Reducing Higher Education Bureaucracy and Reclaiming the Entrepreneurial University

Abstract

This chapter documents the worrying trend of increased levels of top-down policies that stifle universities’ innovativeness and autonomy. I highlight the bureaucratization of corporations and higher education institutions, and how this sclerosis results in a widespread sapping of individual initiative and innovation. The chapter next reviews regulation and bureaucratization in higher education with a special focus on commonalities and differences at two levels: university-wide and one sub-unit, the college of business. I describe successful case studies in anti-bureaucracy policies and practices across higher education at the individual, business unit, university, and other levels to highlight cross-level best practices in higher education, including calculating the present bureaucratic mass and administrative burdens of proposed changes, implementing technology solutions, leading change management efforts across all levels, and employing best practices in decision-making. I conclude with a discussion of research directions that will lead to theoretical, methodological, and phenomenological contributions.