External And Internal Legitimacies And Their Effects On Organizational Identification Of Merged Universities

Mergers of universities have become an important tool for governments around the world to reform their higher education systems.Since the 1990 s,China has carried out a series of higher education reforms by promoting mergers and integrations of universities.During the processes of mergers and integrations of universities,the major challenges of internal and external legitimacy aqucisition and the orgnizational identification of employees have emerged.This study takes this phenomenon as the context to explore the main research question of “how merged universities improve employees’ organizational identification by acquiring and enhancing internal and external legitimacies”.To answer this research question,three sub-studies were designed and carried out.First,aiming at the first sub-research question “how to obtain external legitimacy from external key stakeholders for merged universities”,this paper adopts the method of longitudinal case study,taking the longitudinal process of Zhejiang University as the case,to explore and summarize the process and mechanisms of obtaining legitimacy from the central and local governments.Second,for the second sub-research question “how to obtain internal legitimacy from internal key stakeholders for merged universities”,this paper adopts the method of LDA(Latent Dirichlet allocation)topic modeling and case study.This study uses thematic modeling of 1803 proposals combined with qualitative interview data,explores the strategies and mechanisms to obtain internal legitimacy.Finally,for the third sub-research question “What are the relationships between internal and external legitimacies and organizational identification”,this paper adopts the method of survey to explore the effects of perception of external legitimacy and internal legitimacy on organizational identification by quantitatively analyzing the 479 questionnaires.The research conclusions are as follows.First,through an in-depth analysis of Zhejiang University’s 25-year longitudinal process since 1998,this thesis finds that when faced with the “liability of newness” and the conflict demands from the central and local governments,the merged universities mainly use identity mechanism to establish a new image of universities to obtain the dual legitimacy of the central and local governments,and at the same time adopt an association mechanism to buffer and balance the contradiction between the legitimacy needs of the local and central governments.Moreover,the merged universities could establish affiliated organizations that can meet the expectations of different government subjects without lowering the expectations of other government subjects.The identity mechanism and association mechanism can be combined to strengthen the legitimacy from the central and local governments.Second,through the thematic modeling and qualitative analysis of 1803 proposals since the merger of Zhejiang University,the thesis finds that in the early stage of merger,facing the “liability of newness”,the merged universities are facing greater internal legitimacy chanllenge.At this time,the merged universities could focus on adopting compliance strategies,and appropriately adopts selection strategies and guidance strategies to obtain internal legitimacy.In the middle of the merger,with the deepening of merger integration,some structural contradictions become more prominent,and internal legitimacy pressure is even greater.The merged universities could focus on the adoption of selection strategies,and appropriately adopt compliance strategies and guidance strategies to enhance internal legitimacy.In the late stage of mergers,with the implementation of some key strategies,the internal legitimacy of merged universities is gradually improved,and the merged universities could focus on the adoption of compliance strategies and guidance strategies to enhance internal legitimacy.In the post-merger period,the merger and integration had been completed,and the internal legitimacy of the merged universities remained at a high level.The merged university woud emphasize on the adoption of the guidance strategy,appropriate compliance and selection strategies to maintain legitimacy.Third,based on the quantitative analysis of 479 questionnaires,the thesis find that external legitimacy perception(from the central governments and from the local governments)and internal legitimacy perception both positively affect employees’ organizational identification.Moreover,external legitimacy perception would affect employee organizational identification through the perception of internal legitimacy,that is,the perception of internal legitimacy partly mediates the relationship between perception of external legitimacy and employee’s organizational identification.The theoretical contributions of this thesis are threefold.First,from the perspective of legitimacy,the thesis systematically explores the internal and external legitimacy acquisition process of univeristies,and identifies the mechanisms and diversified strategies of internal and external legitimacy acquisition.Second,the thesis builds and empirically tests the conceptual framework that link external legitimacy perception,internal legitimacy perception,and organizational identification.Third,the thesis provides an in-depth analysis of the whole process of post-merger integration of universities.The findings of this study also have certain policy implications for the merged universities: using high-quality development goals to obtain and enhance the internal and external legitimacies;taking into account the internal and external factors for adopting corresponding legitimacy strategies at different stages of merger and integration.