Higher education mergers in Europe: a comparative study of the post-merger phase

The aim of this study is to compare the results of successful mergers in terms of ranking performance of the so called ‘world-class’ universities in a European Union context, with a view to identifying the challenges these universities face in their post-merger situation and strategies. After a cont...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inTertiary education and management Vol. 25; no. 3; pp. 255 - 271
Main Authors Ripoll-Soler, Carlos, de-Miguel-Molina, María
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.09.2019
Springer
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Summary:The aim of this study is to compare the results of successful mergers in terms of ranking performance of the so called ‘world-class’ universities in a European Union context, with a view to identifying the challenges these universities face in their post-merger situation and strategies. After a content analysis, four themes emerged: crucial factors at the pre-merger phase to ensure a successful merger, the best actions to be performed at the merger phase to ensure a successful merger, the main challenges faced at the post-merger phase, and post-merger strategies in the last phase. Then, we analysed the institutional post-merger strategies to find differences between different mergers. Our research shows that in all cases there is a mix of various local and national/international factors that need to be analysed in the post-merger phase before a merger can be deemed to be ‘successful’ overall, and before the various dimensions of the global impact of the merger can be assessed.
ISSN:1358-3883
1573-1936
DOI:10.1007/s11233-019-09027-y