The Global Corporatisation of Universities: Causes and Consequences

Corporatisation is a process of making a State body into an independent commercial company. In many countries it has been considered appropriate to corporatise such formerly State owned providers of services such as energy, public transport, telecommunications, airports, even prisons, and more recently, institutions of higher education. Corporatisation is often the first stage in a process of privatisation where the ownership of a former State body is transferred to private individuals and institutional investors generally through the floating of shares available to the public and subsequent listing on a stock exchange. The privately owned corporation will then operate in a market place under normal commercial conditions and hopefully return a dividend and appreciate in the value of its shares.