International Comparative Research on University Governance Reform: Exploring the Role of Organisational Culture and Staff Development

在日本最近的大学改革过程中，机构治理的明确要素，如组织结构和责任分配（特别是有利于自上而下的决策），一直受到政府的强调，从而导致所有大学或多或少在治理安排方面朝着同一个方向发展。然而，通过问卷调查和国际比较，这项研究表明，大学治理是非常多样化的，没有一种形式可以在各机构之间普遍使用。这一事实意味着，与治理相关的政策不应该对所有大学都是全面的，而应该帮助每所大学有效地设计自己的治理安排，特别关注隐含的因素，如选区的积极参与、他们之间的信任、建立共识和整个机构的支持性领导。

In the course of recent university reforms in Japan, explicit elements of the institutional governance, such as organisational structures and distribution of responsibilities (particularly in favour of top-down decision-making), have been emphasised by the government, thus leading all the universities more or less towards the same direction in terms of governance arrangements. This research, however, has revealed that, through a questionnaire survey and international comparison, university governance is very diverse and that there is no single form that may be generally used across institutions. This fact implies that governance-related policy should not be across-the-board for all the universities but that it should rather assist each university in effectively devising its own governance arrangements with a particular focus on implicit elements such as active participation of constituencies, trust among them, consensus building and supportive leadership across the institution.