The Role of University Presidents as Resources for and of their Organization in Strategic Competitive Positioning Games

Regarding competition in the higher education and science system, there is a shared understanding, that the importance of competition is increasing (Krücken 2019; Musselin 2021; Naidoo 2018). But there are only rare discussions about the organizational positioning practices or strategies from universities in competition. Instead, the game terminology is often used to describe competition as game (Brankovic 2018; Musselin 2018; Paradeise & Thoenig 2013) or competing as playing (Musselin 2018) and locates rivalry on playing fields (Werron 2009) without theoretically enriching the competitive game as a concept or empirically describing the competitive game and its rules, further also often without a clear distinction between the individual micro and the organizational meso level. Linked to research on competition in the science and higher education system is the discussion about universities as organizations (Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersson 2000; Kosmützky 2010; Musselin 2007) or even as organizational actors (Bromley & Meyer 2015; Krücken 2017; Krücken & Meier 2006). Within higher education research, there is a growing notion, that universities are not only organizations, but also organizational actors. However, this perspective is opposed by approaches according to which universities are organizations, but should not be understood as actors, as the loose coupling (Weick 1976) of the various organizational units is still important in universities in particular compared to other organizations and the university management hardly enjoys the approval of all members for its actions. My research aims to address this field of tension by analyzing competitive games universities play to improve their position in the German field of higher education. My research therefore asks how universities as organizations or as organizational actors compete strategically with other organizations in strategic competitive positioning games, represented in these games by their formal leaders. To elaborate this topic, I analyze the competitive positioning games in terms of power games and identify the elements of the competitive positioning games such as the players, the arenas and the sources of power or other resources used to compete, referring to the approach of collective action by Crozier and Friedberg (1979). Regarding the discussion on organizational actorhood, my empirical material, which consists of 45 interviews with (former) university presidents and representatives of the ministries of science, research and higher education, still paints a rather diffuse picture, than showing a clear tendency referring organizational actorhood. For example, presidents are sometimes explicitly elected because they are trusted to represent their universities interests and are assumed to have helpful contact networks - which certainly supports the thesis of micro-political positioning games by individual or group actors instead of organizational actors. But university presidents become resources of their university and the consequences of their actions can have consequences for all members, regardless of whether they have supported the leadership or not, which in turn could support the thesis of the organizational actor playing 'meso'political positioning games. Investigating competitive positioning games with a focus on university presidents as a resource for and of their university is therefore central to the discussion about organizational actorhood.