Strategic Capacity and Organisational Capabilities: A Challenge for Universities

Are universities able to operate as strategic actors? An organisational sociology based approach supported by a comparative field research project identifies three types of social, cultural and cognitive processes that play a decisive role in building and implementing local capabilities required to mobilise a strategic capacity. The paper identifies how much these processes are present in the four ideal-types of universities defined by crossing their reputation and their metrics-based performance. Such a meso deterministic perspective suggests that universities may position themselves as proactive actors or principals, and not just as agents of national reforms and political demands. Nevertheless, their ability to do it varies according to their type. The paper also explores the implications of such findings for institutional leadership and steering policymakers.     

Rethinking the Financing of Post-Compulsory Education

Throughout the world, the financing of education is in a state of crisis, a condition made even more acute by the simultaneous appearance of a doctrinal crisis with regard to the ends and the utility of education. For European higher education, the situation calls for the diversification of funding mechanisms. The public authorities, which up until now have borne most of the burden of higher education financing, must transfer a goodly portion of the burden to users, i.e., students and parents, and to the private sector. Various methods for financial diversification are explored as well as different formulae for user-financing.     

A procedure to assess the suitability of plaster to protect vernacular earthen architecture

As part of a working definition of a new code of practice, this paper develops a methodology to determine the suitability of plasters manufactured on-site to protect the earthen walls of vernacular architecture buildings. Given the diversity of raw earth construction types, ranging from massive earth to stone masonry with earth mortars, and the variability of the materials used, two on-site tests (a shrinkage test followed by a shear test) were proposed. Those tests, as well as additional tests, were performed with lime/sand, earth/sand and earth with plaster admixtures. Lime/sand plasters do not typically pose shrinkage issues, which is why more earth based specimens were tested than lime based specimens. An analysis of the on-site testing complemented with laboratory tests reveals an antagonistic control of the bond between earth plaster and earthen wall based on clay content: an increase in the plaster clay content leads to increased bending strength, which strengthens the plaster and increased shrinkage, which weakens the plaster-wall interface. The heterogeneity of the wall leads to a wide range of results; therefore, this study was conducted to validate the formulation of plasters by means of shrinkage and shear tests at five different points on the wall. The shrinkage test allows finding the earth plaster formulations. Among all the validated formulations, the mason chooses the best one thanks to two criteria: the best workability (which is variable according to masons) with the highest clay content as possible. Then, when the formulation is chosen, the shear test must be done to verify if the bond between the plaster and the wall is high enough. This series of tests allows masons to validate formulations that will ensure good mechanical resistance of the plasters that protect buildings of vernacular earthen architecture.     

Preference for rewards that follow greater effort and greater delay

Humans prefer (conditioned) rewards that follow greater effort (Aronson & Mills, 1959). This phenomenon can be interpreted as evidence for cognitive dissonance (or as justification of effort) but may also result from (1) the contrast between the relatively greater effort and the signal for reinforcement or (2) the delay reduction signaled by the conditioned reinforcer. In the present study, we examined the effect of prior force and prior time to produce stimuli associated with equal reinforcement. As expected, pressing with greater force or for a longer time was less preferred than pressing with less force or for a shorter time. However, participants preferred the conditioned reinforcer that followed greater force and more time. Furthermore, participants preferred a long duration with no force requirement over a shorter duration with a high force requirement and, consistent with the contrast account but not with the delay reduction account, they preferred the conditioned stimulus that followed the less preferred, shorter duration, high-force event. Within-trial contrast provides a more parsimonious account than justification of effort, and a more complete account than delay reduction.     

The myth of the competitive market: Linkage with the private sector and problems for higher education reform

Higher Education systems in Western countries currently face many problems. The enormous amount of information and reflection carried out by the members of the SRHE-Leverhulme Study team reveals the scale of these problems in one country. This article focusses on the validity of solutions which would substitute market mechanisms for a system of free education. With this in mind the results of the French experience in the area of professional continuing education are discussed. The idea of turning to the marketplace for initial education stems from a misconception. The second part of the article is concerned with the whole of the university population. In some respects it is unrealistic to claim that students' decisions to undertake university studies can conform to rationality through the operation of human capital theory. How can the market regulate education-employemt relations when equilibrium depends on the volume of the flow of students in x previous years, and when at the same time current techniques do not permit reliable forecasts of qualified manpower needs? Moreover, the socio-economic checks on the adoption of market mechanisms form a nearly insurmountable barrier in European countries. Like the SRHE-Leverhulme Study's conclusions, the article ends by attempting to find a realistic solution to such problems, which involve in part a reform of the methods of operation of higher education institutions.