Role of Dean’s Offices in Developing Internal Normative Acts at HEIs

Dean’s Offices are administrative units of a wide scope of tasks with particular focus on managing students affairs. Their work is regulated by ordinary law, as well as internal normative acts developed at their respective HEIs. In our article we analyse the role of the Dean’s Offices in creating such acts in regard to a) their inclusion in this process; b) their ability to initiate such process; c) a wider framework of legal knowledge that they have access to. Our source material are 15 structured interviews with heads of Dean’s Offices at public and non -public HEIs. Our results indicate that the inclusion of Dean’s Offices in developing internal normative acts varies and seems to be an indication of HEI’s dominating organisational culture. In case of role -oriented cultures, there might be some channels that enable the Dean’s Offices to participate in developing the regulation. However, it depends on the power relations between the Dean’s Offices and central administration of the HEIs. Much more rarely are the HEI effect-oriented and including all relevant stakeholder (regardless of their position in the HEI’s hierarchy) into designing the regulation.