“Strategic planning in universities: a case of Ukraine”

The effective management core principles include the obligatory approval of the orga-nization’s mission and its strategic plan availability. This also applies to specific organizations such as universities. The purpose of the article is to test the hypothesis that to date, most Ukrainian universities do not care about the presence of such attributes of effective performance (at least, they do not publish them on their sites). The site analysis was carried out in the top 50 out of 289 universities in Ukraine. It turned out that 29 out of these 50 have no mission (do not publish it on the site), and eight universities do not have a strategy. It is established that the most common mistakes in the strategy development are the lack of quantitative indicators, giving a special attention to the coverage of the results achieved; inclusion in the text of the document the thematic sections, which do not concern the prospects of university development, etc.


INTRODUCTION
Defining a mission and developing strategic plans is a must-have attribute for all organizations seeking to maintain or improve their positions in one or another market.They are necessary even for those organizations that plan to cut back on production or even go out of business.Universities also need strategic plans.Some of them do not change their mission for decades (it is likely some of them have never changed it for all the time).A significant number of universities change their mission from time to time influenced by external factors and desires of owners or managers, teachers and students.There are those (including in Ukraine) who do not think at all about reasoning, approving and presenting their mission to the general public.Unfortunately, there is no general picture of what is the mission situation at Ukrainian universities.There are also no regulatory and legislative acts on this subject.

LITERATURE REVIEW
The effective performance of the organization throughout its activities involves the presence of and compliance with the mission, strategic and tactical plans, operational decisions.It is the fulfillment of the established goals to ensure success.Chance (2010) believes that good planning and good plans provide for iteration; simple cause-and-effect thinking is not enough.context of higher education.The authors note that strategic planning in higher education should be an integrated approach to planning, a coherence between goals and mission, vision and values.Thanks to many-year experience in management, the authors propose practical approaches to promote each stage of planning.
Hassanien (2017) compares strategic planning in higher education and business and offers his own strategic planning model in the business and government organization contexts.The author also describes the model and new trends, and gives some recommendations for improving the strategic planning process.
A number of studies are devoted to examining the experience of strategic planning in individual countries and universities.Hayward (2008) investigated strategic planning and its individual aspects in Afghanistan, Madagascar, South Africa, Bangladesh, Mauritius, Ethiopia, the United States, etc. Bieler and McKenzie (2017) analyzed the content of the strategic plans of 50 Canadian universities and considered the relationship between strategic planning and sustainable development in higher education.Luhanga (2006) highlights strategic planning at Dar es Salaam University (Africa).
Akyel, Polat, and Arslankay (2012) highlight the experience of the University of Sakarya.An eloquent quote is at the beginning: "Our vision will be our future".
Rodriguez-Ponce and Pedraja-Rejas (2013) identified the links between the stages of development and implementation of the strategy and institutional quality.The authors studied four Chilean universities, which are characterized by different levels of relative efficiency.The processes of strategic management that are conducted by each of these universities are analyzed, and the relationship between these processes and institutional quality is considered.
There are many examples of this type of research, because the problem is really interesting and at-tracts both theorists and practitioners.
Among the works of Ukrainian authors on strategic management issues, the book "Strategic Management of a Bank" by Kozmenko, Shpyh, and Voloshko (2003) should be emphasized.The authors thoroughly worked out the general framework of strategic management, considered various strategic alternatives, analyzed and generalized all the banks of Ukraine concerning the presence of missions and strategic plans.Natroshvili (2015) gives the most detailed analysis of strategic planning in the Ukrainian universities.The author examines strategic management of a higher educational institution and considers the problems of planning scientific, educational, marketing, international activities of a university.As a result, recommendations on optimizing the mechanisms and models of strategic management of universities in Ukraine, taking into account modern socio-economic transformations, are offered.Diatlovskyi (2005), Dudko (2012Dudko ( , 2013)), and Smerichevska (2008) also examined the issues of developing a strategy and adapting the existing world experience to the realities of the post-Soviet countries.
Besides purely theoretical studies, the problem of strategic planning at universities is globally used.Universities of the world pay close attention to their own strategies.At the same time, they are usually obliged to openly discuss the drafts of such documents.Of course, the very strategic plans, procedures for development and discussion, the procedure for approval, as well as the methods of monitoring their implementation are quite different.
For example, up to now, The University of Oxford is living and working based on the Strategic Plan 2013-2018.This strategy is one of the most ambitious in the world.The University seeks to lead the world of science and education, and to share its experience both nationally and globally.And the first challenge they set themselves, therefore, is to develop the ability to generate and share knowledge beyond the immediate environment of Oxford University, globally, nationally, and regionally.
The University has started developing a strategy for a new period (Strategic Plan 2018-2013) in advance.The mission of the strategy project is as follows: "The advancement of learning by teaching and research and its dissemination by every means".The strategy provides benchmarks and commitments in the following areas: Education, Research, People, Engagement and Partnership, Resources.
Another example is Durham University, which recently adopted its strategy (Durham University Strategy, 2017-2027).The authors of the strategy indicate that the University community agreed during the course of 2016 to endorse a set of policy proposals that will fundamentally change the size, shape and mission of the University.The strategy is a set of qualitative and quantitative indicators, set out in 30 pages.The authors also identified key areas for their improvement and proposed actions aimed at making the University strong.Some of these actions involve radical changes.Authors point out that the university will work to globalize and to become a more important player in the region, the UK and other countries.This will be done, first of all, by investing in the main assetpeople.The Strategy concludes with the Estate Masterplan and chapters on alumni relations, the future funding, the characteristics and values, and how the university measures its own performance.
Thus, this section has shown how the issue of strategy development and implementation is considered in some scholars' articles and in the practice of universities.

RESEARCH METHOD
In the article, based on practical experience in different universities of Ukraine, two hypotheses are considered based on the site analysis of 50 best universities in the country.These universities have been chosen based on the regular academic rating of universities "Top 200 Ukraine 2018", carried out by the Center for International Projects "EuroEducation", in partnership with the IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence (Center for International Projects EuroOsvita, 2018).In total, according to the State Statistics Service of Ukraine (State Statistics Service of Ukraine, 2018), there are 289 universities, institutes and academies (i.e. higher education institutions of the III-IV accreditation levels) in Ukraine.

HYPOTHESES
In the article, the concept of mission is formulated as follows: Mission is the main explicitly defined purpose of the existence of an organization that has a social orientation.Under the strategy a detailed and comprehensive plan is understood designed to ensure the process of implementing the mission of the organization and achievement of the goals identified (Mescon, Albert, & Khedouri, 1985).
It is suggested to consider the following hypotheses: 1.The majority of even the best universities in Ukraine have no mission (do not represent it on their sites).Those presented on the sites are largely inconsistent with the formal criteria for defining the mission as such.
2. Most universities have no strategic planning (strategic plans coverage on sites).The strategies on the websites, in most, do not agree with the formal features of identifying a strategy as such.

RESEARCH FINDINGS
Before proceeding with the analysis of the problem announced, it would be useful to consider the site of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, namely the page titled "Mission, Functions and Strategy" (Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, 2018).The Ministry is one of the central executive bodies of Ukraine.As it is noted on the site, its most important function is the development and implementation of state policy in the field of education and science.The Ministry is also responsible for the comprehensive examination of scientific, scientific and technical and innovation activities, technology transfer; providing state supervision over activities of purely educational institutions of all forms of ownership, and enterprises, institutions and organizations that provide educational services or act as mediators.This is not a mission definitely, but another is not given.The mission is not defined in the document, which could give such a formulation (Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, 2014).Unfortunately, there is no the Ministry strategy on the site, but there is only a reference to the Communication Strategy.
As for the universities themselves, the mission and strategy (strategic plan, long-term development program, etc.) in Ukrainian universities are usually presented for discussion directly among the students, in the team of teachers and other employees.There are even those who bring these questions for a broad discussion by placing the project on their own website and distributing its text on the This program even has a task such as developing a marketing strategy of the university.Unfortunately, the 50-page document provides for measures, most of which do not differ in specific terms, and the deadlines for their implementation are not specified.
Further, the information on the presence of a mission and strategy in the top 50 universities of Ukraine (see the Appendix) will be presented and the procedure for their adoption and content for several first universities will be briefly analyzed.
A working group's conference of the National Technical University of Ukraine "Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute" adopted and approved the Strategy for the NTUU KPI Development for 2012-2020 (conceptual provisions) and an action plan for its implementation.This document is a multi-page Policy Conceptual Framework and an action plan for its implementation, although the action plan is part of the strategy.According to the site, this document has not been corrected in any way for six years of its existence.Interestingly, 29 out of the 50 universities do not put their mission on the site, and many of those who give it do this in the text of the strategy.This testifies to the disregard of such an important element of the planning and development of the university by the university leadership.
The most common mistakes in the university strategy formulation are the following: • lack of quantitative indicators, responsible persons, timelines and favoring purely qualitative indicators; • using very small indicators, which are operational and local in nature; • paying special attention to highlighting the results achieved (sometimes these indicators have nothing to do with the strategy at all, such as diplomas received, student conferences, repairs, etc.), rather than strategic outlook; • inclusion in the document text the thematic sections, which do not apply to the university development prospects; • introducing a large list of developers in the text; • development of individual strategies by activity areas (educational, informatization, innovations, scientific work, etc.), which, as a rule, cover only part of the general strategy.
These are key features of the strategies availability.

CONCLUSION
Consequently, the first hypothesis was confirmed (29 out of 50 universities have no mission).The second hypothesis, the lack of a strategy in most universities, is partly confirmed.8 universities out of these 50 have no strategies, which is also quite a lot.One should also take into account that the proportion of 32 universities having developed the strategy did it not in a quality manner, and some of these documents can be categorized as non-strategies while being carefully analyzed.It also should be borne in mind that only 50 universities out of 289 were considered, and they are really the best institutions.That is, it can be assumed that among the other 239 institutions, the percentage of those with a mission and strategy will be significantly lower than within the group of leaders.Under such circumstances, it is necessary not only to increase the professional level of university top-managers but also their forward-looking behavior.A certain initiative by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine on the mandatory presence of strategic planning at universities wouldn't be superfluous.

No. University name Site Mission
All these documents are usually approved by the academic council or the staff conference of the university.This is done after the preliminary staff discussion.It should be emphasized that all developers have a different vision of the document development period -three to ten years or more.