Abstract
Recent European research has revealed growth in the number of administrators and professionals across different sections of universities—a long established trend in US universities. We build on this research by investigating the factors associated with variation in the proportion of administrators across 761 Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in 11 European countries. We argue that the enactment of expanded and diversified missions of HE is one of the main factors nurturing universities’ profesional and administrative bodies. Our findings support such an assertion; regardless of geographical and institutional differences, HEIs with high levels of “entrepreneurialism” (e.g. in service provision and external engagement) are characterized by a larger proportion of administrative staff. However, we find no empirical support for arguments citing structural pressures and demands on HEIs due to higher student enrolments, budget cuts or deregulation as engines driving such change. Instead, our results point towards, as argued by neo-institutionalists, the diffusion of formal organization as a model of institutional identity and purpose, which is especially prevalent at high levels of external connectedness.
Highlights
Recent European research has revealed growth in the number of administrators and professionals across different sections of universities—a long established trend in US universities
We ask: Which factors boost the number of administrators in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)? Using a sample of 761 HEIs in 11 European countries, we bring to the fore empirical evidence which suggests that the differences in the number of administrators across HEIs can be accounted for by the enactment of formal organization as a model of institutional identity and purpose
We suggest that the increase in the number of administrators across European HEIs is a by-product of organizational expansion in this sense
Summary
Secondary data for this project were selected from ETER Project (2011) for the academic year 2011/2012. The fixed-effects model allows us to look at cross country differences in order to address the neo-institutionalist argument that the effect of organizational expansion on the proportion of administrators holds true at a crossnational level. ETER was conceived as a census, and the number of HEIs differs substantially from one country to another, partly reflecting the differences in student populations across European states We acknowledge this limitation and as a result do not attempt to estimate country level effects, but merely control for them in order to identify factors that may affect the number of administrators in HEIs at the institutional level, regardless of the national context.
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