Mergers in Higher Education: Lessons from Theory and Experience

Around the world, organisations of all kinds are merging at a frenetic pace. In a comparative study of 2 Canadian higher education mergers - that of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education with the University of Toronto in 1996, and that of the Technical University of Nova Scotia with Dalhousie University in 1997 - Julia Eastman and Daniel Lang examine why and how universities merge and why some mergers succeed while others fail. Drawing on interviews with university members, public officials, and experts in organizational restructuring, and on their professional involvement in the two mergers, the authors explain what prompts higher education mergers, what is involved in the process and what determines the outcomes. They link practice with organizational theory and offer observations about the roles of history, economics, power and human relations in post-secondary educational systems.