An institutional mechanism to reduce internal competition? A hypothesis about the diffusion of satellite universities in Italy

This paper sheds light on the development of a peculiar organizational form in the Italian higher education system: satellite campuses. In comparison with other European countries, the Italian system shows peculiarities in terms of differentiation and power distribution among institutional actors. Building on the idea that the opening of a satellite campus might be the result of a convergence of interests among two actors (the academic oligarchy, that is, tenured faculty members, and local governments) at the expenses of a third (the state), the paper provides evidence about a statistically significant and robust association between the level of internal ‘academic crowding’ at a university and the chances of opening one or more satellite campuses. This supports the hypothesis that the creation of satellite campuses may have been welcomed and favored by tenured professors for diverting internal competition for academic posts and preserving the distribution of power in the parent university.