Introduction

The challenges of understanding institutional change have attracted theoretical and empirical interest in higher education over the last few decades (Brankovic and Cantwell, 2022). Changing financial steering systems and competition over students, combined with growing demands for quality and efficiency, have become important concerns. To respond to growing demands, universities have adapted new strategic managerial models from the business world (Erkkilä, 2014; Dobbins, 2017; Tahar and Boutellier, 2013), which can be interpreted as a reaction to external political, economic and social pressures and strive towards the continuous improvement of processes, organisational structures and strategic collaboration with stakeholders (Pekkola et al., 2018; Rogers, 2019; Corazza and Saluto, 2021). In order to specialise and integrate with the highly standardised higher education industry (Stensaker and Norgård, 2001), aims at continuous improvement and effectiveness through strategic management and stakeholder engagement are necessities for universities (Pekkola et al., 2018); Rogers, 2019). Universities Act through research, education and societal engagement activities to respond to the needs of the society and stakeholders, while multiple stakeholders on the other hand influence university strategies, policies and structures (Vellamo et al., 2019).

Despite its importance, research on regional stakeholders’ impact has gained only limited attention in higher education. Research on university stakeholder engagement tends to focus on technology and knowledge transfer and university–industry–government relations (Klofsten et al., 2010; Lappalainen and Markkula, 2013) fostered by an increased pressure from government on universities to take a more proactive role in enhancing regional and societal development (Miller et al., 2018). University and stakeholder involvement and engagement in academic change processes in a specific regional setting are not thoroughly studied. Research on the structural roles and impact of multiple stakeholders in triple and quadruple helix structures, especially in higher education, within regions is only emergent (Miller et al., 2018; Chapleo and Simms, 2010). In terms of stakeholder engagement in change, prior studies typically focus on one or a few stakeholders at a time without offering a systemic approach to stakeholder relationships, intersections, conflicts and salience of many stakeholder needs in to consideration (Myllykangas et al., 2010)

In this paper, the selected case study illuminates how multiple stakeholders engage in and affect higher education change in Finland. The study focuses on stakeholder impact in the highly competitive and regulated engineering and technology education over a period from 2016 to 2023, which was characterised by changes in the political steering in higher education and in the institutional organisation of the discipline. This paper offers a structured approach by applying institutional and stakeholder theories to analyse organisational interpretations of and strategic responses to external pressures in higher education. In other words, the paper shows how change in higher education is connected to responses to institutional pressures (e.g. pressures from regulatory agencies, social expectations, the actions of leading organisations; Powell and DiMaggio, 1991; Greenwood and Hinings, 1996) and to strategic actions, which are aimed to affect the organisations and the wider institutional environment (Whatley and Castiello-Gutiérrez, 2022; Gornitzka and Maassen, 2000; Christensen and Gornitzka, 2017; Frølich et al., 2013). Due to national regulations in higher education, the reforms, whether general, discipline, or university specific, are always political. Any attempt to change higher education is an attempt to use power, and the use of power usually changes the higher education market (Välimaa, 2001). In a competitive environment, the optimisation of processes and structures legitimates both efficiency goals and benchmarking strategies (Peter and Bröckling, 2017).

This study provides new empirical knowledge on multiple stakeholder’s impact, which is a simultaneous impact of many stakeholders, in higher education development by connecting these concepts with the notions of institutional change and legitimacy formation. Based on the empirical data, I demonstrate how strategic actions of an individual university can act as drivers for institutional change in higher education by altering the institutional isomorphic structures. Different interests at regional- and disciplinary-level create tensions that are actively resolved by calculated stakeholder actions.

Applying Stakeholder and Institutional Theories to Explain Change in Higher Education

The concepts of stakeholder power and interest (Freeman, 1984) and impact of different interest groups, who can affect or are affected by the actions, decisions, policies, practices, or goals of the organisation (Carroll et al., 2006), have started to attract more interest in higher education research. According to stakeholder management theory, a stakeholder for an organisation is any group or individual who affects or is affected by the achievements of the organisation’s objectives. This theory considers all legitimate stakeholders but acknowledges that the urgency and importance of their interests differ. Interests define actors as stakeholders who use different means of influence (Freeman, 1984). Interests of stakeholders affect the processes of organisations through direct justifications and other means of legitimation to drive organisational interests (Deephouse and Suchman, 2008; Chapleo and Simms, 2010) and build or maintain power structures (Benson, 1977; Suchman, 1995).

Universities change by adapting to the institutional and stakeholder environment with calculated actions as a means of signalling their legitimacy (Meyer and Rowan, 1977; Powell and DiMaggio, 1991; Fumasoli and Huisman, 2013). Given the institutionalised nature of organisations, both the external and internal processes by which organisations adapt and change and the role of strategic intra-organisational actions in responding to the institutionalised pressures (Powell and DiMaggio, 1991) and field demands (Scott, 2008; Fumasoli and Huisman, 2013; Stensaker et al., 2014; Pinheiro et al., 2016; Mampaey, 2018; Hasanefendic and Donina, 2022), are critical. The key challenge in institutional change is to understand how and why institutional work occurs and how this affects institutional stability and change (Zietsma and Lawrence, 2010). Institutional emergence can be understood as an outcome of dynamic interactions between two institutional by-products: institutional contradictions and organisational actions (Fligstein, 1997; Pierson, 2000; Thelen, 2004). Misalignment in existing social arrangements or the differing interests of actors lead to institutional change, as organisations adapt to contextual expectations to gain legitimacy and increase their probability of survival (Powell and DiMaggio, 1991; Zimmerman and Zeitz, 2002). Legitimacy reflects social acceptance by other institutions and is maintained by conforming to the institutional environment, which leads to institutional isomorphism. (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983).

The dialectical perspective offers a good framework for combining the stakeholder and institutional theories to analyse institutional contradictions and change in higher education (Meyer and Rowan, 1977; Scott and Christensen, 1997) in a multilevel environment (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; Scott and Biag, 2016). Dialectical processes happen at organisational (Benson, 1977), interorganisational (Das and Teng, 2000) and institutional levels (Seo and Creed, 2002). The dialectical perspective (Figure 1) explains institutional change as a process through which actors drive their interests. Contradictions in organisational interests create tensions that provoke actions. The accumulation of contradictions within and between institutions provides seeds for institutional change. Actions lead to new social interactions that, through institutionalisation and change, become legitimised and accepted (Seo and Creed, 2002).

Fig. 1
figure 1

Institutionalisation and institutional change: process from a dialectical perspective (adapted from Seo & Creed, 2002)

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Higher education change has been analysed as policy development and decision-making through action and political discourse whereby stakeholders express their interests (Ball, 2001; Whitty et al., 2004), which has either a controlling function (through stabilising) or a renewing function (through action) (Kauko, 2011). In higher education, relations between national and regional levels are dialectical (Antikainen, 2006), and development is a continuation of interconnected actions and decisions (Ball, 2001; Simola et al., 2017) to create alternative possibilities to resolve contradictions and direct change (Palonen, 2006)

During the last few decades, Finnish universities have faced major general reforms, changes in the funding system, requirements for research profiling guided by European higher education policy, and requirements for effectiveness, lean organisational structures, strong stakeholder partnerships, and regional impact (Kohtamäki and Balbachevsky, 2018; Lyytinen et al., 2017). Many reforms culminated in the New Universities Act in 2009, when universities were granted financial and administrative independence in relation to the state (Nokkala and Bladh, 2014; Tapanila et al., 2020). The most recent structural changes have been witnessed in the Aalto University and the Tampere University, where universities have been merged together (Roth et al., 2018). These mergers have been studied from a stakeholder perspective, demonstrating that external and internal stakeholders with different power and interests influence the development and management of university brand (Aula et al., 2015) and that perceptions of internal stakeholders on the change management have an integral impact on the success of the whole change process (Roth et al., 2018). Research on the Tampere merger has also shown that institutional change process affects the perceived individual, disciplinary and organisational views of internal stakeholders in technical fields (Vellamo, 2022). The extension of research and education in engineering and technology at the University of Turku has also been a strategic action to respond to societal demands and the need to improve the competitiveness of the multidisciplinary university.

Research Context and Methods

Case Description

Finnish higher education is based on a dual system comprising universities and universities of applied sciences. Universities focus on scientific research and education based on it. In contrast, universities of applied sciences offer pragmatic education that responds directly to regional needs. The higher education system consists of 13 universities and 22 universities of applied sciences. According to the Universities Act (Ministry of Education and Culture, 2009, Universities Act 558/ 2009, https://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/kaannokset/2009/en20090558.pdf, n.d), degree education at universities is legislated and regulated by Decree to which amendments are prepared together by universities. Engineering and technology education is strongly regulated by the Decree. In particular, this regulation includes 13 separate fields, and universities can offer degree education only according to the responsibilities listed in the Decree (Opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriö, Asetus yliopistojen koulutusvastuun täsmentämisestä 30.12.2014/1451, https://www.edilex.fi/lainsaadanto/20141451).

Degree education and student volumes are estimated based on national demands steered at the Ministry and allocated between universities in negotiations of funding and education responsibilities. Currently, nine universities offer degree programmes in engineering and technology. Together these universities form the national FITech consortium.Footnote 1 In terms of student volume, the biggest universities are Aalto University (Aalto), Tampere University (TUNI), and Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology (LUT). Universities with a smaller volume of students include the Swedish-speaking university Åbo Akademi University (ÅA), the University of Turku (UTU), the University of Oulu (UO), and the University of Vaasa (UVA). The newest universities in the network are the University of Jyväskylä (UJY), which gained educational responsibility in engineering in 2020, and the University of Eastern Finland (UEF), which gained responsibility in 2021.

UTU was founded in 1920 and is one of the oldest universities in Finland. In terms of student enrolment, the university is the third-largest multidisciplinary university, but in terms of engineering and technology education, it is only middle-sized. In Southwest Finland, three other higher education institutionsFootnote 2 offer education in engineering and technology. In 2019, UTU made a strategic decision to extend the engineering research and education. Other regional actors, higher education institutions, Turku Science Park and the City of Turku were strongly supporting this action. As a result, in 2023, the university had educational responsibilities in five engineering and technology fields.Footnote 3 In terms of student volume, UTU produces approximately ten per cent of all Masters of Science in Technology in Finland.

Methods

To answer the research question on how institutional change in higher education happens and how stakeholders engage in and affect the change, an event-based process approach was adopted to explain the temporal order of interconnected events and actions through a policy discussion where the interests, actions and means of influencing are addressed. A single case study design allows to explore and understand in-depth relations between actors to gain contextualised insight into a complex phenomenon (Welch et al., 2020). In this paper, a change process as a dialectical process between stakeholders is described by analysing the interests, contradictions and actions. A similar approach is commonly utilised, for example, in higher education policy studies (e.g. Isopahkala-Bouret et al., 2021).

The methodological approach is based on content analysis and the realisation of political interests as a dialectical process connected to stakeholder relations, actor positions and actions (Haltia et al., 2019; Isopahkala-Bouret and Brunila, 2014). Analysis focuses on multiple stakeholders and their interests, where conflicting interests can be defined as political deadlocks (Häikiö, 2005). In this study, contradictory interests form deadlocks, which stakeholders resolve through actions that support their own agenda and actor positions (Mikola and Häikiö, 2014; Laclau and Mouffe, 2014). Process research approach aims to discover “how and why things emerge, develop or terminate over time” (Langley et al., 2013). Typically, process studies explain process outcomes by looking backwards or concentrating on the observed sequence of events and their underlying forces (Van de Ven and Engleman, 2004).

Research Data

The data consist of written documents outlining the institutional change from a policy perspective in a timeframe of 2016–2023. This time period was chosen for the case study to capture the intensive policy discussion and interconnected interests and actions at the national, disciplinary and regional levels. The written documents are “situated products” that were produced in a certain social setting for a certain purpose. When approaching documents from this perspective, the dynamics involved in the relationships between production, consumption and content need to be kept in mind (Prior, 2003). The empirical material consists of documents that together draw a picture of multiple stakeholders’ interests and motivations, including memoranda, regional development plans, stakeholder statements, legal documents and decisions by the Ministry of Education and Culture, ministerial publications, and selected news articles. A couple of fact-checking interviews completed the data. All legal documents, including formal proposals to the Ministry of Education and Culture with annexes, political decisions and memoranda, and related stakeholder statements, are public. Part of the material is semi-public and accessible by request. All materials represent the formal opinions of stakeholders. The statements have been translated from Finnish to English, and the original meanings have been preserved as fully as possible. The full list of empirical materials is presented in Table 1 in Appendix 1.

Data Analysis

The data analysis was carried out in three phases following a process research approach. First, stakeholders and key events, watershed moments, from the higher education policy perspective were recognised from the data. Watershed moments are understood as critical points in the process of interconnected decisions that create discontinuity and hence change the institutional field, logic of operation, roles, or positions of actors. New institutions and structures typically emerge in these junctures (Hall, 2010; Ruonavaara, 2006). By recognising watershed moments, three separate episodes in the change process were identified.

After mapping the general process with main events and watershed moments, the documents were analysed to determine actions and patterns of meanings, and not so much their frequency, arising from the data. Content analysis method was used to find patterns in the written documents to discover rationales in different documented “negotiations”. To understand different stakeholder interests, theoretical perspectives from institutional and stakeholder theories were applied but instead of relying on a predefined coding scheme, a method of content analysis was used to produce a data-driven coding scheme.

The hermeneutical process of content analysis included several rounds to find all stakeholder actions and expressions of interests from the material. After all expressions of interest rising from the data were identified, they were interpreted by their meaning and categorised. Categories of interests were used to identify the contradictions in the data. Identifying stakeholder actions helped to reveal the action-reaction chains in the studied change process. To increase the validity of the analysis, researcher triangulation was used. Two researchers analysed the data separately and independent results were then compared. The analysis was an iterative process of shifting back and forth between data and results, until a plausible understanding of actions and interests conveyed by the material was reached. Finally, the data included 15 categories of interests. Inter-researcher results on stakeholder interests were aligned. Examples of stakeholder arguments from the data act as pieces of evidence to support the findings (Appendix 2). In the analysis, discrepancies in stakeholder actions were detected from the results. Researcher 1 found 157 separate stakeholder actions and researcher 2 found 165 actions. The inter-researcher reliability here was 95 per cent. Through elaboration, a resolution in the analysis was found and data scheme was finalised. The final combined data included altogether 163 stakeholder actions.

Finally, a visual mapping to illustrate the process and causal relationships between stakeholder actions was drawn by placing the main events and actions on a swimlane graph (Fig. 2). A similar approach has been used in other research to visualise the dialectical process between actors (Valta et al., 2022; Gehman et al., 2013).

Fig. 2
figure 2

Timeline of the main episodes, stakeholder actions and watershed moments

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Results

Stakeholders and Their Conflicting Interests

In 2015–2019, the Strategic Programme of Government in Finland stressed the importance of university–business collaboration, which entailed the specialisation of universities and interuniversity collaboration (Government Publications, 2015). The political climate thus facilitated the strengthening of universities according to their existing research and education portfolios. In this respect, Southwest Finland had been found to be lagging behind in technological development, with one reason being the insufficient number of Master of Science in Engineering and Technology graduates in the region. In 2016–2017, regional and national actions to resolve this shortage were initiated. While there was a shared objective, there were different perspectives on the best means by which to achieve it. The regional stakeholders, led by the city of Turku, drafted an extensive plan to resolve the chronic skills shortage, which included recommendations for action at both the regional and national levels to secure adequate higher education in the long run. According to the plan, the competitiveness of the region could be ensured by rapidly initiating education activities in collaboration with other universities while simultaneously investing in strengthening the regional ecosystem. The solution was sought through interuniversity collaboration and by applying for extended educational responsibilities (I.1.1, Turun kaupunki, 2016. Positiivisen rakennemuutoksen arviointia — Vaikutukset ja toimenpiteet. Turun kaupunki, Kaupunkikehitysryhmä. https://docplayer.fi/26966838-Positiivisen-rakennemuutoksen-arviointia-vaikutukset-ja-toimenpiteet-turun-kaupunki-kaupunkikehitysryhma-esa-tuomisto.html). This plan was delivered to the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Council of State in December 2016.

At the national level, interests differed. As a response to the regional initiative, the Ministry hired an external investigator to conduct another evaluation of how best to resolve the engineering skills shortage in Southwest Finland. In March 2017, the evaluation was still ongoing, and UTU proactively and formally applied for an extension of educational responsibilities to cover mechanical and materials engineering (I.1.2 Turun yliopisto, 20.3. 2017 Esitys, Koulutusvastuun muuttaminen, unpublished). The proposal was fully aligned with the regional development plan that had been delivered to the Ministry. Even after receiving the formal proposal, the Ministry did not initiate a political decision-making process, but instead relied on the results of the evaluation. These results were published in April 2017, roughly a month after UTU proposed new educational responsibilities. The evaluation report and the Minister of Education and Culture stated that the skills shortage could most effectively be addressed by utilising the already existing engineering and technology education at other universities and suggested the establishment of a national network university, the Finnish Institute of Technology (FITech) (I.2.1, Opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriö, 2017; Liiten, 2017).

The establishment of the FITech was aligned with the formal higher education policy and the interests of the Ministry, which stressed specialisation and collaboration between universities according to the current responsibilities. It was clear that new degree programmes needed to be established; still, the Ministry decided not to grant educational responsibilities to UTU and instead allocated new resources to other universities. The Ministry, for example, allowed the operations of LUT University to be extended by establishing a new unit in Lahti. In addition, the Ministry allocated a substantial EUR 12 million budget for the establishment of the FITech in August 2017. These proposed FITech operations were aligned with the Government Programme, which steered universities towards specialisation and collaboration (Publications of the Finnish Government 2019). Furthermore, supplementary funding was allocated to regions facing positive structural and industrial changes. In Turku, this meant EUR 2 million in funding for improvements to a regional platform called Turku Future Technologies (established in 2015), which was coordinated by the Turku Science Park and intended to serve as a regional hub for FITech. Another EUR 4 million was allocated to strengthening engineering education at the Turku University of Applied Sciences (Opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriön päätös ja perustelumuistio, Johtaja Birgitta Vuorinen, 10.7.2019 Opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriön asetus yliopistojen koulutusvastuun täsmentämisestä ja asetuksen liitteen muuttamisesta, unpublished).

National and disciplinary interests conflicted with regional ones, and the establishment of FITech remained controversial. While the Ministry made the decision to invest in the network university, the regional stakeholders stressed the temporary nature of the solution and the importance of regional ecosystem development. The forthcoming impact of the network university in the region was expected to remain insufficient. New measures were needed, and in April 2018, the city of Turku established the Technology Campus Turku network, with the aim of strengthening the regional technology ecosystem (I.1.4 Yhteistyösopimus koskien “Technology Campus Turku” -toiminnan perustamista, 27.4. 2018, unpublished). This network brought together all regional actors in a formal way and underlined the importance of regional objectives and strategies.

FITech was also challenged at the national level. The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment conducted another evaluation, which included recommendations for activities to support positive economic development in Southwest Finland. According to the report, FITech was important, but without regional capacity building, the network would never succeed (Työ- ja elinkeinoministeriö, 2017). Furthermore, the exportation of education from other universities could not fully address the existing gaps, because a competitive region needs research and a strong tech ecosystem to create a permanent impact. The results of this evaluation stressed that legitimate support for economic growth in Southwest Finland required long-term investments in research, education and infrastructure in the region, which would foster the accumulation of research and know-how to support economic growth and development. (Työ- ja elinkeinoministeriö, 2017). UTU renewed its proposal to the Ministry in June 2019 by criticising the effectiveness of FITech in resolving the skills shortage. UTU, with both regional and national support, pressured the Ministry of Education and Culture to evaluate the impact of their investment and to assess the need for amendments to their educational responsibilities to universities.

The main interest of the Ministry of Education and Culture is to ensure that qualitative and quantitative education needs are met at the national level by also considering regional needs, to secure high-quality research and education in universities, and to support specialisation in and collaboration between universities. The Universities Act Ministry of Education and Culture, 2009,Universities Act 558/ 2009, https://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/kaannokset/2009/en20090558.pdf, n.d) and the Decree on Educational Responsibilities in Universities (Opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriö, Asetus yliopistojen koulutusvastuun täsmentämisestä 30.12.2014/1451, https://www.edilex.fi/lainsaadanto/20141451) legislate higher education in this context. Proposed changes to the educational responsibilities of universities are prepared in collaboration with universities. Normally, the Ministry requests that universities propose changes to the Decree through a formal letter. Before decisions are made, a formal consultation round is initiated. After UTU’s second proposal, a formal consultation and policy process was initiated. The consultation round was affected by the regional interests supported by the Minister of Science and Culture, who at that time represented Southwest Finland in the government. Specifically, the regional interests were challenged by the disciplinary-level interests of other FITech actors. The consultation round resulted in eight statements. ÅA and TUAS, signing partners in the regional Technology Campus Turku network, supported the proposal, stressing the importance of a long-term solution to effectively respond to the needs of the labour market (I.1.5, Åbo Akademins uttålande om Åbo Universitets framställing om precisering av utbildningsansvaret, 26.6. 2019; Turun ammattikorkeakoulun lausunto — Asia:181/400/2019, Turun yliopiston esitys yliopiston koulutusvastuun täsmentämisestä, 19.6. 2019, https://okm.fi/hanke?tunnus=OKM024:00/2019).

Some universities did not have a special interest in the extension plans of UTU. For instance, the University of Vaasa and the University of Oulu were quite neutral towards the proposal, as even if they were involved in FITech, they did not have any educational interests in Turku. According to their statements, regional innovation ecosystems in Finland should have been strengthened by research and education initiatives in all regions (I.3.2, Oulun yliopisto, Lausunto, Turun yliopiston esitys koulutusvastuun täsmentämisestä, 26.6. 2019, https://okm.fi/hanke?tunnus=OKM024:00/2019). Quite the opposite claims were made by other FITech universities, including Aalto, LUT and TUNI, all of which had educational interests in Turku through the FITech network. These institutions questioned both the capability of UTU to conduct new degree programmes and the process per se. Their main arguments concerned insufficient research, expertise and infrastructure. These universities “objected” to the proposal also because it was against the formal higher education policy and thus not formulated with the disciplinary interests in mind (I.3.3, Aalto-yliopisto, Lausunto, Turun yliopiston esitys yliopiston koulutusvastuun täsmentämisestä, 16.6. 2019); Lappeenranta-Lahti teknillinen yliopisto LUT, Lausunto, Turun yliopiston esitys yliopiston koulutusvastuun täsmentämisestä, 27.6. 2019); Tampereen yliopisto, Lausunto, Turun yliopiston esitys koulutusvastuun täsmentämisestä, 8.7. 2019, https://okm.fi/hanke?tunnus=OKM024:00/2019). Specifically, UTU was criticised for being proactive in initiating changes to existing educational responsibilities. Political decisions on amendments to the Decree had traditionally been connected to funding negotiations initiated by the Ministry. The fragmentation of research and education was identified as one of the key weaknesses of the Finnish higher education system, and this proposal was expected to worsen the situation (I.3.4 Aalto-yliopisto, Lausunto, Turun yliopiston esitys yliopiston koulutusvastuun täsmentämisestä, 16.6. 2019); Lappeenranta-Lahti teknillinen yliopisto LUT, Lausunto, Turun yliopiston esitys yliopiston koulutusvastuun täsmentämisestä, 27.6. 2019); Tampereen yliopisto, Lausunto, Turun yliopiston esitys koulutusvastuun täsmentämisestä, 8.7. 2019, https://okm.fi/hanke?tunnus=OKM024:00/2019). Another FITech actor, Academic Engineers and Architects in Finland, supported these universities. According to their statement, UTU’s proposal was inadequate, as all changes to the existing responsibilities should have been made based on the best available resources and already planned investments (I.3.5, (Tekniikan Akateemiset TEK, Lausunto Turun yliopiston esityksestä koulutusvastuun täsmentämisestä, 6.7. 2019, https://okm.fi/hanke?tunnus=OKM024:00/2019)). This statement was prepared by an executive who conducted the evaluation that resulted in the establishment of FITech in 2017. Now, the existence of the network university was used as an argument against assigning new educational responsibilities to UTU.

Despite the criticisms advanced by the FITech actors, as well against the formal higher education policy, the Ministry made the decision to extend the existing educational responsibilities in engineering and technology at UTU. The Ministry reasoned that the decision was based on the regional shortage of academic professionals, which threatened not only regional but also national economic competitiveness and growth (I.2.3, Opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriön päätös ja perustelumuistio, Opetus – ja kulttuuriministeriö, Johtaja Birgitta Vuorinen. Muistio 10.7.2019 Opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriön asetus yliopistojen koulutusvastuun täsmentämisestä ja asetuksen liitteen muuttamisesta, unpublished). The regional policy perspective on higher education development thus played an important role in the decision-making process. The stakeholder arguments above paint a clear picture of conflicting interests between regional- and disciplinary-level actors. The main stakeholders and their interests, with examples of arguments, are summarised in Appendix 2. Table also includes the means of influencing that are analysed in more detail in the following section.

Stakeholder Actions as Initiating Institutional Change

The stakeholders’ conflicting interests in this case created tensions at the disciplinary level. Stakeholders’ engagement and their respective actions in this process can be presented through a dialectical perspective. The accumulation of conflicts between stakeholders can be analysed by placing the actions in a swimlane graph. In Figure 2, the stakeholders and their actions are mapped to visualise the change process as a result of interconnected organisational actions, where the activity of one stakeholder leads to the reaction of others, hence forming a sequence of actions leading to changes in the broader institutional structure and actor positions.

The first watershed moment in the process was the establishment of a national network university. While the decision was political and designed to strengthen the existing power relations and institutional structure in the engineering and technology field, it simultaneously triggered regional activities in Southwest Finland. In 2019, the Ministry initiated a political decision process that led to a consultation round, which the universities and other FITech actors used as a medium for arguing against the proposal. Actors that had submitted a negative statement used their political power to appeal to the Ministry. Regional network actors used the consultation round to drive change by formally proposing new educational rights and by stressing the importance of the extension of academic engineering education in Southwest Finland. At this point, the direction of the triggering actions was from the regional level to the national level.

The Ministry’s decision to extend the educational responsibilities at UTU was the second important watershed moment. This political decision changed the formal higher education policy and the acting positions of UTU and many other universities. After the new educational responsibilities in engineering were granted to UTU, the FITech network university started to retarget its operations towards teaching collaboration and continuous learning at the national level. After this move, the direction of the triggering actions in the process changed.

In autumn 2020, approximately one year after the Ministry’s decision, both of the new engineering degree programmes were running at UTU, attracting students mainly from Southwest Finland (60%) and the capital (25%). While UTU was building up the new degree programmes and recruiting new teaching resources, additional changes took place in the field. For instance, the Ministry granted the University of Jyväskylä new educational responsibility for ICT. Along with this decision, the field of engineering and technology gained a new university actor. To support the growth of engineering and technology education at the university, UTU established a Faculty of Technology in January 2021. Over the course of 2021, the Faculty, a new institutional actor in the field, built its legitimacy by strengthening engineering research, education and infrastructure. As such, the establishment of the new faculty was the third watershed moment in the process. In September 2021, when the Ministry approached all universities to propose changes in educational responsibilities, UTU proposed responsibility in electrical and automation engineering. The aim was to further strengthen their research and higher education activities to better meet the needs of the region (I.1.6, Turun yliopisto, Esitys uudeksi koulutusvastuuksi, 24.9. 2021, https://okm.fi/hanke?tunnus=OKM076:00/2021).

This time, UTU’s proposal for new educational responsibilities was a response to the ministerial request, and the formal political decision process included an open consultation round to review all the proposals sent by the universities. As the evaluation process this time was extensive, many stakeholders wanted to share their opinions. Altogether, 35 stakeholder statements were submitted, out of which 10 included opinions directly related to UTU’s proposal. These opinions, which were presented in formal statements, were generally as expected, but already more moderate than they had previously been. For instance, the universities of Oulu and Vaasa repeated their general statements, stressing the importance of higher education in fostering technology ecosystems as drivers for economic growth in all regions. Other university partners in the Technology Campus network supported the proposed extension of educational responsibilities initiated by UTU (I.1.7 Åbo Akademi, utlåtanden om ändringsförslagen till utbildningsansvar som de övriga universiteten framställt, 19.11. 2021; Turun ammattikorkeakoulun lausunto yliopistojen koulutusvastuiden muuttamista koskevista esityksistä, 10.11. 2021, https://okm.fi/hanke?tunnus=OKM076:00/2021).

In contrast, LUT University, who opposed the proposal in 2019, did not comment on UTU’s proposal at all. However, Aalto and TUNI again strongly opposed the proposal. UTU’s disciplinary competence was no longer questioned, but both universities categorically opposed this new opening with the same disciplinary- and national-level arguments that they presented in 2019. Both universities maintained that the new educational responsibilities at UTU would contradict Finland’s long-term higher education policy and scatter the scarce resources, hence jeopardising both the efficiency of the organisation and the quality of the engineering education (I.3.6 Aalto-yliopiston lausunto yliopistojen koulutusvastuiden muuttamista koskevista esityksistä, 9.11. 2021); Tampereen yliopiston lausunto yliopistojen koulutusvastuiden muuttamista koskevista esityksistä, 12.11. 2021, https://okm.fi/hanke?tunnus=OKM076:00/2021).

Technology Industries of Finland, which did not comment on the proposal at all in 2019, stated that the development of engineering and technology education in a small country like Finland should be based on collaboration between universities. According to their statement, all new proposals should have been evaluated based on their impact on the higher education system and on the effectiveness of resource allocation at the national level. To meet future needs, universities were thus expected to channel more resources towards continuous learning. It was predicted that Finnish technology industries would need 80,000 new professionals by 2030, and the majority of the needs in engineering and technology could not be fulfilled by a degree-level education alone. (Teknologiateollisuus ry, Lausunto yliopistojen koulutusvastuiden muuttamista koskevista esityksistä, 19.11. 2021, https://okm.fi/hanke?tunnus=OKM076:00/2021). In a similar vein, the Academic Engineers and Architects in Finland considered the new educational responsibilities in engineering to be inadequate. TEK emphasised the fact that during the ongoing government term, engineering education had already been remarkably extended. Therefore, it would now be best to concentrate on developing education according to the existing educational responsibilities and based on interuniversity collaboration (Tekniikan Akateemiset, Lausunto, 16.11. 2021, https://okm.fi/hanke?tunnus=OKM076:00/2021).

Following the new region-driven policy in higher education, and despite very strong opposing arguments, the Ministry granted the requested new responsibilities to UTU in January 2022. The main arguments for a positive decision concerned regional demands. At the same time, TUAS received a corresponding responsibility for automation and electrical engineering. Together, these universities were expected to foster regional tech ecosystem and meet the needs of industries. In addition, the Ministry stressed the importance of collaboration between universities at the national level (Opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriö, Muistio, Ylijohtaja Atte Jääskeläinen, 13.1. 2022, Opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriön asetus yliopistojen koulutusvastuun täsmentämisestä annetun opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriön asetuksen liitteen muuttamisesta, unpublished). In this round, the University of Eastern Finland gained its first educational responsibility in engineering and technology, hence extending the field again. Furthermore, already in November 2021, the government allocated supplementary funding to the development of regional university centres to strengthen higher education in regions outside the university cities. This decision allocated resources to smaller university units. After a long tradition of centralisation in higher education, especially in engineering and technology, the policy had changed. According to the Minister of Science and Culture, more importance was now placed on the development of smaller universities and university centres. The aim of this shift was to improve the accessibility of higher education in all regions (Liiten, 2021).

Social Construction of the New Disciplinary Environment

The change in higher education policy and strategic actions by UTU had already changed the disciplinary environment. Previous consultation processes had introduced strong contradictions between UTU and other institutions, which triggered universities to drive their organisational interests through the formal political process. Political decision-making played a key role in resolving these institutional contradictions. Compared to the way things were in 2017, the environment and positioning of UTU were significantly different in 2022. In June 2022, the Ministry started a national Decree reform initiative. As a result, the Ministry again launched a formal process for universities to propose changes to the existing educational responsibilities. The aim was to offer all universities an equal possibility to propose changes to their educational responsibilities before the national Decree reform would take place.

During this round, only two universities suggested new responsibilities in engineering and technology. UTU made a proposal to extend its education to industrial engineering and management.Footnote 4 At that time, five universitiesFootnote 5 had educational responsibilities in the field. The formal consultation round to review the submitted proposals was organised in the autumn of 2022. Altogether, 37 statements were submitted, of which six concerned UTU’s proposal. Most of the statements took a stand against the proposals at a general level without specifying individual universities. Stakeholders called for responsible decision-making in higher education to secure adequate resource allocations for all universities, a high quality of education and research, and the best possible economic impact on higher education. In their statements, several stakeholders suggested that the Ministry should not categorically grant any new educational responsibilities before the Decree reform would be finalised.

Concerning the statements regarding UTU’s proposal, while the conflicts had subsided in the new disciplinary environment, they still persisted. Most of the FITech actors either supported the proposal or considered it to be minimally legitimate and did not comment at all. One university, TUNI, maintained reference to direct tensions in its policy agenda, suggesting that the educational responsibilities at UTU should not be extended at that time (I.3.7, Tampereen yliopiston lausunto yliopistojen koulutusvastuiden muuttamista koskevista esityksistä, 23.11. 2022, https://okm.fi/hanke?tunnus=OKM057:00/2022). Aalto opposed all extensions in the engineering field but did not directly comment on UTU’s proposal. Both universities stressed the importance of collaboration between universities and emphasised the need for strategic long-term planning in the development of the engineering and technology discipline in Finland. They also appealed to the ongoing Decree reform, stating that no new responsibilities should be granted before the Decree would be ready to implement (I.3.8, Aalto-yliopiston lausunto yliopistojen koulutusvastuiden muuttamista koskevista esityksistä, 25.11. 2022, https://okm.fi/hanke?tunnus=OKM057:00/2022).

At the regional level, ÅA supported UTU’s new proposal (I.1.8 Åbo Akademi, Uttålande gällande universitetens förslag till ändring av utbildningsansvar, 25.11. 2022, https://okm.fi/hanke?tunnus=OKM057:00/2022). This time, the proposal also gained support at the national level. Specifically, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment of Finland and the Academic Engineers and Architects in Finland (TEK), the latter of which had opposed all earlier proposals, both supported UTU. According to TEK, this proposal to extend UTU’s educational responsibilities to industrial engineering and management was well justified. In addition, the statement stressed that UTU had already proven its capabilities in successfully establishing new degree programmes in engineering. However, TEK also pointed out that the new educational responsibilities that had been granted earlier had already irreversibly changed the engineering and technology field, and this would need to be taken into account in the future planning of engineering education (I.3.9, Työ- ja elinkeinoministeriö, Lausunto, yliopistojen ja ammattikorkeakoulujen koulutusvastuiden muutosesitykset, 23.11. 2022; Tekniikan Akateemiset, Lausunto yliopistojen koulutusvastuiden muuttamista koskevista esityksistä, 24.11. 2022, https://okm.fi/hanke?tunnus=OKM057:00/2022).

The Ministry took a reasonably long amount of time to make decisions on the new educational responsibilities. Despite the ongoing Decree reformFootnote 6, in February 2023, the Ministry issued a positive decision on UTU’s proposal to extend their educational responsibilities. According to the Ministry, educational needs in engineering and technology were to primarily be addressed by the already existing educational responsibilities in universities and be based on collaboration between them (i.e., the FITech network). However, UTU’s proposal was considered adequate in its attempt to address the growing needs of professionals and the importance of securing positive industrial development and economic growth in Southwest Finland (Opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriö, Muistio, Ylijohtaja Atte Jääskeläinen, 2.3. 2023, Opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriön asetus yliopistojen koulutusvastuun täsmentämisestä annetun opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriön asetuksen liitteen muuttamisesta, unpublished) It is notable that this last proposal by UTU raised hardly any direct opposition, thus signalling the legitimation of the new actor in the disciplinary environment.

Totality: The New Institutional Structure

In the previous sections, institutional change at the disciplinary level was analysed through contradictions, actions and social construction (Seo & Creed, 2002). In some cases, regional- and disciplinary-level interests conflicted, and these contradictions created tensions that provoked actions at the national, disciplinary and regional levels. Organisational actions resulted in the accumulation of contradictions, which ultimately provided the seeds for institutional change. The dialectical nature of this institutional change process and the formation of new institutional structure can be effectively visualised with the Coleman bathtub figure (Figure 3), which is commonly used to describe multi-level relations in social science research. The figure illustrates the causal macro–meso–micro-relations, whereby macro-level actions cause micro-level actions, which in turn aggregate up to macro-level actions (Coleman, 1990). In this case study, a tension-driven higher education development process resulted both in national-level (macro) and disciplinary-level (meso) changes. The strategic actions of one university first changed the higher education policy by breaking the chain of political decision-making (D1). Through gained political legitimacy and further strategic actions, the university strengthened its disciplinary position (D2). In this process, a new disciplinary structure was formed, and a new university actor became legitimised and accepted.

Fig. 3
figure 3

The process of institutional change in higher education (adapted from Coleman, 1990)

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The presented institutional change process can be understood through four types of contradictions (Seo and Creed, 2002). The first contradiction, legitimation that undermines functional inefficiency, in this case was connected to UTU’s actions to seek legitimation and break the existing chain of decision-making in higher education policy. The second contradiction, adaptation that undermines adaptability, was exhibited in the adaptation of the universities to the existing institutional structure that undermined their adaptability to new social interactions at the disciplinary level, which, through the intrainstitutional conformity of the universities, created interinstitutional incompatibilities. As a fourth contradiction, the isomorphic institutional structure conflicted with the institutional interests of UTU, which challenged the existing interuniversity relationships and taken-for-granted assumptions at the disciplinary level. From a dialectical perspective, the accumulation of these contradictions both within and between universities provided the seeds for institutional change.

The analysis shows the dialectical nature of an institutional change process in the field of engineering and technology education in Finland. This case’s strongest tensions are related to the relationship between universities with engineering and technology education. The special character of this case consists of the interplay between the national-level policy, the conservative orientation of established universities and the emerging university that challenged the isomorphic institutional structure. The disciplinary tensions were first resolved through national-level decision-making, but later, the strategic actions of one particular university became decisive.

Discussion

In higher education, discourse between actors is vital for the renewal of universities, their disciplines, and the university system as a whole. In this study, stakeholder interactions and interests were analysed from a dialectical perspective (Seo and Creed, 2002) through their categorisation into three levels — national, disciplinary and regional — which revealed the contradictions leading to change. More specifically, this study unveiled the dynamics of a political discourse that is laden with tensions. The results of this study show a tension-driven process leading to changes in the higher education policy and regulation, isomorphic disciplinary structure (Seo and Creed), interorganisational relationships at the disciplinary level (Das and Teng, 2000; Fumasoli and Huisman, 2013), and actor roles at the organisational level (Benson, 1977), a process which included the emergence of new collaborative structures (Hall, 2010; Ruonavaara, 2006).

Studies of university mergers have demonstrated that stakeholders with different interests influence both the development and management of universities (Roth et al., 2018; Aula et al., 2015). Universities have been shown to act through research, education and societal engagement activities to respond to the needs of a particular society and its stakeholders. At the same time, the existing literature also shows that multiple stakeholders influence university strategies, policies and structures (e.g. Vellamo et al., 2019). However, the role of regional stakeholders and individual universities in higher education change has been less studied in research. To address this issue, this study revealed that the interests and actions of an individual university can affect its positioning in the disciplinary field and the development of a disciplinary structure. Specifically, the interests of established universities were found to be connected to the interest in maintaining their own positions and existing power structures (Benson, 1977; Suchman, 1995) at the disciplinary level, which one university challenged by contradicting the regional interests with disciplinary ones. In contrast, the Ministry used its regulative and legal power to resolve disciplinary contradictions first by strengthening the existing institutional structure and later by supporting institutional change.

In higher education, national-level policies and decisions have a strong effect on disciplines, individual universities’ actions and interuniversity relationships. In this light, this case study has similarities with previous research on the impact of actions and contradictions between stakeholders in higher education, including the calculated adaptation of universities to external pressures (Meyer and Rowan, 1977; Powell and DiMaggio, 1991) and misaligned field demands (Scott, 2008; Fumasoli and Huisman, 2013; Stensaker et al., 2014; Pinheiro et al., 2016; Mampaey, 2018; Hasanefendic and Donina, 2022). Change in higher education is connected to both responses to institutional pressures (e.g. pressures from regulatory agencies, and the actions of leading organisations; Powell and DiMaggio, 1991; Greenwood and Hinings, 1996) and to strategic actions aimed at affecting both the individual organisations and the wider institutional environment (Whatley and Castiello-Gutiérrez, 2022; Christensen and Gornitzka, 2017; Frølich et al., 2013). To complement this knowledge, the results of this study show that an individual university (micro) can also, through strategic actions, drive change in the wider institutional environment at the national (macro) and accordingly at the disciplinary (meso) level in this context.

Institutional pressure is a key determinant of an organisation’s actions (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; Oliver, 1991). Organisations comply with regulative, normative and cognitive environmental pressures in their attempts to secure legitimacy and support (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983). Accordingly, the institutional positioning of universities reflects their strategic intentions and capabilities to accommodate other actors’ strategic actions (Fumasoli and Huisman, 2013). The more organisations conform the more institutionalised they become, which subsequently produces and maintains institutional isomorphism. Isomorphic structures in higher education create and maintain conformity among leading universities (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; Scott, 2001). However, the struggle for organisational legitimacy can also act as a driver of change. The empirical evidence provided in this study indicates that an individual university not only responds to external regulative pressures nor simply adapts to other universities at the disciplinary level, but also acts strategically to gain legitimacy and drive change. Ultimately, this study shows that change in higher education is possible by breaking institutional conformity at policy level and hence changing the forms of interaction between universities. In institutionalised structures, which in this case consisted of the political decision-making and regulation in higher education, decisions typically form a path dependency structure. Such a structure entails a chain of decision-making in which new decisions are based on previous decisions (Ruonavaara, 2006). The results of this study show that changes in isomorphic disciplinary structures arise through calculated micro-level actions that break the existing path dependency in political decision-making. Actions and decisions at these breaking points are critical watershed moments in the process of structural institutional change.

The dialectical perspective in this study illuminates how political decision-making was first used to resolve tensions raised by contradictory disciplinary interests and later to make institutional change possible. The role of an individual university in this change process was decisive. Institutional change in higher education happens through the formation of strategic political legitimation and calculated actions that break the existing isomorphic institutional structure and chain of decision-making. In exposing these mechanisms, this study provides new empirical knowledge on how the strategic actions of an individual university act as a driver for institutional change in higher education.

Conclusion

In higher education, political decision-making have strong effect on the development of disciplines and individual universities. Furthermore, universities affect each other. In this article, I demonstrate how strategic actions of one university act as drivers for institutional change in higher education by altering the institutional isomorphic structures. In this study, the change was driven by regional interests and happened through cross-level interactions, where the role of one university became decisive. The main contribution of this study is a better understanding of an individual university’s power and role in institutional change at the disciplinary level and of the change mechanisms involved. The results show that changes in isomorphic disciplinary structures arise through calculated micro-level actions that build political legitimacy and break the existing path dependency in the political decision-making. Actions and decisions at these breaking points are critical in the process of structural institutional change in higher education.

One limitation of this study concerns the empirical data. To secure the replicability of the study, public and semi-public data were used to analyse the political discourse and decision-making by acknowledging that political discussion is not fully visible in formal documents. Retrospective interviews would have provided the analysis with additional information on different interests, but discovering tensions ex post would have also created possibilities for bias and hindsight. By utilising publicly available documents, the political discourse was analysed as it formally emerged at the time. Despite its limitations, this single case study reveals interesting interuniversity dynamics and disciplinary-level developments that have not been discussed in the prior higher education literature.

The theoretical concepts of stakeholder power and interest are commonly applied in higher education research. However, this study provides a novel empirical perspective on the multiple levels that stakeholders impact in higher education development by connecting institutional interests with institutional change and legitimacy formation. This knowledge can be used to advance stakeholder management through “smarter practices” in higher education in general and in strategic change processes in particular.