Third Mission in Universities from a Performance Management Perspective: A Comparison Between Germany and Italy

Purpose: The university system is facing, for both economic and social legitimacy reasons, a profound reform process that must be adequately managed both at the macro and at the micro level. In this reform process, the relationships between knowledge production processes and knowledge exploitation processes are increasingly becoming important. This relationship, known as “third mission” of the university, has to be managed appropriately to make it profitable in terms of knowledge production and knowledge usefulness, but also to bring to universities financial resources able to balance the decreasing amount of resources provided by central governments and/or public administrations at the different governmental levels. Despite this situation, the purpose of the chapter is to analyze the role that a governance and a control system play to foster and manage universities’ third mission appropriately, especially with reference to the coordination of the different organizational layers (central and departmental) existing within a university.

Methodology: The objective of the research is pursued through the development of a comparative case study between four universities, located in two different European countries (i.e., Italy and Germany), which are characterized by different governance systems of their third mission. This methodological approach makes evident not only the features characterizing the governance systems of the two university systems but also the contingent situations existing in the two countries and their influence on the definition of their governance systems. The case studies are developed through the analysis of the documents available at the system level and in the four universities, and by interviewing the most relevant actors in the governance systems of the four universities.

Results: This chapter contributes to understanding the role played by the third mission in the reform process of university systems and the conditions for building a good governance and control system for the successful management of universities’ third mission.

Originality: This chapter focuses on the internal dimension of universities' third mission both at system and organizational level. While most literature focuses on the relationship between universities and the business world, this chapter focuses on the universities’ internal mechanisms used for governing and controlling their third mission.

Theoretical and practical implications: The study helps to understand from a theoretical point of view the role of governance and control systems within universities’ third mission. In practical terms, the analysis makes it possible to identify the governance and control mechanisms and their characteristics that allow and facilitate the development and the efficient and effective management of the third mission within universities.