Higher Education in VUCA-World: New Metaphor of University

Abstract

In the 21st century universities cannot survive if they simply support an established state of affairs because the modern world is described by the following relation: the rate of change tends to infinity; the transition interval tends to zero. This leads to the fact that universities cannot rest on their laurels and not change. The university that cannot construct new organizational ties loses its magnitude forever. The article describes the specific features of the new reality which are of great importance for building modern organizational systems in universities. Reference points have been being identified and that allows presenting the direction of development that meets the new requirements of the modern world to people, processes, technologies, structures, and systems accordingly to the university. Analysis of the selected reference points leads to the conclusion that in the conditions of dynamic changes and uncertainty of the world the concrete way of the vision of the university’s situation is to see it as if in the light of the modern world. A metaphor is presented, which is based on a comparison of the university internal world with the current reality. It is expressed by the acronym VUCA.