Universities and stakeholders: An historical organisational study of evolution and change towards a multi-helix model

Abstract

Research of the main university stakeholders has only been of a cross-sectional or short-term nature thereby limiting our understanding of how universities have evolved as a result of stakeholder influence. Indeed, neglect of stakeholders in strategic planning may result in both companies and universities becoming less successful and less competitive. For this reason, a temporal perspective was adopted to enable a consideration of events, their antecedents and subsequent effects thereby identifying emerging evolutionary trends and responding to them so that there can be appropriate decision making and accountability. This paper uses historical organisational studies to provide a longitudinal overview of internal and external stakeholder influence on university evolution and change from their foundations in the early Medieval period. Five university generations are described: Medieval, Humboldtian, Civic/Land Grant, Mass, and Stakeholder. This investigation reveals a number of strategic shifts in stakeholders as their voices have become increasingly prominent or have declined. Over time, the number of stakeholders have grown as their salience has been acknowledged through concepts such as the third mission; corporate social responsibility and helix structure; and, although some of the main stakeholders have remained constant such as learners and faculty, their influence has fluctuated.