Culture Shifts (Asynchronous Session)
Shifting Culture in Higher Education: De-colonizing Ivory Towers and Castle Walls View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Douglas Thornton, Jennifer Walinga
In the fall of 2018, the Vice-President Academic (VPA) of Royal Roads University (RRU) requested senior faculty and staff form a working group to propose organizing the institution differently. The VPA tasked the group with creating and reporting back new approaches and administrative models to address the following areas of concern: 1. To design the university more efficiently; 2. to suggest how departments might communicate with each other more effectively; and 3. to liberate academic and senior administrative resources for higher value work. The following document is the story of the Structure and Organizational Design Working Group participants’ experiences as they strive to articulate their assumptions, develop potential responses and complete their assignment. Their story, rendered in the form of a learning history, is a narrative account of the organizational change initiative told from the meta-perspectives of participants. The purpose for creating a learning history is to document the experiences of participants involved in a critical organizational initiative and to transfer the learning gleaned from their experience to other groups within the organization. This type of learning history forms part of an overall approach to encourage “collective learning” within an organization (Kleiner and Roth, 2000). A learning history may also be defined as "a document that tells an organization its own story researched through interviews and deliberately presented in an engaging fashion” with a goal to “increase participation in a dialogic reflection on past action for creating desired future practices” (Bradbury and Mainemelis, 2001).
Inclusivity, the Value for the Organizational 'Bottom Line' View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ted Garner
Organizations often see inclusivity as a problem to be overcome with negative budgetary impacts. This paper reviews recent research indicating the opposite can be true. With cultural understanding and emphasis upon the value of diversity, an organization can enhance the work place experience and expand the capabilities of both management and workers. As globalization advances and migrant populations grow, a commitment to inclusivity can also greatly expand and broaden an organization's marketplace penetration.
Protecting the Image: Sexual Assault within Sikh Organizations
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Tejpaul Singh Bainiwal
The image of one's organization is extremely powerful as it can either help or hurt the success of the organization. In hopes of succeeding, however, people are willing to make immoral decisions that are against the organization's mission. Throwing religion into the mix only further complicates this. The purpose of this study is to examine the history of sexual assault within Sikh organizations, the position Sikh organizations take on sexual assault, and the contradictory nature of some Sikh organizations regarding sexual assault.
Debureaucratization Program of Unicamp: Cultural Change and Innovating in the Process of Reducing Bureaucracy View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Milena Serafim, Teresa Atvars, Eloisa Caldeira Duraes
The management of public universities has, in recent years, sought greater agility and efficiency in the execution of its activities in order to better support teaching, research, and outreach activities. Seeking to face its bureaucratic dysfunctions, Unicamp launched the Desburocratize Program. This was structured in three stages. The first stage consisted of an open call for participants, seeking to engage university staff. The second stage was to raise awareness and determine problematic concerns. The third step was to analyze the concerns and prioritize themes that defined five working groups: 1. culture; 2. norms for teaching, research and outreach; 3. management standards; 4. processes and 5. innovation. The teams were trained in design thinking and initially divided their scopes into fifteen problems. Six months after the training, the result was that 80% of the problems were treated. Both Program participants and the university community realized that, with the engagement of their employees, an interdisciplinary approach and the adoption of a methodology that works from the end user, it is possible to advance in management excellence. As a result of the Program, Lab-GESTA was institutionalized. It is one of the first initiatives in Brazil in which a Public University creates and establishes an innovation laboratory for public management, seeking consonance with the construction of creative and collaborative knowledge to advance with excellence teaching, research, and extension, but also in management.
