Knowledge Utilization Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Arch Iran Med. 2012 Dec;15(12):736-40.
There are different reasons for mergers among higher education institutes. In October 2010 the Iran University of Medical Sciences (IUMS) merged with two other medical universities in Tehran. In this study, we aim to review the literature on academic integrations and university mergers to call the attention to challenges and reasons for the success or failure of university mergers.
We searched for studies that pertained to university or college mergers, amalgamation, dissolution, or acquisition in the following databases: PubMed, Emerald, Web of Science, Scopus, and Ovid, without any limitations on country, language, or publication date. Two reviewers selected the search results in a joint meeting. We used content analysis methodology and held three sessions for consensus building on incompatibilities.
We reviewed a total of 32 documents. The "merger" phenomenon attracted considerable attention worldwide from the 1970s until the 1990s. The most important reasons for merging were to boost efficiency and effectiveness, deal with organizational fragmentation, broaden student access and implement equity strategies, increase government control on higher education systems, decentralization, and to establish larger organizations. Cultural incompatibility, different academic standards, and geographical distance may prevent a merger. In some countries, geographical distance has caused an increase in existing cultural, social, and academic tensions.
The decision and process of a merger is a broad, multi-dimensional change for an academic organization. Managers who are unaware of the fact that mergers are an evolutionary process with different stages may cause challenges and problems during organizational changes. Socio-cultural integration acts as an important stage in the post-merger process. It is possible for newly-formed schools, departments, and research centers to be evaluated as case studies in future research.
高等教育机构合并的原因各有不同。2010 年 10 月，伊朗医科大学（IUMS）与德黑兰的另外两所医科大学合并。在这项研究中，我们旨在回顾有关学术整合和大学合并的文献，以引起人们对大学合并的挑战和成败原因的关注。
我们在以下数据库中搜索了与大学或学院合并、合并、解散或收购有关的研究：PubMed、Emerald、Web of Science、Scopus 和 Ovid，没有对国家、语言或出版日期进行任何限制。两名审查员在一次联席会议上选择搜索结果。我们使用内容分析方法，并举行了三次会议以就分歧达成共识。
我们共审查了 32 份文件。“合并”现象从 20 世纪 70 年代到 90 年代引起了全球的广泛关注。合并的最重要原因是提高效率和效果、应对组织碎片化、扩大学生入学机会和实施公平策略、增加政府对高等教育系统的控制、权力下放以及建立更大的组织。文化不兼容、不同的学术标准和地理距离可能会阻止合并。在一些国家，地理距离导致现有的文化、社会和学术紧张局势加剧。
合并的决定和过程是学术组织的一个广泛的、多维度的变革。不了解合并是一个具有不同阶段的进化过程的管理者，可能会在组织变革期间导致挑战和问题。社会文化融合是合并后过程中的一个重要阶段。新成立的学校、部门和研究中心可能会作为未来研究的案例研究进行评估。
