Mechanisms of Alliance Formation across the European Universities Initiative

This chapter examines the possible mechanisms at play during the formation of the European Universities alliances. We borrow a perspective from management and economic sociology literature and identify three core observable theoretical mechanisms for the formation of ties among the higher education institutions that comprise the alliances: complementarities, similarities and pre-existing network ties. Building on earlier quantitative analysis on the same topic, carried out by the author, this chapter presents findings from a qualitative directed content analysis of publicly available information published on alliances’ websites and in Alliance Factsheets published by the European Commission. The results indicate that all three mechanisms seem to play a role in the formation of the alliances, albeit to a different extent.