University governance and educational AAU model: an organisational culture approach

The search for an effective and stabled organisational model of governance in order to manage a higher education institution is complex, for governance depends on the nature of an institution's ownership, its paradigm of management and its objective focus. The governance of a higher education institution has become the pillar for managing changes that have brought about the evolvement of the higher education institution's external environment. It is a commonly cited opinion that "managing academics is like herding cats: difficult and ultimately pointless" (McCormarck et al., 2014). This paper aims at focusing on the working management model which has been established at AAU. The developed model is based on applying the Commission for Academic Accreditation (CAA) 2011 Standards of UAE Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. The paper spells out how the CAA standards have been set as the guidelines for advancing the AAU organisational (corporate) culture that steers its managerial governance at all levels of academic and administrative units of the institution. The paper raises the following main inquiries: 1) Does the developed model matter? 2) Could the developed model be adapted to the requirements of international accreditation?