The relationship between university autonomy and funding in England and Taiwan

• Main Author: Chiang, Li-chuan
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: Institute of Education, University of London 2000

This thesis aims, first, to examme critically the idea and the practice of university autonomy in England and in Taiwan; second, to re-interpret the changing relationship between the government and the university, in both countries, by employing the notion of 'boundary'; third, theoretically and empirically to explore the relationship between university autonomy and funding; and, fourth, to explore the usefulness and applicability of the concept of 'contractual autonomy'. The argument of this thesis is that the relationship between university autonomy and funding of a given country cannot be understood simply in terms either of the resource dependence perspective, or of a judgement of the degree of uni versity autonomy against funding mechanisms. Instead, it must be interpreted in the context of governmentuniversity relationships more generally, and of the context of the idea of university autonomy in that country. In other words, the government-university relationship and the idea of university autonomy, involve more than a financial tie. As a consequence, greater efforts on the part of universities to diversify their funding bases may well not enhance, or at least not directly, their autonomy. Through an extensive review of literature, and empirical study, the argument of this thesis is supported. The background of the study is sketched out in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 considers the theoretical framework concerning organisation theory and comparative higher education. Thereafter, there are explorations of the concepts of university governance, university autonomy, funding, and government-university relationships, and their practice in England and in Taiwan, covering chapters 3, 4, 5, and 6. The methods of questionnaire and interview have been selected to allow this study to provide not only a broad but also an in-depth understanding of the empirical situations of university autonomy, and its association with funding, in both countries. Research methodology, and empirical findings, are presented, in Chapter 7 and Chapter 8, respectively. Finally, there is a drawing-together of empirical findings and theory, for discussion, with final conclusions, in Chapter 9.