1 23

Higher EducationThe International Journal of HigherEducation Research ISSN 0018-1560 High EducDOI 10.1007/s10734-015-9894-6

The iconography of universities asinstitutional narratives

Gili S. Drori, Giuseppe Delmestri &Achim Oberg

1 23

Your article is protected by copyright and all

rights are held exclusively by Springer Science

+Business Media Dordrecht. This e-offprint

is for personal use only and shall not be self-

archived in electronic repositories. If you wish

to self-archive your article, please use the

accepted manuscript version for posting on

your own website. You may further deposit

the accepted manuscript version in any

repository, provided it is only made publicly

available 12 months after official publication

or later and provided acknowledgement is

given to the original source of publication

and a link is inserted to the published article

on Springer's website. The link must be

accompanied by the following text: "The final

publication is available at link.springer.com”.

The iconography of universities as institutionalnarratives

Gili S. Drori1 • Giuseppe Delmestri2 • Achim Oberg2

� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Abstract The coming of ‘‘brand society’’ and the onset of mediatization spur universities

to strategize their visual identity and pay particular attention to their icon. Resulting from

branding initiatives, university icons are visual self-representations and material-cum-

symbolic forms of organizational identity. In this work we ask: What identity narratives are

conveyed through the organizational iconography of universities? How do narratives

combine in this iconography? Drawing upon content analysis of Internet front-page icons

of 826 universities from 22 countries, we identify four identity narratives: guild-like classic

narrative, professional scientific narrative, localized narrative, and organizational narrative.

Second, we show that such visual self-representations of university identity appear as

products of broad historical themes. Last, we consider the relations between the four

visualized identity narratives, showing evidence for iconographic sedimentation between

the compatible guild-like classical, professional, and local-national narratives, along with

iconographic abrasion of the logic of managed organization on the former. We discuss such

findings in relation to the historical studies of the institution of the university.

Keywords University � Organizational iconography � Identity narratives � World society �Institutionalism

& Gili S. Drorigili.drori@mail.huji.ac.il

Giuseppe Delmestrigiuseppe.delmestri@wu.ac.at

Achim Obergachim.oberg@wu.ac.at

1 The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, 91905 Jerusalem, Israel

2 WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, Welthandelsplatz 1, 1020 Vienna, Austria

123

High EducDOI 10.1007/s10734-015-9894-6

Author's personal copy

Introduction

‘[The logo] represents your mission, who you are. We are not Coca Cola; we are not

trying to sell products on a shelf’ (Director of Business Development of a US

University, field notes, 24.4.09)

‘The new logo will probably completely disappear. The logo now turns traditional

again, because part of the institution is still identified with it. During the Senate

meeting professors said: ‘We are not that new thing’ and they voted to return to the

traditional seal’ (External Web-Designer involved in the rebranding process of an

Italian University, field notes, 29.5.09)

‘Academic freedom is stretched here to its limits. This annoys me. Because what is

the connection between the color of your business card and your academic freedom?’

(Spokesperson of an Israeli University, field notes, 24.1.11)

These quotes highlight current debates in universities, as in other organizations, about

what best captures the identity of the organization. Fed by the onset of ‘‘brand society’’

and the related frenzy of marketing and brand management (Kornberger 2009), uni-

versities debate how to define their identity (meaning, the ‘‘who are we?’’ question) and

wrestle with categorical judgments (meaning, the ‘‘who we are not!’’ assertions). Given

the millennium-long history of the institution of the university and its worldwide spread,

the field of universities offers a particularly rich array of material-cum-symbolic prac-

tices: from building architecture to academic gowns to publicity material. In this insti-

tutionally plural setting of higher education, identity narratives of universities, namely

their identity claims of character, attributes, and distinctiveness (see, Albert and Whetten

1985; Glynn 2008), are constructed out of different textual and material vestiges. Until

very recently, research on identity work in universities focused on the textual expres-

sions. Attention was paid in particular to how identity gets narrated in the mission

statements of universities (Davies and Glaister 1996; Scott 2006; Morphew and Hartley

2006; Kosmutzky 2012) or in such textual material as brochures (Osman 2008) and on-

line promotional material (Cohen et al. 2014). The recent aesthetic turn in organization

studies toward the visual (Gioia et al. 2013; Meyer et al. 2013; Gioia et al. 2014) spurs

an interest in iconography and branding, also of universities. This study joins this recent

research stream on the branding of universities, yet whereas others highlight the politics

or resource-based processes that affect branding of universities (particularly, Wæraas and

Solbakk 2009; Aula and Tienari 2011), this paper brings an interpretive approach to the

study of the iconography of universities. Specifically, a narrative institutional approach is

applied (see, Czarniawska 1997: 5–7) that draws on several interpretive devices to ex-

tract the visualized identity of universities. The guiding research questions are: What

identity narratives are conveyed through the organizational iconography of universities?

How are these narratives precipitated into universities icons? Are they used exclusively

in their ‘‘pure’’ form or are they combine, and how, in iconographic self-representation?

In search for visualized identity narratives of the institution of the university, the icons of

826 universities in 22 countries from 5 continents are analyzed. The analysis yields four

identity narratives of universities—guild-like classic narrative, professional scientific

narrative, localized narrative, and organizational narrative.

This study engages with, and contributes to, current scholarship on the history of the

university, as well as to the study of visual artifacts of organizational identity. First, by

High Educ

123

Author's personal copy

retelling the history of the institution of the university with such conceptual tools as

‘‘narrative’’ and ‘‘embeddedness’’, this paper offers an institutional perspective to the

often-functionalist conversation about the sequential evolution of the university (Gibbons

et al. 1994; Nowotny et al. 2001). The common functionalist interpretation, of a history

punctuated by the two academic revolutions which mark three distinct academic missions

(Gibbons et al. 1994; Nowotny et al. 2001), is that relations of sponsorship, power, and

dominance between the university and its social environment altered the functionality of

the university’s operations over time (e.g., Kerr 1963/2001; Ruegg 1996). While the pe-

riodization of the history of the institution of the university is widely acknowledged, noting

dramatic transformations in the early nineteenth century and then again in the mid-

twentieth century, this linear historiography is complemented here by adding a different

and more powerful theoretical lens for understanding the variety of visual identities dis-

played by contemporary universities. It is argued that the transformation of the university is

governed primarily by a change in the narrative of the university’s social role. As a result,

more than it being an evolution of the functional mission of the university where one

functional form replaced the other, this paper argues that the transformation of the uni-

versity is a process of construction of identity narratives, which configures a historical,

relational, and interpretive model of what the university is at different historic epochs. It is

because this historical change resembles a sedimentation process that we find today a high

variety of institutional identities among universities.

Second, by focusing the study of organizational identity on visual artifacts, this study

explores the materialized and aesthetic codes of university identity, joining a recent

resurgence among organization scholars in accepting visual material as a discursive

device (Meyer et al. 2013). Thus, this study adds a hermeneutics investigation of content

and aesthetics of icons to text-based analysis of university identity (Osman 2008; Kos-

mutzky 2012). Within the emergent field of studying university branding, where attention

is given to the marketing strategies (Bruzel 2007; Chapleo 2011) or to the social process

of university branding (Wæraas and Solbakk 2009; Aula and Tienari 2011), the content

of the brand image is analyzed and the identity narratives conveyed in the icons are

extracted.

This paper is organized to convey an institutionalist argument about the iconographic

and historical narratives of university identity. Following the summary of the commonly

told history of the university as marked by three historic eras and their respective

functional missions, this history is retold here from an institutionalist perspective,

highlighting the processes of institutionalization and subsequent diffusion and focusing

on narratives and their sociocultural context. This interpretation is based on the branch of

the new institutionalist literature on universities that mostly engaged with this institution,

i.e., world polity, a perspective focusing on the theorization, diffusion and translation of

global models, templates, and organizational forms (Strang and Meyer 1993; Delmestri

and Wezel 2011; Drori et al. 2014). Then, it is shown that narratives can be traced in the

iconography of organizations, thus suggesting that the history of the institution of the

university can be recognized in the icons of universities. After describing the data and

method of our collection of university iconography, the text proceeds to detail four

distinct narratives conveyed through the visual cues. In addition, these four narratives

that govern the identity of the university are described in how they are socially situated,

or rooted in specific historic eras and national contexts. The conclusion comments on the

institutional character of, and on the place of organizational identity in, the change to

universities.

High Educ

123

Author's personal copy

Academic revolutions and academic missions

The founding of the University of Bologna in 1,088 is noted as the creation of a university

as a new organizational form, namely an institution of advanced studies that has a formal

charter, which today is commonly referred to as accreditation, to award academic degrees.

These two features, which came to define a university, were rapidly replicated in the

subsequent founding of universities: until the mid-nineteenth century, universities were

founded at a low yet constant rate (Riddle 1993; Ruegg 1996; Wissema 2009); since the

late nineteenth century, there is a dramatic exponential growth in the number of univer-

sities and of tertiary education students (Schofer and Meyer 2005), with a current estimate

of 12,000 universities and colleges worldwide.

This millennial continuity was punctuated by two academic revolutions, thus dividing the

long history into three stages. The first stage, of the medieval university, is marked by the

dominance of religion on the content and form of scholarship and by academe’s guild-like

professional autonomy. In the early nineteenth century came the first academic revolution,

which added to the primary mission of teaching also the second academic mission—of

research that follows the scientific method of experimentation, disclosure, and rationality.

This ‘‘Humboldtian university’’ model, which marries research and teaching missions, was

carried far forward by the nineteenth century institutionalization of the nation-state; in the

USA in particular, ‘‘land grant universities’’ were all formatted after the Humboldt model;

and the subsequent popularity of this university model worldwide benefitted from German

and then American hegemonies. This university model was stably intact until after World

War II, when a second academic revolution occurred, bringing about the ‘‘entrepreneurial-

‘‘(Clark 1998) or ‘‘third generation-’’ (Wissema 2009) university. This new model of the

university has the added, third mission of innovation, relevancy, and engagement with the

market. Archetypical universities in this category are Stanford University and MIT in the

USA and Cambridge in the UK, each creating strong bonds with industry and intensely

commercializing academic knowledge (Bok 2003; Willmott 2003; Rhoten and Powell 2010).

In summary, this historiography of the university sets the life course of the university as a

three-stage process that is punctuated by two academic revolutions.

This historiography of the university assumes that the periods mark changes in the

functional relevancy of the university and its products. Specifically, the uses of the uni-

versity and of knowledge are noted as evolving in response to civilizational changes (Kerr

1963/2001), funding pressures (Press and Washburn 2000), and capitalist demands (Deem

2001; Slaughter and Rhoades 2004). Knowledge evolved to fit the evolving mode of

production, therefore changing from ‘‘mode 1’’ (academic knowledge) to ‘‘mode 2’’

(production-relevant knowledge; Gibbons et al. 1994; Nowotny et al. 2001).

From this perspective, university evolution reflects organizational survival strategies: uni-

versities throughout time, and in particular universities of current era knowledge-economy, are set

to fulfill the expected production-related functions of education, research, and innovation (Mazza

et al. 2008). However, this focus on the production functions of universities narrows the scope of

this rich history. First, these function-driven explanations neglect to convincingly explain the

variety of academic arrangements throughout an increasingly global knowledge-economy (cross-

national variation). Second, they overlook the role of cultural and identity construction processes,

which provide meaning to the historical transition. The intention of this research is to advance an

institutionalist account of the historic changes to the university, highlighting matters of organi-

zational identity and describing the master narratives that depict the various identities of the

university over time.

High Educ

123

Author's personal copy

University change as an institutional process

In spite of the many ways in which a university came to be conceived (see, Stevens et al.

2008), there is no argument about the specifics of the historic path of the university. Also

widely acknowledged is the recent change of universities into practice-oriented, en-

trepreneurial, marketized, commercialized, and often profit-seeking organizations (Bok

2003; Tuchman 2009; Rhoten and Powell 2010). Nevertheless, an institutionalist account

of such transformation sees it within its sociocultural, rather than economic, context and

interprets the change as resulting from embeddedness in different sociocultural environ-

ments. Therefore, it is argued, the institutionalist vocabulary of legitimacy, rationalization,

and isomorphism offers an appropriate, additional and, it is argued, more focused lens for

describing this historic transformation of the university.

With that, the founding of the University of Bologna is the starting point of a long

institutionalization process, during which this new organizational form that is devoted to

advanced studies grew in numbers to create an institutional field of an estimated 12,000

universities worldwide. Once institutionalized, ‘‘the main features of the university as an

institution are persistence and expansion’’ (Mazza et al. 2008: 1). First, the university has

continued to exist, even if with changes to character and scope of operations, through a

millennium of social changes. It also exists worldwide, thus persistently transcending

multiple cultural boundaries. In particular since 1900, there has been an exponential rate of

expansion in both the number of universities and the number of university students

worldwide (Meyer et al. 2007). Second, the university has expanded both its reach (more

countries and people) and its scope (more sectors or topics). And while such structuration

has also been accompanied by a change in substantive emphasis (see, Drori and Moon

2006; Frank and Gabler 2006), the commitment of the university to education has been

continuously preserved, further confirming the stature of the university as an authoritative

social institution. And, most importantly, both features of persistence and expansion are

carried forth by the rationalized, professionalized, and agentic features of universities

(Krucken and Meier 2006; Frank and Meyer 2007), which match with the normative fabric

of world society at the current era (Meyer et al. 2006). Till today, however, different

institutionalized master narratives inscribed in laws, norms, and culture coexist in telling

the university as an institution devoted to either learning and education rooted in academic

self-governance, Enlightenment, and science for the benefit of the professions and/or the

nation-state, or managerialized and marketized organizational proficiency.

Seeing its current authority and reaches, the dominant features of the global field of

universities are the seemingly contradictory patterns of isomorphism and heterogeneity. On

the one hand, universities worldwide share a common set of features, such as organization

along disciplinary demarcations and a normative commitment to knowledge. On the other

hand, expansion was accompanied by much differentiation, resulting in heterogeneity in

the field of higher education (see, Kavanagh 2009). In this differentiated field, the global

prestigious universities consolidate an emerging global model (EGM) of the twenty-first

century research university (Mohrmana et al. 2008; also, Nelson and Wei 2012). This

modeling produces intense isomorphism, where many ‘‘middle range’’ universities enact

the features of a top global university. This enactment is what drives intense governance

reforms in universities worldwide, identified by a surge in strategic planning (Ramirez

2010; Ramirez and Christensen 2013) and branding (Engwall 2008; Wæraas and Solbakk

2009; Hearn 2010), with intense ‘‘soft law’’, or normative, pressures applied by the in-

creasingly professional field of university administration (Cusso 2008; Kretek et al. 2013).

High Educ

123

Author's personal copy

In summary, throughout its long life, the social institution of the university draws an

inspiration from its sociocultural context. Seen through the lenses of world polity insti-

tutionalism, universities embody a universalized, civilizational meaning that has always

gone far beyond the particulars of their economic or political functions (Meyer et al. 2007).

The social role assigned to universities—as a site for teaching and research and lately as

delivering social import—is at the roots of its continuous legitimacy. This institutional

character of the university is, therefore, anchored in an institutionalized narrative of the

social role of the university. The next section, more specifically, highlights how univer-

sities narrate their particular identity by drawing on the master narratives that are ac-

ceptable for the field of higher education.

Visualizing institutional narratives

Institutional narratives are symbolic orders that make sense of social context and events

and, with that, also construct identities. Such narratives, or discursive constructs in general,

are simultaneously material and symbolic; most notably, Friedland and Alford describe

institutional logics as ‘‘material practices and symbolic constructions’’ (1991: 248). While

identity narratives are conveyed through, and take a materialized form—indeed, a variety

of forms—text-based expressions of institutional identity have been privileged until re-

cently. Lately, calls have been made that language ‘‘goes beyond spoken words to include

objects, behaviors, practices, images, symbols, etc.—all of which are called ‘signs’’’

(Brannen 2004: 595). In the field of higher education, too, analyses of identity narratives

privileged text-based expressions namely mission statements and promotion material (see,

Davies and Glaister 1996; Scott 2006; Morphew and Hartley 2006; Osman 2008;

Kosmutski 2012; Cohen et al. 2014). Yet, following recent proposals to focus on visual

artifacts of organizations to capture meanings or institutional narratives (see, Meyer et al.

2013), this study intends to seek the identity narrative of universities in visual material

calling attention to organizational iconography as capturing, expressing, and materializing

meanings about organizational identity and social role. More specifically, drawing on

legitimate master narratives, universities narrate their particular identity also in visual

terms. The use of these institutionalized narratives crystallizes the university’s identity: the

icon, resulting from the use or assemblage of one or more narratives, is a claim for the

three main identity elements of character, attributes, and distinctiveness (see, Albert and

Whetten 1985: 265; Glynn 2008: 420–421). And the identity narrative gets an embodied,

materialized form in the visual artifact of the university icon (see, Drori et al. 2013). In

summary, it is claimed that the icons of universities capture and materialize meanings

about the identity and social role of this long-standing social institution.

Data and method

To launch a cross-national and historical review of visual expressions of the institutional

narratives that have been and are governing the university, this research studies the icons of

universities from different countries worldwide. The value-neutral term ‘‘icon’’ refers to

the visual identity mark of universities, thus allowing other commonly used and institu-

tionally specific terms such as ‘‘logo,’’ ‘‘emblem,’’ ‘‘brand’’ or ‘‘seal’’ to remain substantive

descriptors of the icons. The following section describes the selection criteria for countries,

High Educ

123

Author's personal copy

the information compiled about the universities’ history, the nature of the visual material

compiled for each university, and the coding strategy of the content or narrative expressed

in the visual material.

Data gathering required choices regarding the sample of universities and the specific

icon that self-represents the university. Sample-wise, the research team compiled infor-

mation on all universities in 21 countries and on a sample of American universities. In

total, our data covers 826 universities in 22 countries1 in five continents. The countries

sampled represent a variety of world regions and of political and economic conditions,

while also covering a range of cultural histories. The list of existing universities in each

country was generated from the BrainTrack, which is an on-line directory of over 10,000

universities and colleges in 190 countries and a gateway to the on-line material about these

higher education institutions.

For this set of 826 universities, the research team complied a database of the icons of

each university in the current era and these icons serve the unit of analysis for our sub-

sequent analyses. Recent branding initiatives have proliferated university icons, resulting

in multiple visual self-representations, whereas icons such as seals and emblems have

traditionally been used, and still most commonly used, as the sole symbolic self-repre-

sentation of universities (for instance in letterheads, diplomas, Webpages, and merchan-

dise), an increasing number of universities currently add non-official icons, such as word

marks, marketing logos, favicons (short for ‘‘favorite icon’’ typically displayed in the

browser’s address bar) or sports logos. Therefore, for purposes of standardization across

our many universities, the research team draws the icons from the university’s primary

Webpage, and, in case of multiple displays, this research focuses on the most prominent.

By requiring this threshold of commitment of the university to its representative icon, the

analysis is confined to the most visible, self-chosen, single icon for each university.

Following the compilation of iconographic data for all 826 universities, content analysis

is executed, using with both inductive and deductive, heuristic and systemic, content

analysis methods. The content analysis is primarily aimed at extracting identity narratives.

For this goal, the content analysis comprised of two steps. Initially, the research team

extracted an exhaustive list of substantive and design features: the motto (also its language)

and pictorial references, as well as shape of seal, figurative style, color and alike. Then, the

team conducted cluster analysis, grouping the many substantive and design elements into a

final set of categories, which are deduced as the identity narratives in the field of higher

education.

Following this construction of the main identity narratives in the field, the team

members proceeded to categorize the 826 icons into the categories of identity narratives.

For such assignment of category, it was relied on impressionist coding by a group of ten

coders of diverse albeit European background. Through an automated randomizing pro-

cess, at least five coders classified each icon. Final decision as for classification of an icon

into an identity category was done through ratio of inter-coder agreement: if 70 % of

coders selected the same category for an icon, we classify this icon into a single category.

If this was not possible, we computed the votes for combinations of two categories. If one

of these combinations got more agreement by coders, we classified the logo as belonging to

the intersection of two categories. If this was not possible, we proceeded by computing the

votes for combinations of three categories. Again, if one of the combinations got a

1 The countries are Australia, Bolivia, Chile, Cuba, Germany, Egypt, France, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy,Jamaica, Jordan, Kenya, Luxemburg, Mongolia, Panama, Portugal, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden,USA, and Vietnam.

High Educ

123

Author's personal copy

majority, the logo was classified as belonging to the intersection of three categories. The

remaining logos were left without a classification.

Overall, the study proceeds in two steps: an initial survey of identity narratives of the

field of global higher education (step 1), followed by recognition of the identity narrative

of each university among the 826 according to these categories of identity narratives (step

2). In the following sections, the categories of identity narratives extracted from the

iconography of universities worldwide are described and then, the propensity of each

identity narrative across the sample from the global field of higher education is shown.

Findings: iconographic narratives of university identity

Different identity narratives are conveyed through the representative icons of universities.

Based on the substantive content (images and motto) and the style (design elements and

format), four clusters emerged empirically to deliver four distinct narratives of identity that

are expressed in university icons. These narratives were consistent with—indeed, local

reflections of—the institutionalized master narratives discussed above. These four narra-

tives were named by the research team (1) guild-like classic narrative, (2) professional

scientific narrative, (3) localized narrative, and (4) organizational narrative. The first three

can be considered as traditional, while the last one, the organizational, represents the

actually dominant narrative on the role of the university. Table 1 summarizes these four

narratives and provides illustrations of the related images. University icons distributed in a

peculiar way across the four narratives. The organizational narrative is the one that more

clearly stands apart from the others. Only 104 icons (about 12.6 %) are classified as both

organizational and traditional, while 375 have a clear-cut organizational assignment. On

the contrary, the traditional narratives not only have a 23 % overlapping with the orga-

nizational narrative, but also are also highly overlapping among themselves, as displayed

in Fig. 1. The following sections introduce the four narratives as well as examples of

‘‘overlapping’’ icons designed drawing on more narratives at the same time (see Table 2).

The guild-like classic narrative

This institutional narrative conceives of the university as a community of scholars and

defines universities as ‘‘associations of students and teachers with collective legal rights

usually guaranteed by charters issued by princes, prelates, or the towns in which they were

located,’’ much like the status of other Medieval guilds (Colish 1997: 267) or as a

‘‘Republic of Letters’’ which is managed by academics. Krause (1996: 7) documented that

the academic profession ‘‘continues to have some guild characteristics even today’’ with

‘‘guild power’’, i.e., the capacity to be independent from intrusions from sovereigns or

capitalist states, varying by country. This narrative focuses on erudition and on vocational

ethics related to the profession of teaching and scholarship. Initially (meaning in Medieval

universities and also in religious universities since), erudition was described in religious,

even monastic, terms: study was primarily of religious scriptures and of philosophical texts

and subject to religious oversight.

The religious tone for erudition is conveyed in visual images of cloaked men, often

reverentially posed in church setting; this is evident in the icon of the University of

Heidelberg in Germany (Table 1). Alternatively, religious-based erudition is conveyed in

referencing religious, or holy, books. Also in ‘‘overlapping’’ icons religious symbols are

referred to, as, for example, the icon of Bar Ilan University in Israel, in which a Torah

scroll becomes a component of a highly abstracted microscope. Or, as in the icon of the

High Educ

123

Author's personal copy

Table

1C

ateg

ori

zin

gU

niv

ersi

tyic

ons

asin

stit

uti

on

aln

arra

tiv

es

Guil

d-L

ike

clas

sic

nar

rati

ve

Pro

fess

ional

scie

nti

fic

nar

rati

ve

Loca

lize

dnar

rati

ve

Org

aniz

atio

nal

nar

rati

ve

Iden

tity

con

tex

to

fth

eU

niv

ersi

ty

Lea

rnin

g,

along

wit

hre

ver

ence

toth

ech

arte

r-g

ran

tin

gau

tho

rity

En

ligh

ten

men

tan

der

ud

itio

n;

scie

nce

,te

chn

olo

gy

,an

dp

rofe

ssio

nal

pra

ctic

e

Nat

ion

al,

reg

ion

al,

or

oth

erw

ise

loca

lid

enti

fica

tio

nB

ran

ded

,m

ark

etiz

ed,

and

un

iver

sali

zed

imag

ery

Ex

emp

lar

Univ

ersi

tyIc

on

ogra

ph

y

Univ

ersi

tyof

Hei

del

ber

g(1

38

6,

Ger

man

y)

Has

hem

ite

Univ

ersi

ty(1

992,

Jord

an)

Min

ia

Univ

ersi

ty(1

976,

Egypt)

Ho

ng

Ko

ng

Po

lyte

chn

icU

niv

ersi

ty(1

97

0,

Ch

ina-

HK

)

Co

mm

on

sty

list

icfe

atu

res

Mo

stly

seal

des

ign

Mo

stly

seal

or

shie

ldd

esig

nC

om

mo

nly

seal

or

shie

ldd

esig

nC

om

mo

nly

ab

ord

erle

ssd

esig

nan

dg

rap

hic

ally

abst

ract

Lit

eral

rend

erin

go

fim

ages

Sy

mbo

lso

fen

lig

hte

nm

ent

Oft

enco

mb

ine

sym

bo

lso

fb

oth

the

pro

fess

ion

and

of

the

nat

ion

or

loca

tion

Con

tain

asi

mp

lifi

edg

rap

hic

des

ign

or

am

od

ern

-fo

nt

acro

ny

mC

om

mo

nly

incl

ud

en

ame

of

un

iver

sity

Sy

mbo

lso

fth

esc

ien

ces

and

pro

fess

ion

Nu

mb

ero

funiv

ersi

ties

a1

47

38

47

37

5

23

23

75

aU

niq

uel

yper

cate

gory

;th

resh

old

isin

ter-

coder

agre

emen

tra

tio

above

70

%

High Educ

123

Author's personal copy

Universidades Lusiada, where Christ’s cross, together with a spherical astrolabe, is part of

an abstracted logo surrounded by a seal (Table II). Later, from the eighteenth century an

on, the guild-like classic narrative was transformed to take a secular and bureaucratic tone,

even if still declaring erudition and education as the core of professional life. This narrative

highlights professional competence, administrative independence, and career track of

academics.

The professional scientific narrative

The professional scientific narrative reflects the Humboldtian reinterpretation of the role of

the university. Enlightenment and the transformation of guilds into professions based on

science—no more on traded knowledge—lays at the center of this narrative. In most other

universities, this narrative is conveyed through visual references to the so-called tools of

the trade, i.e., equipment of study and research, such as laboratory instruments (most

frequently a beaker), production tools (most frequently a cog wheel) or other scientific

devices (such as a measuring tool, microscope, or telescope). Many such references are

abstract, marked by visual images to both a book (mostly open) and a source of light (star,

sunrise, or rays of light), thus abstractly referencing the Age of Enlightenment and its

ideals of reason, rationality and (secular) education. This is illustrated in, for example, the

icon of the Hashemite University in Jordan, where images of a book, a cogwheel and a

beaker are combined (Table 1). In other universities, for example, in the icon of the Tanta

University, an open book and light emanating from it are combined—in addition to a

highly localized narrative (Table 2). In addition to these symbolic images, many of the

icons conveying this professional scientific narrative include textual, or worded, references

to truth, science, or knowledge. For example, Harvard University’s icon is marked with

Veritas (truth, in Latin) written across three open books. Such text-based references in

university icons further reinforce the relation of the university with the ideals of enlight-

ened erudition: that education and science draw on the moral and ethical foundations of the

profession. Other abstract references to erudition are made through images of classical

allusion to knowledge. For example, the icon of Rice University in the USA includes the

image of three owls, referring to the Athenian owls that symbolize wisdom (see, Table 2).

For some universities, this iconographic association is central to their identity: in response

Fig. 1 Distribution of Traditional University icons across narratives and their overlapping

High Educ

123

Author's personal copy

to a recent rebranding campaign in an Israeli leading university, where a suggestion was

made to simplify the already abstract visual reference to the torch of erudition, one aca-

demic official said ‘‘if we take this off, we might as well ‘‘close shop.’’ We are not a

university without it.’’

Table 2 University Icons as Combinations of Institutional Narratives

* Number of universities that combine two narratives.

Professional ScientificNarrative

Localized Narrative

Organizational Narrative

Guild-Like Classic Narrative

Rice University (1912, US)

University of Nairobi

(1970, Kenya)

Universidades Lusiada

(1986, Portugal)Number of universities* 56 37 18Professional ScientificNarrative

Tanta University(1962, Egypt)

University of Suwon

(1977, S. Korea)Number of universities* 15 37Localized Narrative

Fachhochschule Brandenburg

(1992, Germany)Number of universities* 24* Number of universities that combine two narratives.

Professional ScientificNarrative

Localized Narrative

Organizational Narrative

Guild-Like Classic Narrative

Rice University (1912, US)

University of Nairobi

(1970, Kenya)

Universidades Lusiada

(1986, Portugal)Number of universities* 56 37 18Professional ScientificNarrative

Tanta University(1962, Egypt)

University of Suwon

(1977, S. Korea)Number of universities* 15 37Localized Narrative

Fachhochschule Brandenburg

(1992, Germany)Number of universities* 24

a Number of universities that combine two narratives

High Educ

123

Author's personal copy

The localized narrative

This institutional narrative describes the university in reference to particular location or

heritage. It is most clearly evident in national or state universities, where the university is

born out of political initiative, sponsored by public funds, and often operates as a state

agency. But it is also characteristic of the strengthening of the nation-state in the nineteenth

century and the challenge it posed on universities, requiring them to serve it and ‘‘deliver’’

the needed state bureaucrats and professionals (Krause 1996). Still, this narrative also

influences private universities, particularly those that were founded after the mid-nine-

teenth century. Embedding the university within the context of the country in which it is

located, its people and its government, icons of universities in this category incorporate

elements from national, regional, or otherwise local indication.

Specifically, icons of universities in this category use four types of symbols: referencing

national insignia, national heroes, territory, or specific location. First and most directly

conveying the localized narrative are those university icons that include the national flag.

This is the most common feature of bi-national universities, where icons combine the flags

of both nations, and other icons incorporate elements of the national flag. Second, uni-

versity icons reference local context by including images of national leaders (other than

royal figures). For example, the icon of Minia University in Egypt displays the image of the

legendary fourteenth century BCE Queen Nefertiti (Table 1). And, icons of universities

from countries that have a royal family (in particular the icons of royal institutions) often

include royal insignia, such as the crests of the royal family or an image of a thrown. For

example, the icon of the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden includes the image of a

thrown and a wreath encircling its acronym as KTH. In addition, many universities include

ethnic insignia; for example, the icon of Kenya’s University of Nairobi, while set in a regal

style, includes East African artifacts along with heraldic attributes typical of the guild-like

classical narrative (Table 2). Third, similarly direct references to local context are made in

icons that integrate a map. For example, the icon of Tanta University in Egypt displays a

map of the Nile’s Delta along with references to Enlightenment (Table 2).

Last, icons of universities in this category also include the visual markings of a location,

thus relating the university to a particular geo-political context or heritage. For example,

the icon of Petra University in Jordan includes a rendering of the widely recognized facade

of the Treasury building in the ancient city of Petra; and the icon of L’Universite Paul

Cezanne Aix-Marseille in France includes a rendition of the natural landscape (a graphic

rendition of mountain, river and a small sail).

Text-based additions to the icons also enhance the embedding of the university in

relation to local legacies. For example, several American universities in this category

include as their motto the passage ‘‘In God We Trust,’’ which is also the motto of the USA

and quoted on the American currency.

The organization narrative

This institutional narrative includes the largest number of icons (375 cases distinctly in this

category) and thus is the largest category of visualized university identity. This identity

narrative coveys a modern definition of the university as a formal, regulated, and managed

institution. This narrative is governed by a managerialized ideology, according to which

university administration and operations are disassociated from the particulars of the sector

of higher education or of the local-national context. This narrative is highly rationalized,

High Educ

123

Author's personal copy

standardized, and professionalized; it is also marketized, commercialized, and medialized.

With that, the iconographic style representing this organization narrative of the university

is a logo, or a medialized and proprietary representation, thus drawing on current themes of

‘‘brand society’’ (Kornberger 2009) and of reputation management.

Since the organization narrative is expressed visually in a logofied brand image, uni-

versity icons in this category include a non-descriptive, graphic, and simple (if not sim-

plistic) image. Such images are typically a graphic symbol, acronym that represents the

university’s name, or a combination of both. First, university icons in this category contain

a simplified graphic design; an example of such an icon is that of Hong Kong Polytechnic

University (Table 1). While these icons are often described by the universities in sub-

stantive term—HKPU describing its graphic icon as a rendition of the letters ‘‘P’’ and ‘‘U’’

from its name—the icons do not disclose much of this meaning without the added account.

A second sub-category of the organization narrative includes acronyms of the university

names. Commonly, such acronyms are written in modern font, with no serifs, strokes, or

embellishments added to the typeface. An example of such icons is that of Technische

Universitat Dortmund in Germany, which is marked by ‘‘TU’’ and the extended university

name. A third sub-category combines both modernist elements, bringing together both an

acronym and a graphic image. This is exemplified in the icon of the University of Suwon in

South Korea, a complex icon that brings together a gold-color U-tubed image (interpretable

as an open book and therefore also referencing also Enlightenment) as the background of

the university’s USW acronym (Table 2). Graphically, one style dominates this category:

almost all icons that include a graphic image display dynamic and circular elements (as for

instance Bolivia’s Universidad Privada Boliviana).

Overall, icons of universities in this category are modernist in style: they include a

borderless design and are graphically abstract. Also, since these icons are so stylistically

sparse, they do not include a motto.2 Still, their style does not render them void of inherent

relational or contextual meaning; rather, they convey a meaning that is universalistic,

general, and abstract, rather than one that is context-specific. In this way, these university

icons resemble the iconographic self-representations of many other organizations that are

not academic. However, this blurring of distinctiveness as academic, professional, national,

or otherwise local organizations is not a mere stylistic choice. On the contrary: among the

icons in this study, numerous icons are found that are modernist in style (abstract, not

ornate) yet include graphic references to a local or to the profession. For example, the icon

of the University of Kwazulu-Natal in South Africa includes abstract references to a

warrior’s shield and is decorated with primary colors that are associated with Africa; the

icon of Fachhochschule Brandenburg represents a highly stylized building (Table 2).

Therefore, the avoidance of substantive references to professionalized or localized mo-

tives, even if in modernist aesthetic style, is a particular sort of identity self-representa-

tion—one that bridges between universities and all other organizations. The PR and

marketing officer of an Israeli university illustrated this by making the claim that the

justification for rebranding, and with that shedding the iconographic references to erudition

in her university’s icon, was that the university ‘‘must march with the spirit of these times,

look modern, and act like any other globally relevant, modern, normal organization.’’ For

others, this exact flattening of the distinction of their university is a source of outrage; as

our opening quote highlights by comparing the university’s icon to the Coca Cola brand,

2 Even if most of these universities do not have their motto marked on the icon, often they still have amessage conveyed in a ‘‘tag line’’ that they commonly include in their media communication.

High Educ

123

Author's personal copy

the possibility of iconographic resemblance to organizations outside its category is a

degradation of academia and a call for alarm.

Summary

The four institutional narratives that are visualized in the iconography of universities

convey particular identities of the university: they each situate the university within a

unique context and thus define the university’s social place in a unique manner. The guild-

like classic narrative portrays the university as an institution that derives its legitimacy

from its very age-old existence; the academic profession should be granted the autonomy

to persist in this civilizing project. The professional scientific narrative conceives of the

university in vocational and educational terms: the university is a training site for certain

professions, while also serving as a site for professional scholars, and it is a place for

individuals to live the values of Enlightenment; with that, the university’s social role

highlights the importance of erudition and research. The localized narrative conceives of

the university as a particularistic, often national, institution that carries local pride and

exhibits local uniqueness. And, the organization narrative conceives of the university in

universalistic, thus generalized terms, and is therefore embedded in the era of ‘‘brand

society’’ (Kornberger 2009).

Discussion: iconographic narratives and historic change

The goal of this study is to explore the history of the university through an institutionalist

prism, anchoring such institutionalist analysis in the visual artifacts of the university. The

analysis of the icons of universities advances the questions—What is a university and how

is its identity represented? This study identifies four distinct institutional narratives that

define the university and its social role: guild-like classic, professional scientific, localized,

and organizational. This study also finds that while such narratives have their roots in

specific eras throughout the lifespan of the institution of the university, all four narratives

are available at the current era. All four narratives, however, distinct they are conceptually,

exist contemporaneously within the global field of universities. Relying on such findings

allows the retelling of the history of the university: not as a linear evolution of functional

capacity and social mission, but rather as an institutional process of embedding universities

within various social contexts from which they draw a variety of signals to be reassembled

into an identity narrative. Over the millennium that passed since the founding of the first

university, the emergence of several institutional narratives created a varied backdrop to

the branding campaigns and related strategic identity exercises that many universities

currently undergo.

How do such institutional narratives relate to each other? Our evidence for the current

heterogeneity of institutional narratives in the field of universities nowadays highlights

patterns of layering, or sedimentation, of narratives: Like Kuhn’s theory of paradigmatic

changes, narratives that define the social role of the university emerge from a time- and

place-specific social context, they rise to dominate the discourse, and then come to be

overshadowed by a newly emerging narrative; rarely do they disappear completely,3 but

rather they morph and change, get translated and sediment, and then co-exist.

3 For example, the nineteenth century tale of the French model of the university (with its strict statecontrol), while eclipsed by the Humboldtian model, still shaped a uniquely French university system(Musselin 2004).

High Educ

123

Author's personal copy

Such patterns of layering and sedimentation of institutional narratives are evident in the

iconography of universities. As noted earlier, many university icons include visual cue of

the professional scientific narrative (book) with a visual cue of the local-national narrative

(territorial map or flag elements). Such combinations, or layers, of institutional narratives

are, however, patterned in a way that suggests a unique dynamic to the relationship

between institutional narratives: some narratives mesh and interact, while others stand

apart. Specifically, many of the icons that convey the national narrative also include

markings of the profession. For example, the icons of both Egyptian Tanta University and

Minia University combine the professional marking of an open book with national themes

of territory (map of the Nile’s Delta) and of legendary leaders. However, icons that convey

the organization narrative do not include national markers and rarely, and if so than also

rather abstractly, incorporate markings of the professional narrative. And while a few

abstract icons that convey the organization narrative may also be taken to convey a

professional or national,4 they highlight the distance created with such stylistic abstraction:

the images require deep interpretation to possibly deliver this identification. And with this

distance comes an aloofness of the organization narrative, setting it apart, rather than

combining with, the professional and localized narratives. In this sense, while the pro-

fessional and localized narratives seem to be commensurable, the organization narrative

represents rapture in the institutional mythology of universities.

What inspires the university to construct new institutional narratives of its identity and

social role? Obviously, the social context of the institution of the university changed over

the course of a thousand years. And, at each era, particular ideas and ideals took hold not

only of human imagination but also molding economic, technological, and political ar-

rangements. The turning points of western, now global, civilization leave their mark on

university iconography, by infusing their narrative with messages about religious erudition,

Enlightenment, and the rise of the nation-state. The recent rise of ‘‘brand society’’ is carried

forward by globalization and its universalistic themes, by professionalization and ra-

tionalization that also penetrate university administration, by marketization and commer-

cialization of knowledge that is also fueled by assumptions about fierce global competition,

and by mediatization which opens new venue for legitimacy strategies (Drori et al. 2013).

These forces come together to drive the university to change from being a ‘‘Republic of

Scholars’’ into ‘‘an organization’’ (Krucken and Meier 2006). And, these trends are ac-

centuated by managerialism, where increasingly the operational control of universities is

moved out of the hands of the professionals (academics) into the hands of professional

managers (Krause 1996).

The limited scope of our empirical study opens a door for most interesting future

research. First, university icons are but a single in a series of material identity artifacts in

organizations; others, also ripe for interpretive analysis, are mission statements (Kosmutski

2012), publicity material (Osman 2008), ceremonies, formal dress, and similar insignia.

Some, more than others, also offer an opportunity for further developing techniques for

content analysis of visual material. Second, our cross-national survey of icons and other

data, from universities in 22 countries worldwide, provides a platform for comprehensive

comparative research. Such survey research could, and should, be supplemented with case

analyses that would inform us of the social process that constructs iconographic narratives.

Exploratory investigations, which relied on interviews with participants in branding dis-

cussions and archival searches through meeting protocols and university regulation, show

4 For example, the icon of the University of Tokyo is reminiscent of a Ginkgo leaf thus referring to its Asiancontext.

High Educ

123

Author's personal copy

this to be a fruitful venue for understanding the contested process of identity construction

in organizations. It is in this junction between social process and materialized artifacts that

institutional narratives get constructed, explicated, and made public.

Acknowledgments This study is generously supported by two grants awarded to Gili S. Drori, from theIsrael Science Foundation (Grant No. 812/12) and the European Commission’s Marie Curie Career Inte-gration Grant (PF7-People-2012 322041).

References

Albert, S., & Whetten, D. A. (1985). Organizational identity. In L. L. Cummings & B. M. Staw (Eds.),Research in organizational behavior (Vol. 7, pp. 263–295). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

Aula, H.-M., & Tienari, J. (2011). Becoming ‘world-class’? Reputation-building in a university merger.Critical perspectives on international business, 7(1), 7–29.

Bok, D. (2003). Universities in the marketplace: The commercialization of higher education. New Jersy:Princeton University Press.

Brannen, M. Y. (2004). When Mickey loses face: Recontextualization, semantic fit, and the semiotics offoreignness. Academy of Management Review, 29(4), 593–616.

Bruzel, D. L. (2007). Universities sell their brand. Journal of Product and Brand Management, 16(2),152–153.

Chapleo, C. (2011). Exploring rationales for branding a university: Should we be seeking to measurebranding in UK universities? Journal of Brand Management, 18(6), 411–422.

Clark, B. R. (1998). Creating entrepreneurial universities: Organizational pathways of transformation. NewYork: Pergamon IAU Press.

Cohen, A., Yemini, M., & Sadeh, E. (2014). Web-based analysis of internationalization in Israeli teachingcolleges. Journal of Studies in International Education, 18(1), 23–44.

Colish, M. L. (1997). Medieval foundations of the western intellectual tradition 400–1400. New Haven:Yale University Press.

Cusso, R. (2008). Reforming the European university: Social change in the shadow of the educational modeland ‘quality’. In J. Resnki (Ed.), The production of educational knowledge in the global era (pp.215–227). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

Czarniawska, B. (1997). Narrating the organization: Dramas of institutional identity. Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press.

Davies, S. W., & Glaister, K. W. (1996). Spurs to higher things? Mission statements of UK universities.Higher Education Quarterly, 50(4), 261–294.

Deem, R. (2001). Globalisation, new managerialism, academic capitalism and entrepreneurialism in uni-versities: Is the local dimension still important? Comparative Education, 37(1), 7–20.

Delmestri, G., & Wezel, F. C. (2011). Breaking the wave: The contested legitimation of an alien organi-zational form. Journal of International Business Studies, 42(6), 828–852.

Drori, G. S., Delmestri, G., & Oberg, A (2013). Branding the university: Relational strategy of identityconstruction in a competitive field. In L. Engwall & P. Scott (Eds.), Trust in Higher EducationInstitutions (pp. 134–147). London: Portland Press.

Drori, G. S., & Hyeyoung, M. (2006). The changing nature of tertiary education: Neo-institutional per-spective onto cross-national trends in disciplinary enrollment, 1965–1995. In P. D. Baker & A.W. Wiseman (Eds.), The impact of comparative education research on institutional theory (pp.163–192). Elsevier Science.

Drori, G. S., Hollerer, M., & Walgenbach, P. (Eds.). (2014). The glocalization of organization and man-agement: Issues, dimensions, and themes. In Global themes and local variations in organization andmanagement: Perspectives on glocalization (pp. 1–24). London: Routledge.

Engwall, L. (2008). Minerva and the media: Universities protecting and promoting themselves. In C. Mazza,P. Quattrone & A. Riccaboni (Eds.) European universities in transition: Issues, models and causes (pp.32–48).

Frank, D. J., & Gabler, J. (2006). Reconstructing the University: Worldwide Shifts in academia in the 20thcentury. California: Stanford University Press.

Frank, D. J., & Meyer, J. W. (2007). University expansion and the knowledge society. Theory and Society,36(4), 287–311.

High Educ

123

Author's personal copy

Gibbons, M., Limoges, C., Nowotny, H., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P., & Trow, M. (1994). The new pro-duction of knowledge: The dynamics of science and research in contemporary societies. New York:Sage.

Gioia, D. A., Hamilton, A. L., & Patvardhan, S. D. (2014). Image is everything: Reflections on thedominance of image in modern organizational life. Research in Organizational Behavior, 34, 129–154.

Gioia, D. A., Patvardhan, S. D., Hamilton, A. L., & Corley, K. G. (2013). Organizational identity formationand change. The Academy of Management Annals, 7(1), 123–193.

Glynn, M. A. (2008). Beyond constraint: How institutions enable identities. In R. Greenwood, C. Oliver, R.Suddaby & K. Sahlin (Eds.), The sage handbook of organizational institutionalism (pp. 413–430). NewYork: Sage.

Hearn, A. (2010). ‘Through the looking glass’: The promotional university 2.0. In M. Aronczyk & D.Powers (Eds.), Blowing up the brand: Critical perspectives on promotional culture (pp. 197–219). NewYork: Peter Lang.

Kavanagh, D. (2009). Institutional heterogeneity and change: The university as fool. Organization, 15(4),575–595.

Kerr, C. (1963/2001). The uses of the university (5th ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Kornberger, M. (2009). The brand society: How brands transform management and lifestyle.. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.Kosmutski, A. (2012). Between mission and market position: Empirical findings on mission statements of

German higher education institutions. Tertiary Education and Management, 18(1), 57–77.Krause, E. A. (1996). Death of the guilds, professions, states, and the advance of capitalism, 1930 to the

Present. New Haven: Yale University Press.Kretek, P. M., Dragsic, Z., & Kehm, B. M. (2013). Transformation of university governance: On the role of

university board members. Higher Education, 65(1), 39–58.Krucken, G., & Meier, F. (2006). Turning the university into an organizational actor. In G. S. Drori, J.

W. Meyer, & H. Hwang (Eds.), Globalization and organization: World society and organizationalchange (pp. 241–257). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Mazza, C., Quattrone, P., & Riccaboni, A. (2008). Introduction: Found in translation? The persistence of theuniversity as an institution. In Mazza (Ed.), European Universities in transition: Issues, models andcauses (pp. 241–257). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

Meyer, J. W., Drori, G. S., & Hwang, H. (2006). World society and the organizational actor. In G. S. Drori,J. W. Meyer, & H. Hwang (Eds.), Globalization and organization: World society and organizationalchange (pp. 25–49). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Meyer, R. E., Hollerer, M. A., Jancsary, D., & Van Leeuwen, T. (2013). The visual dimension in organizing,organization, and organization research: Core ideas, current developments, and promising avenues. TheAcademy of Management Annals, 7(1), 487–553.

Meyer, J. W., Ramirez, F. O., Frank, D. J., & Schofer, E. (2007). Higher education as an institution. InPatricia Gumport (Ed.), The sociology of higher education: contributions and their contexts (pp.25–49). Maryland: Johns Hopkins University.

Mohrmana, K., Mab, W., & Baker, D. (2008). The research university in transition: The emerging globalmodel. Higher Education Policy, 21(1), 5–27.

Morphew, C. C., & Hartley, M. (2006). Mission statements: A thematic analysis of rhetoric across insti-tutional type. The Journal of Higher Education, 77(3), 456–471.

Musselin, C. (2004). The Long March of French Universities. Routledge and Falmer.Nelson, A. R & Wei, I. P. (Eds.). (2012). The global university: Past, present, and future perspectives.

Palgrave Macmillan.Nowotny, H., Scott, P., & Gibbons, M. (2001) Rethinking Science: Knowledge in an Age of Uncertainty.

Polity.Osman, H. (2008). Re-branding academic institutions with corporate advertising: A genre perspective.

Discourse and Communication, 2, 57–77.Press, E., & Washburn, J. (2000). The kept university. Atlantic Monthly, 285(3), 39–54.Ramirez, F. O. (2010). Accounting for excellence: Transforming universities into organizational actors. In

V. Rust, L. Portnoi, & S. Bagely (Eds.), Higher education, policy, and the global competition phe-nomenon (pp. 54–75). New York: Pelgrave.

Ramirez, F. O., & Christensen, T. (2013). The formalization of the university: Rules, roots, and routes.Higher Education, 65(4), 695–708.

Rhoten, D. R., & Powell, W. W. (2010). Public research universities: From land grant to federal grant topatent grant institutions. In D. Rhoten, C. Calhoun, & S. Bagely (Eds.), Knowledge matters (pp.54–75). New York: Columbia University Press.

High Educ

123

Author's personal copy

Riddle, P. (1993). Political authority and university formation in Europe, 1200–1800. Sociological Per-spectives, 36(1), 45–62.

Ruegg, W. (1996). A history of the university in Europe (Vol. I-III). Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Schofer, E., & Meyer, J. W. (2005). The world-wide expansion of higher education in the twentieth century.American Sociological Review, 70(6), 898–920.

Scott, J. C. (2006). The mission of the university: Medieval to postmodern transformations. The Journal ofHigher Education, 77(1), 1–39.

Slaughter, S., & Rhoades, G. (2004). Academic capitalism and the new economy. Maryland: Johns HopkinsUniversity Press.

Stevens, M. L., Armstrong, E. A., & Arum, R. (2008). Sieve, incubator, temple, hub: Empirical andtheoretical advances in the sociology of higher education. Annual Review of Sociology, 34, 127–151.

Strang, D., & Meyer, J. W. (1993). Institutional conditions for diffusion. Theory and Society, 22(4),487–511.

Tuchman, G. (2009). Wannabe U: Inside the corporate university. Chicago: Chicago University Press.Wæraas, A., & Solbakk, M. N. (2009). Defining the essence of a university: Lessons from higher education

branding. Higher Education, 57, 449–462.Willmott, H. (2003). Commercializing higher education in the UK: The state, industry and peer review.

Studies in Higher Education, 28(2), 129–141.Willmott, H. (2010). Creating ‘value’ beyond the point of production: Branding, financialization and market

capitalization. Organization, 17(5), 517–542.Wissema, J. G. (2009). Towards the third generation university: Managing the university in transition.

Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

High Educ

123

Author's personal copy