Summary of the discourse on democracy

Traditionally, management in a university is based on democracy, whereas cur-rently managerialism seems to influence collegial decision making procedures.

As discussed by the rector, there are fewer teachers, researchers and students integrated into the administration and management in the ‘new’ university or-ganisation after the merger in this case study. The change in management causes confusion in the ‘new’ organisation. Traditionally, there was the ideal of collegial decision making, covering all decision-making levels at the university.

But there are still features of the collegial decision making procedures pre-sent in the management of the ‘new’ university organisation, as the students and

staff have their representatives in the new university organs. The basic organ of the management in the ‘new’ university is the university collegiate body, which consists of the representatives of the professors, other personnel and students.

Student recruitment is changing. There is competition for new students. The attractiveness of the university area is an important feature of the student re-cruitment process. The innovative and international atmosphere of the region induces young people to apply to the local university. To create these attractive factors, cooperation between the university and stakeholders is needed.

Cooperation at a local level is needed in order to attract new students to ap-ply for and attend university. The awareness among local stakeholders about the impact of the university students on the local area and business should be empha-sised. The benefits gained by the cooperation between university students and stakeholders are reciprocal. The university students provide their input to the lo-cal business life and environment through internships, projects and research. The students furthermore become active customers for local products and services.

The rector as a university manager discursively formulates the expectations about the stakeholders’ behaviours concerning the university. The cooperation between local stakeholders and the university is appealing. By giving the speech in the university opening ceremony, where the stakeholders are invited, com-munication with the stakeholders is also initiated. As a consequence, the trust development process between the stakeholders and university may start to un-fold. By noticing there is a win-win-situation because of cooperation, the level of vulnerability may be reduced.

The student recruitment concept is undergoing a transformation due to changes in the environment and demography. From the logic of student selec-tion the university is turning towards enticing students to the region and the university. The university and the local region need to be attractive enough to allure young people to apply. This novel student recruitment procedure entails a new mind-set among the university community. The old practices should be given up and new ideas taken on board. As the rector stresses, the university is not transforming into a business organisation, and, accordingly, the students are not seen as customers – the procedure is not business like, but business oriented.

Sharing knowledge and ideas about the nature of the transforming university organisation builds trust. The discourse of the rector enables the members of the university organisation to act in line with the new circumstances.

The hegemony of free university education is undergoing change. The rector transforms the hegemony discursively by questioning why the subject is taboo.

The rector provides perspectives on free university education, stressing limits on the number of degrees accomplished for free and the length of the studies.

The tuition fee theme occurred in the rector’s discourse several times during the research period – it is not solely connected to major university reform discourse.

Students are vulnerable when the tuition fees are discussed. From the Finnish students’ perspective, there is a risk that if the tuition fees were settled for in-ternational students, the procedure may eventually be directed to all university

students. Therefore, the representatives of the students in the Student Union are against tuition fees for international students. The rector sees the Student Union as being more conservative than average students are on the basis of his experience.

The trust development process regarding tuition fees was already unfolding in 2002 when the rector highlighted the positive aspects of limited tuition fees on the study culture. This can be interpreted as meaning that when something is paid for it is valued as well. The representative of the Student Union attended the university opening ceremony and was therefore able to hear the rector’s speech.

The Student Union representative also gave a speech at the opening ceremony.

There is a formal reciprocal ceremonial discourse initiating communication and, thus forming the basis for the trust development process.

The temporal illustration of democracy discourse and themes during 1998-2014 is described in Figure 11 below. I identify the trust development process within the democracy discourse.

Globalisation, internationalization and virtualization

1999

Competition theme Student recruitment Increasing international mobility

Emergence of the global virtual universities

Attractiveness of the local area: cooperation with stakeholders

2005–

2007

Themes in internationaliza-tion and impact of students at local area

Diminishing collegial decision making and increasing managerialism

Hegemony of freeness of university educa-tion: taboo

Cooperation between students and local stakeholders

2013–

2014

Themes concerning novel orientation

From student selection towards attractive student recruitment

Conservative Student Union Students performing entrepreneurs Business oriented university logic

Figure 11: The temporal illustration of democracy discourse and themes during 1998–2014

5.5 MANAGERIALISM

Managerialism is the newest and gradually the dominating logic of management in universities (Räsänen 2005, 22-23, dearlove 1998, 59). The most visible part of the logic of managerialism in Finland in the 1990s was Management by Objectives (MBO). The case university in this study has a history of proactivity in university management. “Lump-sum-budgeting”, where budget control was decentralised from the state and given to the university, was used from the late 1990s. This management aspect was emphasised because the lump-sum allocation of the budget was also decentralised internally within the university and diversified to departments.

The results and outcomes were measured. The measurement mostly con-cerned the accomplished master and doctoral degrees. The university reform in 2010 also stresses (Kallio 2014, 79) international activities (student and staff mobil-ity and international partnerships) and the research publications as the measured results and outcomes.