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TALES OF UNIVERSITY DEVOLUTION: Organizational Behavior in the Age of Markets

In the wake of the Cold War era, America’s research universities became increasingly characterized by a tribal mentality among schools and departments, and among the various disciplines. The surge in research funding, and the tremendous growth rate among the major public universities in particular, fostered the idea of a “multiversity” that was becoming less communal, and less aware of its collective purpose. These patterns have accelerated considerably over the past two decades in the US and reflect three relatively new realities or influences: a) within the public university sector, decreasing public subsidies have influenced a movement toward internal management decisions and organizations that have eroded a previous model of revenue sharing (in tuition and fees and in overhead generated by extramural research, for example) to profit, loss, and prestige centers; b) this has been accompanied and reinforced by the concept that there are different market opportunities among different schools, departments, disciplines and their degrees, and hence opportunity costs (in the tuition price of an MBA versus and English PhD, for example) in which high-income units should retain and spend those monies. These influences are common in various degrees globally but seem to arise from different sources. In much of the world, including Europe, the demands and edicts of ministries and the evolving concepts of faculty-as-civil-servants heavily influence organizational behavior. In the US, decreasing public investment is driving internal behaviors that are also shaped by the interests of faculty, the increasing global nature of knowledge production, and differing market opportunities among the disciplines. This paper explores the development and impact of these various influences on research-intensive universities, while noting that the university is rapidly changing, influencing the behavior of academic leaders and faculty, the organization of the post-modern university, the flow of funds, and ultimately the perceived and real role of the research university in society. Past observers of the life and times of universities have described aspects of this shift as a movement from a larger sense of a university community among faculty to a tribal mentality. But the current shift extends well beyond the weakening of disciplines and departments, beyond faculty as individual actors to the internal organization of the academy and a relatively new concept of profit and loss centers. This shift toward “University Devolution,” or fragmentation, is influenced by the external political, social, and economic world. In Europe and elsewhere, neo-liberal ministries wield great power and have helped pushed universities toward this model. In the US, thus far, it remains largely a phenomenon influenced by reduced government investment yet ultimately driven by internal decision-making related to privatization. The paper concludes with a brief discussion on whether the organizational behaviors in US research universities are reflective of global trends, or are in some aspects unique. In the wake of the Cold War, America’s research universities became increasingly characterized by a tribal mentality among schools and departments, and disciplines. The surge in research funding, and the tremendous growth rate among the major public universities in particular, fostered the idea of the “multiversity” in which universities become less communal and less aware of their collective purpose. These patterns have accelerated over the past two decades in the US reflecting two relatively new realities or influences: