ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the new social, political, and economic demands and pressures on universities that have led to major transformations, prompting some to suggest their characterization as new multiversities'. It addresses questions about the actual and potential capacity of universities in the early twenty-first century to be a positive force in academic identity formation and development. The chapter outlines one narrative of the consequences for the relations between universities and the academic profession, the dominant theme of which is a weakening of the bonds between them that is attributable to the adoption of New Public Management (NPM) models. It explores some alternative interpretations of organizational change. The chapter focuses on empirical findings and normative and theoretical analyses in some recent studies of organizational change in European universities to look more closely at the characterization of the relationships between institutions and the academic profession in terms of duality, distance, and alienation.
