A Study On The Institutional Change Of Academic Committee In Chinese Universities

Academic committee institution is one of the basic systems of Chinese university management and also a significant component of the modern university system. Based on the research perspectives of new institutionalism and taking the academic committee institution of Chinese universities as the object, this research describes and explains the characteristics of change and problems of academic committee institution from aspects of changes, dynamic mechanism, institutional isomorphism, path dependence and so on. And it also proposes the strategies and suggestions about optimization of the change of academic committee institution form the levels of the government and universities.Firstly, based on the analysis framework of institutional change theory, this research reviews the centennial development of Chinese academic committee institution and concludes the characteristics of its change. On the whole, Chinese academic committee institution has passed through four stages:embryonic stage, breakage stage, recovering stage and developing stage. It presents a state that institutional evolution and breakage coexist and reflects a path characteristic which is mainly the support leading type and progressive type of changes. From the perspective of dynamic mechanism of institutional change, the demand from institutional environment, science-oriented purpose of universities and the society for the academic quality of universities constitutes the external impetus directly driving the change of academic committee institution. The internal impetus is mainly shown by the disproportion between the supply and demand of the academic committee institution. It means that the institutional supply by the government from top to bottom, as the principal strength driving the change of academic committee institution, is not enough over a long period of time. Meanwhile, as the subject of institutional demand, universities have new demand for the arrangement of new systems when lacking the institutional demand from the government. When this kind of demand is responded by the governmental supply, the change of academic committee institution will enter a new period.Secondly, based on the main stages and characteristic of the change of the academic committee institution, this research analyzes the specific problems in the process of the change as well the reasons for those problems. It claims that the problems of the academic committee institution in change are mainly reflected from three aspects: the slow process of the overall change, inflexible ways of change and the lack of long-term driving force from the subject. There are two reasons for those problems: First, according to the logic of institutional isomorphism, the change of academic committee institution is inevitably subject to macro-social environment. In China, a long period of centralist social management system causes that the mandatory isomorphism system occupies a dominated position in the change of academic committee institution at all times. That inevitable leads to great isomorphism among academic committee institution, social management system and administrative management system in universities. Second, according to path-dependent mechanism, the inefficient initial path always restricts the change of academic committee institution. And it fixes the system in the inefficient operation state through the function of the increasing mechanism of institutional benefit and the rational influence of the tool of Chinese traditional higher education.In the end, after reviewing the development of Chinese academic committee institution and analyzing the characteristics of change and problems, this research points out that at present, the government still plays the leading part in the change of Chinese academic committee institution. It should be started from the levels of the government and universities, by building a sound institutional environment, cultivating the model of institutional innovation, improving the internal control system of universities and constructing the science-oriented institutional culture in universities, to constantly optimizing the condition of the change of academic committee institution and then further improve the institutional arrangement of academic committee institution.