International Higher Education, Spring 2001

Wrong with Hungarian University Management?

Karoly Barakonyi
Karoly Barakonyi is professor of strategic management in the Faculty of Business and Economics, Pécs University, Hungary, and former rector of the university. He was visiting Fulbright professor at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. E-mail: <barakonyi@ktk.pte.hu>.

Hungarian university management seems to be less and less able to cope with challenges arising from such changes as mass education, student mobility, institutional integration, decreasing state support, and lifelong learning. Modernization requires new managerial knowledge, experience, and commitment. Modernization of management is a vital requirement.

The orchestra analogy may shed some light on the problem of modernizing Hungarian university management. The conductor is a determinant figure—one who defines the orchestra. The conductor’s task is different from that of the musicians, and he or she needs to have a different kind of knowledge. Likewise, it is no drawback if the prospective rector, the university’s conductor, has an academic title, but it is more important that he or she possess the managerial skills and knowledge required by the new challenges.

Election of the Rector
The current Hungarian procedure for electing rectors is flawed. From the medieval period until World War II the system more or less worked, as universities were relatively small and less complex structurally (higher education being an elite rather than a mass phenomenon). The rector’s mandate was for one year, after which he or she returned to academic work. The appointment was an honor, with the rector as primus inter pares. Managing a contemporary university cannot simply be designed as an academic honor: it is a professional occupation. Large state universities in developed countries have long since broken with this medieval tradition. The president is usually not elected by associates, but rather appointed by a superior authority (a board or managing body). The president’s mandate is not just for one year, but sometimes for a period of a decade or more (like the conductor of an orchestra).

The university community is enormously conservative: a rector can only be elected if numerous compromises are reached. A rector who wishes to launch reforms that would interfere with the interests of others is simply not elected; reforms made during the term of office might jeopardize the rector’s chances of reelection. The present four-year appointment in Hungary does not allow enough time to complete a partial structural reform, never mind comprehensive modernization. The consequences of the university’s conservatism include stoppage of reforms, turning back the clock, survival of old-fashioned structures, and the proliferation of pseudoreforms.

Structure
A knowledge-based organization requires a flat structure—coordination instead of the issuing of top-down instructions. A hierarchy is not an effective organizational structure. The management system of Hungarian universities is based on Humboldtian principles and follows a multistaged hierarchy (rector-faculty-institute-department-departmental team-professors). Faculties are strongholds; their bastions are the departments. The consequence of this structure is the existence of numerous departments, with few academics and staff. Modern universities are changing this pattern: the many small departments are being replaced by fewer, bigger departments.

As rectors come and go, continuity should be sustained by the financial director and by the secretary general, but in Hungary they usually leave with the rector. Rectors are often unwilling to give up financial and instructional control, so these positions are filled by mediocre specialists, whose tasks are of secondary importance.

The rector’s work is assisted by part-time vice rectors, who also lack managerial experience. They find themselves forced to carry out tasks that require professional preparedness. Ultimately, they, too, leave with the rector.

Strategic Thinking
The formation and successful operation of knowledge-based organizations require strategic thinking and strategic planning. The mission statement and strategic plans are the music score from which the orchestra plays. A system like that must have a well-developed internal communication system, an effective information system, a strong corporate culture, and institutional identity (especially in the case of the new integrated universities). A strategic approach and the conscious formation of institutional identity are still missing at Hungarian universities.

At a modern university the handling of educational issues and scientific matters (by the Senate) is separated from the handling of strategic and financial issues (by the board). In this way, society can have control over the use of state funding for universities. Hungarian universities require structural changes to achieve this balance.

In the contemporary Hungarian university, the position of rector may be compared to that of a national prime minister who does not have a party’s support in parliament. Decisions of great significance can only be made with the consent of parties of differing interests.

The role of students should also to be questioned, since students often appear easily influenced. Their participation in strategic decision making in Hungary is exceptionally high (25 to 33 percent). Several progressive initiatives failed in many institutions because internal conservative powers managed to persuade uncertain student voters to take a stand on their side.

Conclusion
Progressing toward a professional university management system involves some dangers: weakened autonomy and academic freedom and excessive influence from government and business. I believe, given the present changing conditions, Hungarian higher education will only be able to fulfill social needs, improve the effectiveness of its operations, and meet new demands through the process of modernizing university management.