Faculty management after higher education reforms - Exploring the organizational structure of faculties considering their contextual factors

Abstract

With the implementation of the new steering model (NSM), universities should align themselves more closely with management principles. Especially, the heads of faculties must cope with higher demands of management tasks. As a result, more management positions are established and organizational structures are changed. To shed light on how structures change, we investigate the faculties of one comprehensive and one technical university within Germany - which are similar in many factors - using the contingency approach. Information about contextual factors and the number and type of established positions is gained from a systematic analysis of their homepages. Dimensions of the organizational structure are used to interpret the results. Our comparison shows that the technical university, which has established itself as an entrepreneurial university, orients its organizational structure more towards the NSM than the comprehensive university, which is reflected by more support positions in faculty management. Thus, the profile and type of the university seem to be crucial contextual factors, while our study revealed that the number of students of the faculties and the number or type of degree programs are less crucial contextual factors.