Management change discourse in a transforming

Two changes faced the new organisation simultaneously. First of all, there was the new Universities Act (558/2009), which meant the universities’ management and decision-making system were to be reformed. The reform gave universities more power by reducing the steering of universities by state administration. The universities would, therefore, no longer be developed as part of a state admin-istration, but in terms of their main mission: education and research. Secondly,

there was the negotiation, commitment and execution process of the merger at an inter-organisational level between the two university organisations (http://www.

minedu.fi/OPM/Koulutus/koulutuspolitiikka/Hankkeet/Yliopistolaitoksen_

uudistaminen/?lang=en 15.4.2015 at 14:50).

In 2007 the rector explains and discusses the two great changes which the university organisation was facing. The new university law had led to changes in management at the university. Additionally, the university organisation was transforming due to the cooperative inter-organisational relationship between the University of Joensuu and University of Kuopio. The rector explains that the strategy of the federation of the University of Eastern Finland aimed to strength-en the organisation as a research intstrength-ensive university.

The form of the cooperation between the two universities, whether an al-liance or a federal university, was discussed a lot. At the time of the opening ceremony at the beginning of September 2007, the rector uses the concept of a fed-eral university. But later on, on the 26^th of September 2007, the university boards in Joensuu and Kuopio made a decision for deeper cooperation and a merger.

The ‘new’ university organisation was founded and named as the University of Eastern Finland (UEF).

As Bachmann & Inkpen (2011, 284) state, trust between individual and collec-tive actors is based on the decision of one party to rely on another party under conditions of risk. In line with Bachmann & Inkpen (2011, 284), the two university organisations in this case study permitted their fate to be determined by each other and risked that the two organisations may experience negative outcomes, i.e. loss, if the other organisation proved untrustworthy. In the merger it can be seen in the actions taken that the two organisations decided to invest trust in the relationship. The action of the merger shows the existence of trust between the two organisations. The parties involved in the merger understood that the dif-ferent procedures of the two universities could be united. The merger as ‘a leap of faith’ is discussed in more detail in Chapter 6.

The strategy and challenge concerning the university reform and merger is easy to verbalise, but to transform the strategy into deeds is not as easy (speech 2007). The aim of the new university organisation was to strengthen the volume, quality and impact of the research. The chosen strategy of building an interna-tional research intensive university in the regional context is clarified by the rec-tor. The aim of the new university is to be a research-intensive university which accomplishes international level research in its top fields (speech 2007).

The rector positions discursively a novel university entity within the univer-sity institute. The rector sees the comparison of the univeruniver-sity in eastern Finland with top universities in the United States and Great Britain as being absurd and strange. On the other hand, as the rector states, the researchers at Harvard or Cambridge are not superhuman (speech 2007).

The new autonomy of the university emphasises management, instead of col-legial decision making. The rector (speech 2010) points out the consequences of the university reform (law) on the university community. The idea of the

deliber-ate concentration of the decision making to a smaller group of responsible people, e.g. managers, may be confusing at first. This confusion is understandable in the university community. Collegial decision making concerning all the functions and levels in the university has been a heartfelt ideal. The university manage-ment is changing firmly from bureaucracy and collegial decision making towards managerialism.

The execution of the merger unfolded at the beginning of 2010 when the ‘new’

organisation started to operate as the University of Eastern Finland (UEF). A discursive practice is used to change the social practice of management as the rector clarifies what the new management means in practice. The rector stresses (speech 2010) that the aim of the new management is to recognise and utilise the best knowledge of each member of the university community.

There has been a commitment process (Ring & Van de Ven 1994) with plan-ning projects groups during 2007 until 2008 to plan the future functions of the new organisation. By working within these groups, the members of the former organisations have been interacting face-to-face. The employees are getting to know each other. The familiarity and common jargon due to the interaction are formulating a world-in-common. due to the interaction, there are possibilities for the assessment of the other party’s ability, integrity and benevolence. Hence the vulnerability should decrease by gaining more knowledge about the other party.

Trust in the other party should evolve.

As the new organisation starts to operate, these project groups are to be inte-grated into basic functions of the new organisation (speech 2010). This integration means the end of the planning process of the new organisation. The tasks of the project groups will be integrated as part of the routines and practices of the new university organisation. After ‘a leap of faith’ there is ’no time for a honey moon this year’ the rector notes in 2010.

In the ‘new’ university organisation, there are not as many official collegial meetings as there were in former organisations. The collegial decision making takes a lot of resources, and, therefore, the aim is to have fewer academic profes-sionals involved with management. To utilise the best knowledge and expertise of each member of the university community does not require decision making at all levels and lots of meetings. Hearing the party, providing information and having a transparent administration does not require endless ongoing meetings and multi-level decision making procedures in a collegial and bureaucratic deci-sion making manner.

In his second speech as the rector of the ‘new’ university organisation in 2011 the rector clarified the idea of the university reform concerning the university management change. The university reform has been criticised as destroying the Humboldtian (Bildung) style university idea. There have been accusations that the universities are being transformed into business-like organisations and the universities are being directed by the markets. The rector tackles this issue dis-cursively. The rector summarises the message of the speech in 2011 as a ‘defence of the classical Humboldt university conception’.

The universities cannot be interpreted as an enterprise style organisations in Finland, although the discourse surrounding innovation universities may re-flect otherwise (speech 2011). The rector admits discursively that his statement is open to criticism. There is intertextuality within the rector’s discourse. The rector refers to the book authored by Chancellor Illka Niiniluoto from the University of Helsinki titled “dynamic civilized university” and adds within his opening ceremony speech, that there is a time limit on going deeper into the subject.

The trust building process is interpreted as being enhanced by the strategy process of the ‘new’ organisation. The strategy process of the ‘new’ organisation took place during 2013. A novel form of management in the new university is demonstrated during the strategy process. The strategy process is communal, instead of an entirely top-down process (Eriksson & Lehtimäki 2001, 202) in the

‘new’ organisation. There are several possibilities for the university community to participate and provide contributions to the new strategy. The feedback is used to benefit the formulation process of the new strategy.

Integrity appears in the strategy process of the new organisation. The strategy is justified by a communal planning process. There is basic build-up of trust. The new strategy will be formulated and finished by the time the new rector starts as the manager at the beginning of 2015.