This research addresses two important developments in the academic field: First, universities are transforming into organisational actors, gaining more responsibilities and capacities for strategic action, and second, competition has reached a new level. An important driver of competition and universities' development towards strategic actorhood…

Competition in higher education is intensifying worldwide and gaining increasing scholarly attention. However, it is not always easy to observe how competition actually takes place. Our research focuses on one example where competition becomes not only visible but also analyzable: State-led funding contests exemplified by the Excellence Initiative…

In China, higher education institutions (HEIs) have a governance arrangement in which the university president and the party secretary occupy key roles. However, their legal roles as institutional leaders are vaguely specified in existing legal frameworks. Based on a four-dimensional theoretical model, this paper (i) clarifies the leadership roles…

We examine the political power exerted by Italian rectors by investigating the preferential treatment received by the organisational subunits they belong to in terms of personnel resource allocation. During the rectors' mandate, their organisational subunits tend to grow significantly more (by [approximately]9%) than the others. The effect…

Higher education quality and standards are rarely far from the headlines or ministerial speeches. This Policy Note considers the important -- and changing -- role of England's governing bodies in academic governance, as they are expected to provide increased assurance that standards are being maintained or enhanced. The author suggests some…

On October 7, 2023, Hamas attacked Israel, igniting the 2023 War in Israel and Palestine. As human rights atrocities unfold, the war has sparked contentious political debate and civil discourse. Given their positions of authority, university presidents and chancellors have weighed in on the conflict through their public statements, while seeking…

This article explores genres as recurrent acts of positioning that contribute to associating particular positions with the genre users as social actors. As an illustration, the study investigates the positioning of Chinese university presidents in their published opening convocation speeches. By combining rhetorical move analysis with the…

In May 2022, the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) published "Digging In? The Changing Tenure of UK Vice-Chancellors. HEPI Policy Note 34" (ED623233), which measured the lengths of tenure of vice-chancellors at long-standing United Kingdom (UK) universities. However it omitted the institutions which were granted university status…

This study evaluates the pedagogical tolerance qualities of heads in higher education institutions in Kazakhstan. The qualitative research design, grounded in the interpretative paradigm, was adopted for this study, utilising a case study approach for data collection from a small sample consisting of three Vice Rectors Academic, three Deans of…

This article provides an account of the undermining of collegial governance at the University of Alberta in relation to the restructuring of the university in 2020 by the senior administration and board on advice provided by the Australian consultancy firm, the Nous Group. The current president of the university has publicly promoted the…

The concept of application-oriented higher education institutions (A-HEI) in China has something in common with that of cooperative education or dual education institutions. The changes in education system have led to more challenges of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) in the present situation. Based on synergistic…

Using school management settings, this manuscript developed important substantial leadership models such as "instructional," "constructive," and "distributed." University leadership and especially in the private sector is an understudied topic. While private universities need to generate revenue for profits and…

More than half of the presidents in top universities of China have been grown up in their original universities. According to the upper echelon theory, the "indigenization" characteristics of university presidents will have an impact on their cognitive level and thus affect the scientific research performance of universities. Based on…

While the effects of new managerialism and the internationalization of higher education on university structures and functions have been widely examined, their impact on university leadership has been less investigated, although both phenomena suggest the need for different and more powerful leaders. This article aims to examine if the core…

Public universities worldwide have incorporated neoliberal behaviours and norms across their activities, moulding organizational practices, processes and cultures. In particular, these changes have been expressed through forms of academic capitalism and increasing 'marketization' of public university activities. A little explored perspective on…