Universities in the Learning Economy: Balancing Institutional Integrity With Organizational Diversity

Abstract Suggests two important ideas: first, it is proposed that the institutional integrity of the university needs to be preserved, since universities are a special type of learning organization specialized in producing and diffusing knowledge in unique ways; second, it is argued that, important as universities are, they are not enough to guarantee prosperity, and there is a need to promote a diversity of organizational arrangements, even at the higher education level, which could then be a major contributor to ensuring the institutional integrity of the university. The analysis is based on the way organizations deal with knowledge, i.e. the way they promote ‘learning’, where learning is understood as the mechanisms through which knowledge is produced and diffused. Hence, the chapter starts by describing a conceptual framework where the understanding of learning as a process of knowledge accumulation is made explicit. Next, the application of this model to the context of the university is discussed. The concluding section summarizes the main arguments of the chapter.