Aligning University Roles and Strategic Orientations: When Local Mandates and Global Aspirations Meet

Abstract

Recent policy developments in Norwegian higher education, aiming to nurture world-class environments, have focused on the need to strengthen teaching quality and research excellence. However, higher education institutions (HEIs) are increasingly under pressure to make local contributions (“impacts”), for example, in the form of job creation, technology transfers, local economic developments, and so on, which result in tensions and dilemmas at multiple levels, not least as regards strategic management. This chapter investigates how universities align education and research on the one hand and how they navigate the tensions between local demands and global aspirations on the other. Firstly, we identify such tensions and dilemmas, and secondly, we investigate how they are being handled with regard to strategic planning (including resource allocation) at both the central (university) and sub-unit (faculty) levels. The study adopts a qualitative case study research design and compares developments at two distinct HEIs located in Norway. The findings suggest that relevance and excellence are intertwined dimensions associated with the multiple pressures facing HEIs. These findings provide critical insights into how the strategies and daily practices of actors at different levels within universities address the demands posed by a dynamic and complex environment.