Blurring boundaries and borders: Interlocks between aau institutions and transnational corporations

Abstract

In the contemporary knowledge economy, higher education has become an integral part of national innovation systems and is supposed to help attract globally mobile capital. From this perspective, the key organizational actors of the knowledge economy are universities and transnational corporations (TNCs). Our chapter draws on previous research on interlocks between universities and corporations, as well as on broader studies on the internationalization of higher education and global capitalism. We seek to identify the connections of TNCs with the prestigious Association of American Universities (AAU) member institutions through the individuals who simultaneously serve on the university boards and hold executive positions at TNCs. Furthermore, we explore whether connections with TNCs influence the university prestige as measured by Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). Overall, this chapter provides new insights on the role of TNC interlocks in the corporate hegemony in elite U.S. higher education and also demonstrates that this network between AAU institutions and TNCs extends beyond the borders of the U.S., especially in the case of private AAU institutions.