ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses six theories of higher education governance in detail and provides guidelines and considerations about possible ways in which they could be applied to explain and understand university governance. Theories are structural theory, human relations theory, cultural theory, cybernetics, social cognition theory, and open systems theory. Structural theory has provided the foundation for the vast majority of studies of university governance to date and has contributed a great deal to our understanding of higher education governance structures and arrangements. An organizational perspective, cybernetics is about creating the capabilities within an organization to learn in a "brain-like way". Social cognition theory is about human behavior, how individuals and organizations learn, and how people make sense of their environments. The open systems theory provides a useful theoretical framework from which to understand higher education governance. Theories provide useful lenses to analyze and understand governance in the academy at the meso or organizational level.
