Importing organizational reform: The case of lay boards in Hungary

Hungary initiated a major higher education reform program in the early 1990 s that included the establishment of boards at both the national and instit utional levels. This article explores Hungarians' engagement of the idea of boards, adaptations of the American model, adoption of their own model and early implementation. Importing an organizational reform like boards occur s within existing cultural and political norms. The traditional socialist n orms, surrounding nature of the socialist economy and the concept of a "civ il society'' in countries like Hungary loom large in introducing new struct ures and values. Structurally, boards at both the national and institutional levels challeng e not only the remnants of the Soviet model of higher education but also th e classic continental model, upon which Hungarian universities were built, of a bimodal distribution of power between the state and the professorate. Boards fall between the state and professorate and challenge these power ce nters. The decentralization that boards represent runs counter to bureaucra tic ministry control and threatens the newly found power of institutional s enates. In a larger, societal sense they also occupy that intermediate spac e between the government and the individual or what many writers refer to a s "civil society'' that by most observers' accounts is underdeveloped in co untries like Hungary. Underdevelopment of civil society generally raises qu estions of societal readiness for institutions like boards. Politically, the introduction of boards demonstrates the complex nature of support for and opposition to change as well as the personalized politics i n reform movements in smaller countries. The changes that have occurred in governments also reveal how difficult institutionalization of reform can be especially when combined with strong cultural norms that mitigate against change. While it is too early to tell whether boards will flourish or withe r, they have encountered rocky soil at the national level and neglect at th e institutional level in Hungary.