Theorising the elusiveness of an integrated tertiary education system: mirage, chimera or talisman?

It is observed that most contributions to the Australian tertiary education integration policy arena are absent a theoretical research foundation. This article investigates the plausibility of using the institutional logics perspective to theorise why harmonisation remains an elusive outcome. A Foucauldian post-structuralist discourse analysis of relevant policy documents identifies privileged knowledge/power dyads alongside those that are rendered invisible and unconsidered. The institutional logics perspective is then invoked to demonstrate how social actors behave guided by their world views from one of seven institutional orders. The historical tripartite governance (employers, unions and governments) arrangements in VET correspond to the logics of state, market and profession and use well-practised routines to accommodate each other’s logics. Alternatively, the corporate institutional logic provides universities with a vastly different mechanism for understanding the world and their place in it. The application of this robust research methodology produces results that can complement existing reform proposals by moving beyond the neo-institutionalism and structuralist framing of the perceived problems. Depending upon how the different institutional logics are acknowledged and managed, integration proposals could turn out to be a deceptive mirage, produce a variety of illusory chimera or create a research-informed talisman facilitating the desired future.