Abstract
How to assess and enhance the strategic capacity of universities? This article suggests a managerial perspective derived from evidence-based social science knowledge. It lists major facets any local strategizing should address. It underlines the key role endogenous organizational capabilities play to make it happen or not in a sustainable manner. Three sets of social properties are evidenced: the way academic human resources are actually managed, the cultural norms appropriated by its members about their affiliation to their institution as a community, and the organizational governance at work between the various parts of the institution. Reminding us that the capacity to strategize is an outcome of actual organizational fabrication processes, the article also lists a series of booby-traps to avoid.
Highlights
Obvious reasons explain why strategy is nowadays a relevant concern when not a decisive issue
Since the final years of the twentieth century, profound changes have occurred: a wave of baby boomer student massification, commodification of higher education, globalization of academic supply, world standardization of quality criteria, less taxpayer money allocated to university budgets, not to mention the introduction of steering tools such as those associated with the New Public Management doxa.[1]
At least some of these were already discussed, if not criticized, by social scientists many years ago when the topic of strategy or business policy became a priority for for-profit institutions, such as firms operating in competitive markets
Summary
4. Main time objective set for strategizing 5. Main time objective set for strategizing 5 Importance given to this time objective 6. Attention paid to resources for implementing the strategy 7. How much does general management count in strategizing 9. How much academic staff really counts 10.
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