Hybrid Decision Structures in Transnational Alliances of Higher Education

Since 2019, the European Union has encouraged the establishment of ‘new’ university alliances, that is transnational strategic groupings involving more than three hundred higher education institutions in the European Union and associated partner countries. This paper treats the European Universities Initiative (EUI) as an instance of a meta-organization and investigates how decision-making processes have unfolded thus far reflecting four ‘classic’ decision-making models (i.e., the rational actor model, the collegial model, the political model and the garbage can model). More specifically, the study investigates two main stages in the alliances—the initiation stage and the consolidation stage—in more depth. The paper benefits from several (internal) documents and semi-structured interviews conducted with key staff from the selected alliances, the Circle U. and FORTHEM European alliances. The findings ultimately demonstrate the prevalence of key features associated with three of the four decision models, all except for garbage can, eventually resulting in hybrid decision dynamics. The data clearly show that most decisions are made by consensus, and that resource dependency, soft power, trust, and tensions underpin these decision-making processes. The paper provides insights on the mechanism underpinning alliance-level value frameworks, focusing on how different logics and values are blended, negotiated, and/or legitimized.