In Need of a Coalition of the Willing. How University Presidents Depend on Partners for Organisational Leadership

Abstract There are two major perspectives at the interface of organisational and higher education research. One describes universities as organisations transforming into organisational actors and university presidents as actors who have gained more power as important drivers of this process. The other perspective acknowledges this transformative trend but rather highlights that universities are more change resistant than other organisations and that their collegial decision-making bodies slow down university leaderships and their decisions. University presidents are seen as being in a weaker position, which is one reason why this perspective considers a complete transformation of universities into organisational actors as rather unlikely. This paper analyses interviews with university presidents to learn more about their leadership position, whether it is strong or not and under which conditions stronger leadership is possible. It shows that university presidents’ gain strategic power but that they are highly dependent in their strategic approaches on a critical figure at universities which has not yet received sufficient attention: The “Coalition of the Willing”. The paper characterises the Coalition of the Willing and provides insights into its role for the development of organizational actorhood.