How do policies influence decision making at a university/college?

Here's an example.  The college president decides that the school should place greater emphasis on business studies because he sees this as a way to increase the prestige of the university.  This strategic direction becomes a policy: the university will place greater emphasis on the business school.

This trickles down throughout the university and results in many other decisions needed to support that policy: the dean hires more professors for that department and selects a new high-profile chairman for the business school, the library subscribes to more business journals and databases, the architect designs a new business studies building, and the admissions people are told to look for more strong students who are planning to study business. If it's a state-supported college, the college president and his senior officers lobby the governor and the state legislature for more funding for the business school.  The alumni relations staff increase their connections to the business community and write articles about the business school for the alumni journal.  The public relations staff place ads for the business school on the sides of buses in communities that tend to send students to the college.  The housing office decides to make one dorm just for business students. 

You get the idea...a policy determined by the college president influences decisions made throughout the university.

This is much too vague and general a question.  Obviously policies are going to influence decision-making, but you need to come up with specific examples.