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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.



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



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




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.




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”




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




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.




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




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.




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




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




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-




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




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.




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




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




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




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




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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