Stakeholder regimes in higher education: old ideas in new bottles

Abstract

How does Norwegian national higher education policy affect stakeholder influence in practice? Two selected higher education institutions, the University of Oslo and Telemark University College, are scrutinized here with regard to how they have interpreted and adapted to national policy reforms.Both institutions have undergone an evolvement of stakeholder influence in three phases where the two first phases paved the way for the ultimately dominant characteristics of the entrepreneurial regime. However, my analysis shows that the initial institutional legacies of the University of Oslo and Telemark University College differed. The University of Oslo had an established institutional legacy with professorial dominance – only to be challenged by other internal stakeholder groups in the 1970's. In contrast, Telemark University College invited external cooperation already from the start and therefore differs from the University of Oslo.The book is relevant to scholars and students of public policy and administration as well as higher education.