Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://dx.doi.org/10.25673/117930
Title: How do universities compete? : introduction to the special issue
Author(s): Bloch, RolandLook up in the Integrated Authority File of the German National Library
Mitterle, AlexanderLook up in the Integrated Authority File of the German National Library
Seidenschnur, TimLook up in the Integrated Authority File of the German National Library
Issue Date: 2024
Type: Article
Language: English
Abstract: Competition in higher education seems ubiquitous. Universities today compete for values such as diversity and internationality in the same way as they compete for innovation, impact and employability. The meaning and perception of competition in higher education have changed substantially within the last decades. Competition today is imperative, attribute and action. It is detached from distinct frames – relevant in political science, sociology and economics alike – and both measure and goal in itself. Given the centrality and ambiguity of competition in higher education today, understanding how competition operates is central to grasping contemporary dynamics that reshape higher education. Against this background, the question ‘How do universities compete?’ relates to a constructivist perspective that critically reflects research frames on competition in two distinct ways. First, this perspective refrains from adapting comprehensive economic or sociological frames to higher education without taking the specificities of higher education into account. Second, such a context-sensitive view on competitions corresponds with attention to the level and form of agency competing organisations exhibit. Overall, the contributions in this special issue provide context-sensitive analytical frames that respond to empirically observable competition in higher education. The way universities compete depends on contextual factors of how competition is organised, the role of intermediaries as well as the interrelationship between state agency and organisational self-perceptions as acting organisations. Initially directed at increasing efficiency, competition is characterised nowadays by a wide range of intended and unintended effects that will be identified and discussed in this special issue.
URI: https://opendata.uni-halle.de//handle/1981185920/119890
http://dx.doi.org/10.25673/117930
Open Access: Open access publication
License: (CC BY 4.0) Creative Commons Attribution 4.0(CC BY 4.0) Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
Journal Title: Studies in higher education
Publisher: Carfax Publ. Co.
Publisher Place: Oxford [u.a.]
Volume: 49
Issue: 10
Original Publication: 10.1080/03075079.2024.2395418
Page Start: 1701
Page End: 1709
Appears in Collections:Open Access Publikationen der MLU

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