Outside pressures, largely governmental, are increasingly forcing universities to change, in line with social changes in the environment in which they are embedded. This paper argues how such changes can be achieved in the particular case of the teaching function of universities, and why such changes so frequently fail to be achieved. The argument is based firmly on well established sociological theory, and it is illustrated by a largely successful change, the Enterprise in Higher Education

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... iative. The change strategy which is derived from the theory leads to a number of maxims, and it is argued that while obeying these maxims is not a guarantee of success, disobeying them is an almost certain prescription for failure.