Organizational flexibility of Turkish universities: Evaluations in the institutional reports of European University Association

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to examine the level of organizational flexibility in Turkish universities. The institutional evaluation reports of the European University Association (EUA) related to Turkish universities were used as the data sources. The EUA's reports of 14 universities were selected by taking the locations and dates of their reports into consideration. The research was then designed in a case study pattern, as a qualitative inquiry. During the analysis of the EUA's reports, descriptive thematic analysis was carried out. According to the findings, it can be said that the general level of organizational flexibility in Turkish public universities is not high, as in their institutional autonomy level calculated by the EUA. It seems that financial autonomy initiates the formation of strategy flexibility in universities, and conformable rules and regulations of national higher education provide room to universities for precept and managerial flexibility. The stronger organizational flexibility will then provide a greater university autonomy in terms of financial, managerial, employment, and academic autonomy. Based on these results, several recommendations are proposed to higher education policy makers, as well as to university managers in Turkey.