Despite the fact that organisational values play a pivotal role within organisations and allow for a broad differentiation between universities, little is known about the organisational values universities select to pursue, and the factors impacting the selection of specific values. Therefore, we aim in this study to explore what type of organisational values universities express in their identity claims, and whether the institutional control (public vs private) affects value selection. We analysed the mission statements (i.e., identity narratives) of 169 Turkish universities using an a priori coding approach. The results indicate that public and private universities express similar value profiles and address different pressures from stakeholders by communicating a hybrid set of values.