structured interviews and cover our three levels.6 Data include
Parliament and Government reform documents and material from central
agencies. Reports and descriptions of internal governance have been
collected from the institutions in the study – four universities and two
university-colleges – as well as accounts of their systems for quality assur-
ance and development. When relevant, documented information also from
other Swedish higher education institutions has been employed. At thebasic level academics representing six disciplines were selected for the
study: biochemistry, economics, history, modern languages, physics and
sociology.
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182 BERIT ASKLING ET AL.
EMPIRICAL RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
Changes in government policy
We have previously mentioned that the Swedish higher education system
has moved towards a model of ‘state supervision’, where self-regulation
has been promoted by the National Agency for Higher Education as a
model for institutional governance (see Section 2). The changes which
came about between the reform of 1977 and the reform of 1993, reflect
a transformation in the central government’s view on both the purpose of
the higher education system in society and on the distribution of authority
between the institutions and the state.7
Changes which primarily characterised the shift in purpose are the
emphasis in the 1990’s on the needs of a broad “knowledge society” rather
than of a narrowly defined job market, along with the relinquishing of the
use of the higher education system to reform society, and instead a focustowards the various market demands and the need for “academic excel-
lence”. In the 1970’s, the higher education system was intricately involved
in building the Swedish welfare state. This was reflected in the division
of undergraduate education into five major occupational groupings, with a
‘study-line’ system which was to prepare students for the job market (with
a heavy emphasis on careers in the public service). In the early 1990’s,
this line system was replaced by a new system of degrees and the central
regulation of course curriculum was significantly reduced.8
Such a shift in the distribution of authority between the state and the
institutions naturally brought about a change in the authority of the central
bureaucracy, with a new emphasis on accountability rather than on plan-
ning and managing the system.9 The tasks of the university boards changed
radically from those of the 1970’s when their primary task was to imple-
ment centrally determined goals and manage the allocation of resources
as prescribed by the central government. Now, increased local freedom
to determine the administrative composition of the rector’s office at each
higher education institution was also granted.
One of the most prominent policy changes occurring in the early 1990’s
was the introduction of a new resource allocation system. The universities
are now competing at the undergraduate level for students (within the
boundaries of top limits still set by the Government) and are allocated
money not just based on student enrolment, but also on the semester-based
study results of the students.Having described these changes along our two dimensions, it becomes
evident that the Swedish higher education system has shifted from a “social
goals” governance type to an “invisible hand” type. Although there has
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SWEDISH UNIVERSITIES TOWARDS SELF-REGULATION 183
Figure 2. A summary of shifts in state governance of higher education in Sweden,
1977–1997.
been some retreat from the original intentions of the 1993 reform with the
election of a new government in 1994 (see Figure 2), significant changes in
internal organisation and in resource distribution are still making a strong
impact on the system today.
Changes in institutional leadership, organisation and management
On the institutional level, we focus in particular on two issues: the internal
devolution of authority and the search for new models of management and
leadership.
On this level the reform was implemented in a context characterised by
a widened space of action in combination with economic incentives. The
1993 reform was also introduced as a reform of ‘freedom’. However, it
soon became evident that the new system called for more local planning,
more local accountability, more local control, and more responsibility for
those who are in leadership positions – and thus also for a stronger and
more pronounced institutional management, a good example of the so-
called decentralisation paradox (Askling 1994).
The government had strengthened the academic individual leadershipby explicitly pointing out the rector as the institutional leader. Without
having argued against the traditional collegiate model, the government
expected a more corporate management-like style of internal governance.
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184 BERIT ASKLING ET AL.
For those who held the overall responsibility for the entire institution, the
shift in tasks and duties, responsibilities and authority – and in work-load
– was dramatic.
The delegation of procedural autonomy to the institutions meant anincrease in their financial risk-taking against a background of growth in
student numbers, decline in per-student funding, and competition for the
best students. Expectations on efficiency and quality increased, along with
proposals from the government for additional assignments, quality audits
and accountability reports.
In order to cope with the contradictory endeavours towards procedural
autonomy, flexibility, adaptability, strong leadership and, at the same time,
decentralisation and freedom, different models of delegation and leader-
ship were tried out. The value-loaded concept decentralisation contributed
to an initial confusion and ambiguity by referring to a transfer of authority
from the State to the institutions, while no indications were given for how
this authority should be distributed between the top level of the institution,the deans and the academics.
In short, with regard to the devolution of authority, three distinct models
of internal distribution of authority can been identified from our empirical
data.
The first spontaneous interpretation among academics to the decen-
tralisation in the 1993 reform was that the devolving of authority to the
institutions was to be followed by a similar devolution within the insti-
tutions to the faculty boards and to the departments and the academics.
That would allow for an allocation of power on academic issues to the
academics themselves.
Some institutional leaders drew the same conclusion, and the responsi-bilities together with a wide range of administrative tasks were delegated
to the faculty boards and, with regard to specific issues, to the depart-
ment boards. Thereby was consolidated what can be called a formal
“hierarchical model” of institutional governance (see Figure 3).
The initial experiences of this radical devolution of authority were
sometimes rather frustrating. Issues tended to be transmitted upwards and
downwards between the boards, and no one had a qualified overview or
enough authority to make final decisions. At some universities, the initial
devolution to the faculties went too far and at least some of the authority
had to be reallocated to the institutional level. The rectors admit that they
did not fully anticipate the consequences when they initially supported the
radical devolution of authority.The strictly vertical decentralisation also released strong centrifugal
forces. The strongest centrifugal forces came from faculties with the most
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SWEDISH UNIVERSITIES TOWARDS SELF-REGULATION 185
Figure 3. The hierarchical model of institutional governance (from Askling 1998c).
prestigious professionally oriented programmes and the largest proportion
of external funding, such as the faculties of Medicine, Schools of Business
and Economics and the faculties (or schools) of Technology. Some univer-
sities tried to calm down these centrifugal forces by giving each faculty,
or groups of faculties, an extensive autonomy of their own. Each faculty
established and consolidated its own centre office of administration and the
central administration of the institution was reduced, and within their own
faculties the deans took over many of the functions of the rector. In prac-
tice, the number of organisational levels was reduced. These universities
organised themselves almost as a collection of independent Faculties or
Schools which represents our second model, that is “a federation model”
of institutional governance (See Figure 4).However, not all universities responded to the reform by such a radical
internal devolution of authority. Already in the end of the 1980’s, when the
model of goal-outcome steering was introduced throughout the Swedish
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186 BERIT ASKLING ET AL.
Figure 4. The federation model of institutional governance (from Askling 1998c).
public administration, the internal consequences of the application of such
model and the shift in state steering from ex ante regulation to ex post control were analysed at one university (Andersson 1997). A few years
later, a similar analysis was carried out as part of the basis for a new system
of authority delegation by another university (Askling, Almén & Karlsson
1995).
These analyses anticipated that with a strict vertical transmission of
power, it would be difficult to make decisions implying inter-faculty
manoeuvres, e.g. to create interdisciplinary or inter-faculty oriented
programmes or courses (Andersson 1997). Therefore, these universities
explicitly broke up the internal hierarchical structure. The particular types
of responsibilities and initiatives of the university board, the faculty boards,
and the department boards were identified and separated, as was the type
of relationships between these boards. Staff was appointed by the univer-
sity that had an employer’s responsibility, which was delegated to the
departments and the department heads. The faculty boards got a particular
responsibility for keeping and controlling academic standards, while the
departments got an operative responsibility for teaching and research, forstaff qualifications and staff development. From this follows that if the
rector wanted to establish a more executive institutional leadership he/she
had to establish a closer and direct relation to the basic units, the depart-
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SWEDISH UNIVERSITIES TOWARDS SELF-REGULATION 187
Figure 5. The triangular model of institutional governance (from Askling, Almen &
Karlsson 1995).
ments, and in particular to the heads of the departments (See Figure 5). By
conceptualising the dispersion of responsibilities as a triangle, the uniqueset of responsibilities of each decision-making body was identified as was
also the character of relationships between the corners of the triangle.
This model challenged the departments as having an active and
dynamic role in the university organisation, a role that the hierarchical
model prevents. The triangular model fits an interpretation of the university
as an enterprise and not just as a collection of academics, organised in
a collegial way. Evidently, this model has implications for the organisa-
tion of departments. In order to create strong basic units, there is a clear
tendency to merge disciplines into larger departments.10
In common for all institutional leaders was that they found themselves
squeezed between two contradictory intentions, namely to increase the
executive capacity of the rectorate for long-term strategic planning, but
not the costs for the central administration. In order to bring that about,
some rectors appointed vice rectors and formed advisory groups with the
deans and vice-rectors, the registrar and other senior administrators in
the rector’s office. They also proposed inter-faculty committees or coun-
cils to be established and commissioned by the university board to cover
particular strategic issues.
At some institutions, the vice rectors have an operative leadership func-
tion for particular units within the central administration. Some of these
bodies are responsible for policy issues (e.g. internationalisation, quality),
others are more executive (e.g. student affairs, external contracts). Thus,
a matrix-like organisation was introduced and the number of persons withan inter-faculty responsibility increased. Clark (1998) noticed the same
strategy adopted at some innovative universities. Many deans, however,
objected to this matrix organisation, in particular when these inter-faculty
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188 BERIT ASKLING ET AL.
groups were granted formal decision-making powers which could be used
to generate costs for “the line”. A lesson, so far, is that the relationship
between the deans, in the vertical line dimension, and the vice-rectors,
council chairs etc., in the inter-faculty dimension, must be clear, and thatthe decision-making power ought to be restricted to the rector and the
deans.
Our data demonstrates that the new managerial role of the rector is
much more demanding and time-consuming and laborious than any of
the academic leaders had expected. The amplitude of the changes away
from the former collegial academic leadership was unforeseen, as was the
complexity of the tasks and the intensity of the work. On the whole, it
is striking how absent references to the professors are in the interview
responses of the leaders. In the new power structure of the institution at
large, the corpus of professors (the chair holders) apparently has no role.
Changes at academics’ level
From the interpretations of the 1993 reform and the measures undertaken
at institutional level, we could claim that there has been uncertainty among
the leaders but also a growing insight about the purport of self-regulation as
a governance model for universities. Among academic staff in departments
and other basic units the perception and reception of this reform have been
somewhat different.
To begin with, the significance of the reform was often downplayed, and
the changes that had occurred during the past few years were attributed
to other factors such as start of a new rector’s mandate or ‘international
trends’. Few seemed to be fully aware of the crucial change in the relation-
ship between the state and the universities and the implications it would
carry for the life within the institutions.
However, consequences of the reform soon became apparent to the
academic staff as well. In a short-term perspective, the single most evident
change was the new resource allocation system for undergraduate educa-
tion. With its radical shift from input- to performance-based resource
distribution it has, as intended, led to increased economic considerations,
and focused the attention of both managers and academic staff to the
students – to their recruitment and to the progress of their studies. In
combination with the simultaneous strong growth in student numbers, as
well as in student categories, this change in the resource allocation system
has had considerable impact on the working conditions at basic level. Itrequires more effort to be put into teaching and forms of examination; all
this at the same time as demands on research, administrative tasks, and the
need for co-operation with society also increased.
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SWEDISH UNIVERSITIES TOWARDS SELF-REGULATION 189
Although all these structural factors had a restricting impact on the
space of action granted to the institutions, an exception was seen in the
development of new courses and programmes. In this respect, the capa-
city (i.e. the competence and motivation among faculty) for innovationwas high and the available space was used effectively, evidenced by the
impressive development at most universities and colleges of new, often
cross-disciplinary, courses.
Reform changes which later became noticeable for academic staff were
the various consequences of the distribution of authority and responsibility
taking place within the institutions. This impact varies depending on struc-
tural factors like the size and economic conditions of the institutions and
departments, as well as on the difference in internal governance models
that were chosen. As described in the previous section, impacts also varied
due to initial uncertainty and internal conflicts about the optimal way of
organising the institutions and of distributing authority and responsibility.
The type of change that followed from the strengthening of leadership andmanagement, and from the establishment of internal rules related to self-
regulating institutions, involves shifts both in influence and in types of
decision making – issues which are most sensitive within the academic
society. Departments have taken on increased responsibilities and obliga-
tions for their staff and budgets, yet, their space for decisions appears to
be shrinking while the instructions from the Vice Chancellor’s and Deans’
offices increase.
Thus, at the basic level among academic staff and heads of depart-
ments, the internal centralised move of authority appears as a paradoxical
consequence of a decentralising reform and is usually regretted. For
these academics, this has led both to some loss of individual freedomand to a decreasing space for collegial decision making. There is often
also a tendency to dissociate the institutional leadership from the faculty.
The institutional leaders are sometimes seen as bureaucrats, closer allied
with state authorities than with their own staff, something which might
support their categorisation as part of the ‘new intermediary body’ (Neave
1997a, b).
Another aspect in which the devolution of authority from the state to
the higher education institutions was considerable concerns the respon-
sibility for quality. As a direct consequence of the major shift to more
autonomous institutions, the already existing responsibility for quality of
teaching and research was reinforced, with greater obligations placed on
the institutional leadership and increased requirements for accountability.The institutions received great freedom in forming their own programmes
for quality assurance and enhancement – thus the granted space of action
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190 BERIT ASKLING ET AL.
was very wide. In this case, however, the readiness of the leadership and
the motivation of the academic staff were comparatively low to begin with
and the realised autonomy, therefore, was lower than the granted space of
action. The prescribed institutional programmes for quality development(to be audited by the Higher Education Agency) and the accountability
demands, thus required some system for quality assurance and for the
reporting of results within institutions. This entailed new internal regu-
lation, centrally initiated, along with increased administrative forms of
quality assurance, quite a profound change compared to previous years.
In the basic units these demands were often interpreted as a result of low
confidence in academic staff and as a form of central control. Many of
our respondents did not appreciate these kinds of changes and doubted
their effectiveness. Common rules for quality assurance were often seen as
encroaching on individual freedoms, and were looked upon as a control of
the teachers as much as of the quality results.
Thus, there is evidence of resistance among faculty towards increasinginstitutional self-regulation, since it is interpreted as threatening the influ-
ence and authority of the basic units. Academic freedoms are seen to be
at risk, striking at the core of traditional academic values – values which
according to our interviews are strongly defended.
CONCLUSIONS
As indicated in Figure 2, the shift in state governance of higher education
in Sweden during the past 20 years has been from a highly central-
ised, utilitarian type (III “social goals”) to a decentralised, more market
dependent type (IV, “invisible hand”). With this movement of respon-
sibility and authority from the state, a requirement is placed on the
universities and colleges to develop their own self-regulation. Furthermore,
the new dependence on market forces requires that the institutions become
strategic actors on this market, again presuming a strong institutional
self-regulation.
Thus, the new space of action granted to the institutions must be used
to develop their internal governance, i.e. the organisation and distribution
of responsibility and authority. In doing so they have to be sensitive to
external markets, mobilise their own innovative capacity and, not the least,
set the self-regulative governance into action.The miscellaneous models of internal devolution of authority and the
various arrangements to strengthen the institutional leadership, found in
our study, imply that there have been varying degrees of awareness of
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SWEDISH UNIVERSITIES TOWARDS SELF-REGULATION 191
and insight into the actual implications of the self-regulative model on the
internal life of the institution.
A key issue in the transformation towards self-regulative governance
apparently is by whom and how the ‘self’ in self-regulation is definedand who is challenged by it. The simultaneous references in Govern-
ment documents to decentralisation, freedom and academic autonomy,
on the one hand, led to expectations of self-regulation in terms of more
freedom for everybody, i.e. more space for values, norms and operations
of the individuals within the institution. The new demands on institu-
tional management and strong leadership, on the other hand, might all too
easily have been interpreted as an argumentation for a local centralism.
Then ‘self’ is understood as referring entirely to institutional and not to
individual self-regulation.
With the new internal organisation and distribution of authority the
available space of action has been utilised mainly on the institutional level,
and several of our respondents at basic level found that the space for theirown decisions had shrunk. As an example, their individual or collegial
responsibility for quality has been framed with collective rules for quality
assurance and obligations to account for quality measures and results.
Such consequences of the new internal governance appeared controver-
sial as against their basic academic values. Therefore, the space actually
available, for instance concerning their quality work, is not fully used,
something we interpret as “low competence” in this respect. This means
that academic staff (and to a lesser degree also the leadership) do not have
enough insight into the situation for the higher education institutions with
their new relationship to the state and to the market in a rapidly changing
environment. The motivation and readiness for the necessary change andactive use of the available space in order to realise the full autonomy will
appear only when there is a general insight into the value of and common
interest for a strong self-regulative institution.
Although, it is to early to draw any conclusions about what is best
practice, the adoption of ideas about new public management is reason-
able. The universities can no longer afford ‘amateurish’ leadership in
accordance with the traditional collegial model. However, the strength-
ening of the academic influence by appointment of additional sub-leaders
as a combination of management/academic leadership, can be interpreted
as a way of broadening the academics’ engagement in the collective
management of the institution.
An important task for the institutional leaders will be to counterbalancethe trend towards local centralism. This can be achieved by developing a
“learning organisation” through the establishment of a network model of
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192 BERIT ASKLING ET AL.
internal institutional policy-making and support of a common ‘language’
for conditions and performance of the university. An institutional leader
who wishes to realise a development towards a self-regulative model must
be executive and supportive at the same time. Clark, in his broad study of entrepreneurial universities argues against an individualistic leadership and
for a collective one. He writes, “Self-defining, self-regulating universities
have much to offer. Not the least is their capacity in difficult circumstances
to recreate an academic community” (Clark 1998, p. 148).
Our findings illustrate the hybrid character of self-regulation, which
was pointed out by Kells and Van Vught (1988). The widened space of
action calls not only for a more pronounced institutional leadership but
also for encouraging the academic staff members to mobilise their own
capacity for the best of the whole institution. For the model of a self-
regulative institution to function well, our study indicates the necessity
to combine collective and collegial responsibility and decision-making
in a network-oriented model for the development of the institutions intolearning organisations.
NOTE REGARDING STUDY
The study presented is part of a research programme, International Studyof Higher Education Reform, conducted in collaboration between an
English, a Norwegian and a Swedish research team. The Swedish project
and part of the international study have been sponsored by the Swedish
Council for Studies in Higher Education and by the Swedish Govern-
ment’s Committee on the Follow-up of the 1993 Higher Education Reform
(RUT-93).
NOTES
1 These dimensions are modified from Bleiklie 1994 and further developed in Marton,
S. (forthcoming) The Mind of the State: The Politics of University Autonomy in Sweden,1968–1998 , Göteborg Studies in Political Science, Göteborg University.2 Ashby’s and Anderson’s (1966) components of institutional autonomy are freedoms: a)
from non-academic interference in the internal governance of the institution; b) to allocate
funds as the institution sees fit; c) over the recruitment of employees, and in determining
their conditions of work; d) over the selection of students; e) to design and deliver the
curriculum; and f) to set standards and determine methods of assessment (Cited from Tight1992, p. 1384). For some unexplainable reason, the list does not include the term ‘research’,
but only mentions ‘curriculum’. Nonetheless, in our analysis, the concept of institutional
autonomy will also entail freedom to design and deliver research.3 It is important to recognise that although these four types are based on concepts of
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SWEDISH UNIVERSITIES TOWARDS SELF-REGULATION 193
higher education systems as observed in locations such as Britian, Scandinavia and the
United States, they are however theoretical models. The range of theoretically possible
choices has been narrowed down to exemplify and epitomise different logics favoured by
different systems – but not absolutely or essentially exclusive logics. We recognise that
within the same state governing system, mixtures of these models may exist at the sametime.4 For close empirical examples of this type, see Walford, G. (1988) and Cerych, L. (1985).5 In adopting Lundqvist’s (1987) model of “actor autonomy”, we are able to depict “real-
ised autonomy” in terms of two attributes: the space of action granted to the actor as well
as the actor’s own capacity for action, which includes not only his ability to act, but also
his awareness and motivation to act.6 Interviews were conducted during the spring of 1995 (two years after the reform) with
institutional leaders, top administrators, department heads and academics in six disciplines
and totaled 120.7 For a more extensive analysis of these changes see Marton (1996) and Bauer et al. (in
press).8 Björklund (1996, p. 142) mentions how the Higher Education Ordinance was reduced
from 130 pages (for the period before 1993) to 60 after the New Ordinance in July 1993.9 For a complete report of the bureaucratic changes in the early 1990’s see Askling &
Bauer 1997 and Kim 1997.10 This move away from the traditional hierarchical model towards the triangular one can
be looked upon as a move towards the more network-like model, argued for among others
by Dill and Sporn (1995).
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Berit Askling Dept. of Education ResearchGöteborg University,S 40530 Göteborg,Sweden
Marianne Bauer Lilla Garn, S 18697 BrottbySweden
Susan Marton Dept. of Political ScienceGöteborg UniversityS 40530 Göteborg,Sweden
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