University Governance and Competitive Advantage

Modern universities are complex institutions, with multiple functions in the society and specific organizational and managerial structures. Universities fulfill their public mission only by integrating into their respective civic, economic, cultural and scientific environment and playing an active role in the sustainable progress of the smaller or larger scale communities they serve. As society is under a continuing transformation and competition among the providers of higher education services becomes stronger, universities engaged a multifaceted modernization process as they wanted to keep their role as strong growth engines in the society. Changes might be observed in the way universities accomplish their mission and public functions. Changes are noticeable also in terms of management structure and decision-making, in organizational behavior and in the way universities connect with the world beyond their respective campuses. New university governance concepts and principles are discussed and implemented in a variety of models everywhere in the academic world. Even the ways of approaching competitive advantages of universities register a certain diversification as risks and opportunities are so different from a region to another, as internationalization is embedded in sustainable development strategies…