Introduction

Universities have experienced massive reforms during the past couple of decades (Bleiklie & Lepori 2017). Universities have undergone a process to become more managerial than governed by professionals or being part of a traditional hierarchy. Universities strive to become “complete” organizations, but there are still many elements that prohibit that move (Seeber et al. 2015). Universities have recently been characterized as “penetrated hierarchies” that are influenced by external pressures for control in the internal organization (Bleiklie, Enders & Lepori 2015). Today, universities have moved away from the traditional “Humboldt model” towards “the enterprise university” (Marginson & Considine 2000), which does focus on knowledge discovery, but which is also preoccupied with performance measurement and management, competing for funding and students, and making strategic alliances to get ahead in global ranking systems. The development in universities is heavily influenced by “the rise of relevance” where universities are but one category of knowledge providers to governments and businesses (Bleiklie 2018). As Brookings scholar Darrell West (2016) has shown, organizations find themselves in an age of “megachange” with economic disruption, political upheaval, and social strife.