The determinants of university strategic positioning and the obscuring of institutional diversity: an Australian case study

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the recent body of research exploring strategic positioning, and the processes and factors which influence the development and content of university strategies and plans, with lessons then applied to open questions of institutional diversity and its determinants. Following a sector level analysis of the contents of university positioning documents, an in-depth case study is developed of a large Australian university, where the interaction of intra-institutional ‘meso’ layers is explored to show a confluence of factors contributing to positioning. The case demonstrates that institutional positioning involves the selective crafting of narratives for multiple purposes, including the seeking and portrayal of internal cohesion, identity enhancement, and resource seeking. Importantly, while cross-institutional comparison of positioning narratives portrays an undifferentiated and somewhat homogenous sector, positioning is found within the case institution to obscure what is significant internal diversity and complexity. The implications of these findings for research exploring institutional diversity, and policies seeking to stimulate it, are discussed

Institutional diversity and its determinants examined through the research positioning of Australian universities.

This research critically analyses institutional diversity through the research positioning of Australian universities. In so doing, it makes a contemporaneous contribution to the question of how diverse the institutions within the sector are, and in particular, how we can better understand the determinants or factors that help explain it. Understanding institutional diversity and its determinants is essential, given the concept serves as a bipartisan and enduring principle which underpins Australian higher education policy. Successive governments have sought to configure and resource the university sector in ways which meet varied needs and fit within resource constraints. Their approach to optimizing efficacy and efficiency has been through sector level settings designed to encourage institutions with a diverse range of missions. Exploring these questions through multiple methods and a theoretical framework that contributes to balancing historically polarised approaches, this research concludes that Australian university research positioning, while expressed in terms of uniqueness and difference, converges upon common aims and approaches and demonstrates a clear lack of diversity. The apparent homogeneity of research positioning across the sector is explained in part through the shortcomings and inherent contradictions within the mission-based compact program's design and implementation, and is also a product of the interaction between the sector funding model and isomorphism in institutional approaches to competitive resource seeking. However, and importantly, the observed homogeneity is also explained by selective narrative construction by universities, which serve various purposes and act to obscure intra-institutional complexity and what is argued to be significant internal diversity. This internal diversity has considerable implications for seeking diversity at the level of institutions through policy or programs, and indeed for observing for it in research