The mission of missions. University strategizing in the age of mergers

Excellence and relevance are two generic university ambitions that universities world-wide need to balance. One the one hand striving for excellence drives these organisations, while on the other hand keeping in touch with the ground base demonstrating relevance for society is equally vital. More over the pair of excellence and relevance are mostly thought of as competing objectives that cannot be easily combined. Seen together exploring how relevance and excellence are expressed in newly merged universities and university college’s mission statements provides knowledge of identity formulation in organisations under pressure. Such knowledge is important because the identity that these organisations develop forms the foundation for their future performance.