Rethinking and Restructuring
Strategic Planning in Australian Universities
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Tess Howes
To an experienced eye, a Strategic Plan provides some insights into the strategic leadership of the university. However, the document itself is single dimensional; it may or may not reveal how the strategy development process was conducted, what forms of leadership were used to drive the planning process; or how well the Strategic Plan was received by the university community and its stakeholders. Is it possible to discern if the Strategic Plan is fixed to an inflexible performance framework that binds the university to strategic goals that do not reflect community aspirations, or are no longer compatible with changed external or internal circumstances? Does the Strategic Plan suggest dynamic staff engagement that will empower individuals throughout the university to “experiment, create, develop, test and innovate”? For as Moss Kanter (1983) argues “innovation requires intellectual effort. And that, in turn, means people” (p.23). This paper will explore these questions and assess if Australian universities have learned to develop effective Strategic Plans through a process of logical incrementalism or ‘learning by doing’ as Quinn suggests (1987); or are we planning strategically for 2030 using the rational-analytical model that is only able to predict the future based on what we know today?
Change Management, and Acculturation in the Merger of Two Institutions of Higher Education
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Anita Hazelwood
Institutional mergers and consolidations require well-planned and strategic organizational change and include an examination of organizational culture and the process of acculturation. While there has been research on various aspects of higher education mergers, there has been little on the process of integrating institutional cultures. Compounding the challenge is that the degree of assimilation among institutions is variable. This integration of cultures takes time to fully accomplish. Researchers have estimated varying time periods for full integration, as much as ten years or more in some cases. As institutions of higher education undergo re-organization, several components of change management must be addressed, looking particularly at culture as a critical element of the change process. Research in this area is limited and the purpose of this case study is to examine why two institutions of higher education merged, the role of change management during a merger, conceptual models used in understanding reorganization, and the role that culture plays during a merger. Given the economic conditions in higher education, interest in mergers is growing and this case study on the merger, change management and the cultural assimilation of the individuals involved in the merger will be of value to state boards of education, policy-makers within the states, and higher administration in colleges and universities across the nation.
Cross Words: The Dynamics of Organizational Change in a University English Department
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Christopher Ritter
The crisis of the humanities in higher education is a well-known fact: due to high growth in STEM fields and corporate-backed administrators' emphases on education as job training, humanities departments are losing students at steady rates. At the same time, the growing gig economy and diversifying student demographics are challenging all university departments to revise their course offerings and stay relevant. However, university bureaucracies and the tenure system are designed to resist change, at least at the speed with which our world is changing. The student body has shifted over the last decade from mostly white-collar whites to mostly blue-collar blacks, and my mostly white English department is struggling to reverse a gradual but constant loss of majors. My paper will evaluate the department's efforts thus far and explore new approaches.
