Coordination between governance actors in universities: the role of policy documents

This article focuses on coordination between governance actors in a public university. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate and analyze policy documents as governance tools that allow departmental management to coordinate with the authorities, the board, and the management at different university levels. A central finding is that the importance of policy documents as governance tools takes expression in two different ways that reinforce and complete each other. One way is connected to the authority role and is manifested by the documentation of certain functions to coordinate the different roles the actors are expected to fulfill. The other is connected to the implementation of a policy document, which is manifested through the policy document, and thus becomes part of the organization’s social life.