Corporate Design as a Symbolic Governance Device: A comparative analysis of governance tensions at German and Danish universities

Corporate design has become a prominent yet underexplored element of contemporary university governance. While often treated as a technical or aesthetic branding tool, in this study we conceptualize corporate design manuals as symbolic governance devices through which universities organize legitimacy, authority, and organizational coherence under conditions of limited managerial control. Drawing on a qualitative comparative analysis of corporate design manuals from German and Danish universities and informed by institutional theory, we examine how university leadership discursively frames and mobilizes corporate design. The findings reveal four governance tensions through which corporate design manuals operate as symbolic governance devices: (1) authority and authorship, (2) participation and compliance, (3) standardization and discretion, and (4) external visibility and internal organization. The comparative analysis shows that German universities use corporate design in organizational transformation and legitimation, while Danish universities enact corporate design as part of existing, routinized and professionalized governance infrastructures. We contribute to institutional theory by demonstrating how formalized communicative artifacts symbolically stabilize hybrid governance arrangements and mediate between managerial authority and collegial autonomy in higher education.