The effects of proximities on the relationship between the degree of decentralization and performance: The example of a French university[Les effets des proximités sur la relation entre le degré de décentralisation et la performance : l’exemple d’une université française]

In France, from 2009 to 2018, nine university mergers were enacted, potentially bringing the actors closer together. These unprecedented management situations raised questions for the leaders of public organizations about how to coordinate these actors to improve performance. The debate focuses, in particular, on the degree of decentralization to be adopted, which we relate in this article to the three dimensions of performance enshrined in the French law "Loi Organique relative aux Lois de Finances"(2001) – socio-economic effectiveness, quality of service and management efficiency –. The objective of this research is then to circumscribe and better define the elements of this relationship from the analytical opportunities offered by the five dimensions of proximity formalized by Boschma (2005) – geographical proximity, organizational proximity, institutional proximity, cognitive proximity and social proximity –. Thus, through a case study of a French university via fourteen semi-directive interviews, our exploratory research draws the contours of a model for analyzing the relationship between the degree of decentralization and the performance of a university based on the heuristic of proximity.