101 Book Reviews/Comptes Rendus governments cutbacks which are usually accompanied by official encouragement to broaden the funding base. In the United States, so Geiger suggests, the distinction between public and private universities has become increasingly blurred as intertwinings between public institutions and private firms and foundations proliferate. The development office which, he surmises, has grown faster in American universities than any other administrative unit is now also being replicated in many other countries: for example, even Oxford University has hired a development officer from an American university for its worldwide funding campaign. However, Geiger describes Britain as demonstrating the worst case of government retrenchment in university education during the governments to change the tradition of charging low fees or no fees to students attending public universities and colleges. In the context of government restraint, Geiger suggests that this unwillingness may deprive universities of much needed financial resources which could be used for discretionary purposes. The possibility of increasing tuition fees in order to raise revenue is clearly relevant in the context of Canadian higher education. So are many of the other policy issues raised in the sixty information-packed pages of this conference book. However, like Geiger and the other conference delegates, Canadian educators should view moves towards privatization with caution. At their worst, government policies which foster privatization are simply a mechanism for replacing public funds by private funds. At their best, they may stimulate the augmentation or adaption of university activities through a more flexible financial environment. REFERENCES Roger L. Geiger, Private Sectors in Higher Education: Structure, Function Countries (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1986). and Change in Eight L.C.J. Goedegeburre and V.L. Meek. Change in Higher Education; the Non-University Sector - An International Perspective. (Uitgeverij Lemma B. V. Culemborg: 1988). Review by Paul Gallagher. This 182 page book is the eighth in a Dutch series on Management and Policy in Higher Education. It presents a set of papers from the Ninth European Forum of the Association for Institutional Research (AIR) in August 1987 at the University of Twente, prefaced by a skillful 20-page overview of the papers and the international trends they suggest relative to the changing relationships between governments, higher education systems, and higher education institutions. While ample reference is made to the university sector, special emphasis is placed on the developments within the non-university sector higher education. In addition to the fine, extended Introduction, the book has two main subunits: the first sketches recent developments in public sector higher education in Britain, the Netherlands, and West Germany; Part II includes four papers which discuss different institutional responses to system change in Australia, the Netherlands, Britain, and the United States. 102 Book Reviews/Comptes Rendus The trends identified in the introductory chapter and reinforced throughout the succeeding chapters will be familiar to Canadian higher education scholars and especially to institutional research professionals: greater rationalization of institutional activity, penetration of a marketplace mentality into the world of higher education, pressure by governments on universities and polytechnic-type institutions to increase their support from the private sector, increasing privatization (but nowhere the conversion of public institutions into private ones), and similar patterns associated with economic policies of conservative governments. Of particular interest to Canadians, however, may be the discussion of the loosening of detailed control of institutions by governments and the insistence that higher education institutions should chart their own missions, effectively "by contract" with government, but then manage their own day-to-day affairs in an institutionally competitive environment. In this connection, the record of experience of Britain and the Netherlands may be especially pertinent. Similarly, discussion of institutional consolidations and mergers in Autralia and debates about the role of non-university institutions as centres for research as well as teaching in Dutch and West German higher education seem relevant to Canadian circumstances. The vocabulary of contemporary higher education management in Canada is no different from that used consistently throughout this book. Accountability, performance indicators, quality control, resource allocation systems, efficiency, and institutional restructuring all get more than passing notices and suggest that higher education systems are becoming more similar in that their institutions are becoming more differentiated, more planned, and more managed. This book will probably not satisfy an institutional researcher's thirst for detail and analysis. It does paint with a broad brush similar trends in jurisdictions that have quite different histories in higher education. It does not examine any governmentinstitutional relationship in much depth, but provides a starting point for an international comparison of several central issues in higher education management. Giles Paquet and Max von Zur-Muehlen. Education Canada? Higher Education on the Brink, 2nd Edition. Ottawa: Canadian Higher Education Research Network, 1988, pp. vii, 306. Reviewed by Glen A. Jones, Higher Education Group, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Originally published just prior to the 1987 National Forum on Post-Secondary Education, Education Canada?, a product of the Canadian Higher Education Research Network (C.H.E.R.N.), is a diverse collection of papers and commentaries on the problems facing Canadian universities. Like most compendiums it suffers from an unevenness of tenor and style, especially since it includes speech transcripts and conference presentations as well as papers intended for publication, but the disparate nature of the volume is intentional, an attempt to show how different groups "define the central critical issues facing higher education today 103 Book Reviews/Comptes Rendus ..." (p. vi). The editors knowledge that the book "does not have the homogeneity of an academic publication" (p. i). It contains a number of excellent articles, but it also includes a number of rather parochial commentaries. It must be read for what it is, a mix of ideas and opinions from twenty-four contributors including faculty, administrators, and students. In spite of these weaknesses, or perhaps because of them, the book is generally interesting, thought-provoking, and a valuable contribution to the growing list of compendiums and conference papers that might be termed the "crisis literature" of Canadian higher education. As a collection, the book presents a long list of complaints and problems regarding the state of post-secondary education, but the tone of many contributors is one of subtle optimism based on a belief that many of these problems can be solved. The tone is a product of a central theme interwoven through a number of the papers: "better use of management techniques might be able to solve, in part" (p. iv) some of the critical issues facing higher education. This theme is established in the introduction entitled "Post-Secondary Education - An Enterprise Less Than Optimally Managed?", an extract from a speech by Gilíes Paquet. He argues that there is a "crisis of confidence in the higher education enterprise" (p. 2), a result of excessive provincialization, institutional rigidity, and poor management. Speaking to the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance, Paquet calls for a national strategy for post-secondary education and suggests that there many be ways "to scheme virtuously to get the enterprise to produce more per dollar ... without... introducing additional rigidities that would make it impossible for the post-secondary education enterprise to do its job" (p. 10). The remaining papers are grouped into nine chapters, the first four of which are organized under the heading, "Crisis and Opportunities", and are exerpts from, or reactions to, a 1985 conference co-sponsored by CHERN and the Royal Society of Canada. Chapter I is composed of a paper by David Slater on complaints about, and prescriptions for, higher education, and includes the reactions of four conference participants. Chapter II is based on a conference session centering on David Husband's valuable synthesis of the problems and challenges addressed by the Macdonald Royal Commission Report. Gilíes Paquet, in Chapter III, discusses the limited role of the social sciences and suggests a number of changes to modify the present situation. Chapter IV addresses the issue of foreign students. Peter Williams provides an international perspective through a discussion of the problems and challenges facing international student exchange in the Commonwealth. Max von Zur-Muehlen focusses on the "recent trends and patterns of international student enrolment in Canada by providing quantitative information for policy analysis." (p. 104) The final four chapters are organized under the heading "Challenges for Management", and most of the material for this section emerged from the 1986 conference "Managing Universities: Issues and Solutions", sponsored by CHERN and the Canadian Federation of Deans of Mangement and Administrative Studies. Each of the eleven papers discusses specific managerial challenges for Canadian 104 Book Reviews/Comptes Rendus universities. A summary of the testimony to the Senate Committee on National Finance's hearing on the financial support of post-secondary education is included in the appendix. A review of the first edition of Education Canada? has been appended to the second. While many of the contributors agree with the notion that the use of appropriate managerial theories and techniques might resolve a number of the difficulties facing higher education, the case is seldom overstated. Cynthia Hardy argues that caution must be exercised in the application of strategic planning theories, and Stan Shapiro notes that not-for-profit marketing strategies may be inappropriate unless there is a willingness to change the product offering and institutional reward structures in response to market demands. There is an implicit warning that the application of management tools and theories without regard for the nature and organizational character of the institution can be destructive. Several articles address the question of institutional structure. William Sibley's paper entitled "Managing Universities: The Changing External Environment" is an excellent analysis of three types of change agents which have affected universities: the influence of external sectors, the loss of institutional unity through the segmentation of universities into specialized parts, and the reliance upon outmoded decision-making structures. Sibley argues that universities must regain control of their autonomy and they should let "credibility in the eyes of external observers be the touchstone of reform" (p. 136). His affection for what George Keller has referred to as the "Big Decision Committee" is in direct conflict with George Lane's notion that universities are already too centralized. In "Business Schools and University Structure", Lane argues that the essentially hierarchial, top-down nature of Canadian universities creates an environment of inflexibility caused by standardized institution-wide policy. Centralized organizational structures "have played a significant role in inhibiting the natural growth and development of professional schools in general and business schools in particular" (p. 252). These two conflicting perspectives provide an excellent example of the complex challenges facing those who seek to find structural solutions to the management problems facing our universities. Education Canada? is not designed to be a scholarly volume on university management. Many of the articles are poorly referenced, and only a few of the contributors acknowledge the growing literature on academic management emerging from the United States and other nations. The editors have been successful in compiling an interesting collection of articles and statements which give the reader a greater insight into the problems of Canadian higher education and the importance of academic management for the future of our universities. While it has become common practice to look for external solutions, this volume suggests that much can be done internally to regain control of the enterprise and, by doing so, regain the confidence of its clients and external benefactors.