Higher Education Institutions

Abstract

Abstract Given the semi-public nature of higher education, governments have explicit and implicit expectations about higher education institutions. This not only pertains to their role and function in, e.g., the knowledge society, but—and this may be more implicit—it may also relate to organizational structures, rationalities, capacities, and identities. Some policy discourses, in the UK but also elsewhere, seem to assume that their higher education institutions are ‘complete’ organizations and strong organizational actors. Using the notions of organizational boundaries and identities, this chapter argues that policymakers, practitioners, and researchers should be careful in granting too much ‘actorhood’ to higher education institutions. It will be argued that there are serious limitations to actorhood. This has consequences not only for the expectations that policymakers realistically can or should have about the organizations’ agility and resilience, but also for what leaders and managers can achieve within their higher education institutions.