Higher Education Institution Governing Boards: Appointed Board Members

‘Governing boards’ are key structures in designing and managing higher education institutions’ strategies. Until the last quarter of the 20th century, European universities were primarily governed by academics, and the state acted as a buffer protecting higher education institutions and academics from the interference of external interests. Higher education governance reforms were widely grounded on the shift from state control to the supervisory model and to quasi-market regulation inducing corporate-like governance. This shift relied on increased institutional autonomy, based on the assumption that the more autonomous institutions were, the better they would respond to changes in their organisational environment and the better they would perform. The reconceptualisation of higher education institutions as organisations and as “complete organisations” (Seeber et al., 2015) induced their move from ...