Recent socio-technological evolutions have pushed French universities to engage themselves in a global process of reforms aiming at modernization of their management practices. Several studies have demonstrated a conflict between traditional academic values and new principals introduced as a result of university management modernization. The present research investigates the changes experienced by academics as part of this transformation. Neo-institutional theory creates an interesting framework for a thematic analysis of the discourse of academics from three French public universities. The results of this study show that coercive and mimetic isomorphism seems to be the main reason of university transformation, which resulted in value conflicts and changes in the professional identity of academics. However, contrary to the general public opinion of French academics, who attribute all their misfortunes to managerial reforms, the interviewed academics differentiate the sources of experienced evolution.