Risk management strategies in higher education

Abstract

Higher education centres are facing escalating risks, such as increasing competition from a growing number of higher education organisations, as well as greater exposure to more complex regulatory frameworks and external evaluations. Consequently, university risk management has assumed increasing significance. However, the scope, antecedents, constituent elements and the underlying processes of risk management in universities still remain unclear. This article draws on risk management literature and institutional theory to explain the dynamics of risk management strategies in universities. The former allows us to identify three key elements of university risk management—internationalisation, formalisation and human capital development—while the latter helps explain how these elements interrelate. Data from 107 Latin American universities reveal that faculty internationalisation strategies are associated with three dimensions of human capital development—faculty teaching development, faculty research development and faculty knowledge transfer development—and that risk management formalisation partially mediates this relationship. These findings underscore the potential of institutional theory and risk management literature to explain the functioning of risk management in higher education. Overall, our theoretical framework and empirical evidence highlight that institutional pressures shaping university risk management—such as rules, norms, conventions and cultural systems—originate both from the academic sphere and from the business sector.