Designing a Third Generation University Governance Model Using Total Interpretive Structural Modeling

The higher education system challenges in the new millennium are twofold. On the one hand, it has faced the growing and diverse expectations of various stakeholders, and on the other hand, it is confronting a reduction in government financial support and a double emphasis on wealth creation, empowerment, decentralization and increasing the scope of creativity and entrepreneurship in universities. These requirements have shifted universities towards third-generation universities and, consequently, will affect the way they would be governed. Regarding to these points and due to the emphasis of the fifth and sixth development plans of the iranian government in which the nature and method of leading universities is doubted, there is an increasing need to move towards the third-generation universities and therefore, the purpose of this study is to design a governance model for these universities and explain the relationship between Its dimensions.

This applied and developmental research has utilized two strategies: meta-synthesis and total interpretive structural modeling (TISM). The statistical population in the meta-synthesis approach consists of the studies conducted on university governance in the form of articles, books, and reports. In TISM, it encompassed a group of experts (professors of higher education management) in the field of university governance at Shiraz University. Through this research project, while we identify the dimensions of the governance model of the third-generation university using the meta-synthesis method, these dimensions will be leveled according to the TISM approach in terms of the degree of influence on each other. Discussion and

The findings reveal that all the concepts identified in the university governance model can be categorized into 27 indicators and 6 dimensions. These dimensions and indicators include academic independence (educational independence index: research, technology, financial and administrative), stakeholder participation (participation of various stakeholders), accountability (professional, legal, hierarchical, and social accountability), monitoring, Evaluation and Quality Assurance (Monitoring, Evaluation and Quality Assurance of University Performance), Transparency (Information Quality, Scope and Tools) and Risk Management (Financial, Administrative / Organizational, Environmental, Operational and reputational). On the other hand, the findings showed that the participation of stakeholders and, at the same time the scope of transparency and transparent information are under the greatest impact of other dimensions of governance model and the university independence indicators are at the first level of impact on other dimensions of governance model. Another point is that, the educational, research and technological independence can be effective on the process of monitoring, evaluating and assuring the quality of university performance through the process of risk management. It was further determined that the indicators of quality monitoring, Evaluation and Quality assurance can be effective on the scope of transparency and quality of information available to stakeholders by increasing the level of accountability.