(German) Universities as multiple hybrid organizations

Abstract

The paper claims that the organizational character of the (German) university can be comprehended best with the aid of the concept “multiple hybrid organization.” To corroborate this claim, I reconstruct two lines of argument that have dominated the discourse on the organizational nature of the German university so far. This discourse has only started in the late 1980s and early 1990s in the wake of new public management emphasizing that the reform of higher education governance has turned German universities into corporate actors (Meier 2009; Krücken and Meier 2006). At the same time, voices have risen advocating the singularity of the university and contrasting it to bureaucratic and corporate forms of organization. The paper starts by outlining these two strands of argumentation: the first highlights the organizational normality of the German university, the next its singularity. Against this background, I shall argue that both positions can be integrated if we rely on the term “multiple hybrid organization.” This concept is integrated into the systems theory concept of formal organization which serves as a theoretical means for analyzing organizations at large. The new concept of multiple organizational hybridity demonstrates its usefulness in showing that the structural particularity of the German university is rooted in numerous frictions pertaining to all its organizational structures.