Institutional Logic of University Governance Reform in China

Abstract Policy changes are dependent on institutional logic. As they are analogies shared by a group, when metaphors for universities change, they ultimately promote changes to university governance models as well. Taking analogies into account, university reforms have proceeded while revolving around the metaphors of the university as government and the university as a corporation. From 1949 to 1991, universities implemented a political governance model, and the legitimacy of the system was based on the metaphor of the university as the government, reflecting the traditional values of the combination of political system and academic system; from 1992 to 2011, universities explored the mode of corporate governance, and the legitimacy of the system was based on the metaphor of the university as an enterprise, borrowing more western university ideas; since 2012, we have tried to integrate the two modes of political governance and corporate governance to establish a modern university system with Chinese characteristics.