Predicting a taxonomy of organisational effectiveness in U.K. higher educational institutions

Major developments in organisational theory have witnessed the emergence of several models of organisational effectiveness (OE) and change (Keeley 1978; Hannan & Freeman 1977; Miles & Cameron 1982). The integrative competing values framework suggests organisations adopt uniquely effective approaches reflecting their needs at different stages in their life cycle by addressing varying degrees of emphasis on systems resource, human relations, internal process, and rational goal orientations (Cameron & Whetten 1981; Quinn & Rohrbaugh 1983; Quinn & Cameron 1983). This coincided with, and complemented, the growing recognition of the importance of developing systematic means for organisational speciation (McKelvey 1975, 1982; Muchinsky & Morrow 1980) and using the resulting taxonomies emerging from these studies to underpin theory building and further research.The ongoing challenge of this era is, therefore, to continue to test and extend construct space and explore organisational typologies in line with these theoretical and empirical developments in order to provide practical utility for decision makers. Indeed, this was the impetus for large scale OE research programs involving higher educational institutions in both Australia and the U.K.This paper first briefly reviews highlights of the developments emerging from the Australian programs over a number of years. Framed in this context, the paper then summarises the study program in the U.K. aimed at further cross-cultural exploration of OE dimensions. Of particular interest was their usefulness in predicting and fleshing out a taxonomy of U.K. higher educational institutions, namely classical (red brick) universities, former polytechnics and colleges of advanced technology, and 60's greenfield universities.The results reinforced life cycle and resource dependency theory underpinning the competing values framework based explanations for inherent and systematic differences between these archetypes (Quinn & Rohrbaugh 1983; Lysons 1993). However, further research directions are also suggested.     

Dimensions and domains of organisational effectiveness in Australian higher education

Research in US higher educational institutions over more than a decade has produced dimensions defining aspects of inputs, processes and outcomes which are important for organisational effectiveness (OE) (Cameron, 1978). Furthermore, these dimensions have been shown to vary systematically to define the domain of each type of institution (e.g., ivy league versus regional college).A significant step in the process of exploring various relationships impacting on effectiveness in Australian higher education would be to derive a classification along the lines of Cameron's work. This paper first reviews research in Australian higher education testing Cameron's dimensions and exploring aspects of organisational climate which appear to represent equally important dimensions of organisational effectiveness (Lysons and Ryder, 1988, 1989).This study then undertakes a combined analysis of Cameron and of Jones and James (1979) variables to identify a more comprehensive set of dimensions. Discriminant procedures successfully predict and further define the single taxonomy suggested by the previous work involving organisational climate only (Lysons, 1990). Finally, the implications of these findings with particular regard to very recent structural adjustments in the higher education system are discussed including reference to further OE research directions undertaken in this ongoing program.     

Entrepreneurialism in Japanese and UK Universities: Governance, Management, Leadership, and Funding

This paper scrutinises organisational change in Japanese and UK universities which are engaged in entrepreneurial activities. The study focuses on recent changes in governance, management, leadership, and funding in these universities. The paper argues there are convergent trends between Japanese and UK universities in terms of increasing entrepreneurial activities, a review of institutional strategies, a review of the organisation, the application of market-oriented institutional policy, links with the industrial sector, the notion of a public financial crisis and changing external environment, strong leadership of the university President or Vice-Chancellor, and the notion of the accountability of the university to society as a whole. However, the application of particular institutional strategies, entrepreneurial culture, and the way in which an institution relates itself to the private sector significantly differs among institutions. The paper suggests that those differences are related to different institutional history and characteristics – including those between national and private universities in Japan, and old and new universities in the UK – as well as different government policies between Japan and the UK. The paper first proposes a theoretical model for the five types of entrepreneurial culture of the institutions. It then examines the model by using case studies: Nottingham Trent University (UK), University of Surrey (UK), University of Tokyo (Japan), and Waseda University (Japan).     

Institutional Level Student Engagement and Organisational Cultures

Driven by the growing presence of market forces within higher education worldwide, universities are changing the way they engage with students. This article explores how a university's internal culture relates to engagement with students and their views. It builds on wider research into student engagement and organisational cultures. The organisational cultures of two universities are mapped against a typology developed by McNay, which was extended by the author to include aspects of institutional engagement with students. It appears that corporate and bureaucratic institutional cultures that may respond well to external pressures on institutions (regulation, performance indicators, audits and policy pressure) are not conducive to engagement with student opinion. The stronger preference of students remains a collegial, partnership‐based approach for enhancement of the student experience. This study will be of interest to institutional managers, student (union) leaders, academics and practitioners who seek to improve the student experience through effective engagement with student views.     

Diversity in Australian higher education?

This study explores systematic relationships between management attitudes about recent transitions in the funding and structure of higher education in Australia (Meek and Goedegebuure, 1989) and the domains of the taxonomy emerging from ongoing organisational effectiveness research based on these institutions (Lysons, 1990b). The results reinforce the integrity of the previously established 4 group framework and flesh-out more fine-grained issues which may militate against the smooth transition of amalgamated institutions to university status, on the one hand, and the enhancement of diversity on the other.     

“Big is Beautiful.” Organisational Change in Universities in the United Kingdom: New Models of Institutional Management and the Changing Role of Academic Staff

In recent years, pressures for change in universities in the United Kingdom have stimulated the emergence of new models of institutional governance and management. In turn, these new models have led to significant changes in the position of academic staff in the running of their institutions. This paper looks at change within four leading UK universities, the motivation for change, the new models that have developed, some of the issues which have emerged and the impact upon academic staff.     

Professional loyalties of university academics: Four ideal types

University academics display a high degree of internal differentiation in terms of their professional interests, diverse roles and divided loyalties. Perceptions from academics at the University of Melbourne regarding these elements are used in this paper to construct a typology which distinguishes four different groups according to their levels of research and institutional commitment. Such typologies serve to highlight not only the essential nature of universities but also the importance of the research culture. Implications of emphasising research are seen to have possible detrimental effects on the functioning of a university and these are addressed.     

An application of Jones and James' perceived climate questionnaire in Australian higher educational institutions

Attempts to explore the role of organisational climate in organisational effectiveness have been hampered by inadequacies in existing climate measures (e.g. Cameron, 1978a, 1978b). This paper describes the application of Jones & James (1979) perceived climate measures on a sample of senior level Australian academics. Six climate factors were identified: organisational conflict and ambiguity; two leadership components (facilitation and supportiveness; directiveness); work group cooperation in policy committees and immediate workgroups; and organisational and professional esprit. The data reduction procedures used produced results which strongly confirmed Jones and James findings but involved only approximately one-third of their variables. This represents a more efficient measurement approach and furthers the opportunity for understanding and management of climates in effective organisational outcomes. Implications for future studies of senior managerial perceptions of climate are discussed.     

Strategic Renewal and Development Implications of Organisational Effectiveness Research in Higher Education in Australia

Higher education around the world has been undergoing a period of rapid change. In order to cope with this complexity and turbulence, corporate management practices have been embraced. In many cases the experiment has been ill-conceived, laborious and even aborted. The reasons mooted for this range from 'scant relevant literature on universities' to 'their applicability to the public sector is largely untested' (Hughes & Sohler 1992). The thesis of this paper is that organisational effectiveness (OE) research has made considerable progress in empirically deriving a systematic framework of theoretical and practical utility. This research field is briefly summarised and an Australian higher education taxonomy grounded in the competing values framework is illustrated (Lysons 1990b, 1993). The emerging inter-organisational comparisons and profiles are discussed in relation to their importance as a diagnostic tool for strategic planning, organisational renewal and development.     

Are there distinctive clusters of higher and lower status universities in the UK?

In 1992 the binary divide between universities and polytechnics was dismantled to create a nominally unitary system of higher education for the UK. Just a year later, the first UK university league table was published, and the year after that saw the formation of the Russell Group of self-proclaimed ‘leading’ universities. This paper asks whether there are distinctive clusters of higher and lower status universities in the UK, and, in particular, whether the Russell Group institutions can be said to constitute a distinctive elite tier. Cluster analysis of publicly available data on the research activity, teaching quality, economic resources, academic selectivity, and socioeconomic student mix of UK universities demonstrates that the former binary divide persists with Old (pre-1992) universities characterised by higher levels of research activity, greater wealth, more academically successful and socioeconomically advantaged student intakes, but similar levels of teaching quality, compared to New (post-1992) institutions. Among the Old universities, Oxford and Cambridge emerge as an elite tier, whereas the remaining 22 Russell Group universities appear to be undifferentiated from the majority of other Old universities. A division among the New universities is also evident, with around a quarter of New universities forming a distinctive lower tier.     

Investigating Diversity and Equality: Methods,Challenges and Implications

This paper sets out the background and key findings from a number of research projects about diversity and equality at a UK university. The works were commissioned as a result of changes in legislation as well as a genuine concern to investigate the issues of inequity and institutional racism within the university. The paper explores the approaches and challenges experienced by an institutional researcher, the key findings and some of the implications for universities who wish to support and foster equitable and diverse institutions.     

Changes in academic research performance over time: A study of institutional accumulative advantage

This study examines changes in institutional research performance over time by analyzing data from four national surveys of the American professoriate conducted between 1969 and 1988. To assess whether groups of institutions may be accumulating advantage relative to others, research activities are compared across five Carnegie institution types. Weights are created to adjust for sampling differences and research output measures are standardized to adjust for variation by discipline. Findings show an overall strengthening of research emphasis reflected by a stronger orientation toward research (more faculty holding Ph.D.'s and having a primary interest in research) and higher research output (grant and publication performance). While Research-I universities have retained their initial (1969) advantage, they have not accumulated more. Meanwhile, Doctoral-Granting-I universities have gained strength relative to Research-II institutions. Research at Comprehensive-I was also up, but at a slower rate than the other Carnegie groups.     

The student experience and subject engagement in UK sociology: a proposed typology

This article is a contribution to the sociology of an expanded and newly diversified UK higher education system. How differentiated is the student experience? How sharply is the system polarised? Drawing on interviews and questionnaires conducted in five sociology departments in a variety of pre‐1992 and post‐1992 universities, it examines students' views on ‘what they learn’ and their orientations to study. It explores differences in curriculum content and organisation and the extent to which student narratives and identities vary with differences in institutional context. A typology of student experiences and subject engagement is advanced that as well as capturing institutional differences also locates a range of student orientations – and worthwhile student experiences – in all five departments that suggests a somewhat greater commonality of experience and outcome across institutions than the extreme polarisation of institutional experiences and outcomes sometimes suggest.     

Education research in Australia: where is it conducted?

Research assessment exercises aim to identify research quantity and quality and provide insights into research capacity building strategies for the future. Yet with limited knowledge of the ecology of Australian educational research, there is little chance of understanding what research audits might contribute towards a capacity building agenda for such a complex field. This paper draws on secondary data analysis of research outputs submitted by 13 Australian higher education institutions to the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) 2010 and 2012 national research assessment exercises, to show where Australian educational research is conducted. Findings offer a profile of education researchers by location in academic organisational units within universities. By analyzing data not accessible through reported ERA data we were also able to present information about appointment profiles, specifically levels and type of appointment within universities, as well as data on institutional and geographic region, and patterns associated with type of outputs (books, book chapters, journal articles, conference papers and other outputs) and field of research. Analysis of the data reveals definitive shifts in the nature of the published outputs and in employment profiles of researchers and their location across university and regional groupings. Research audits are administrative processes that reshape institutional and disciplinary governance structures, policies, individual outputs, work practices and careers, but they are not the sum total of the field per se.     

The diversity of university disciplinary profiles in research and teaching

Is the ideal of a one-size-fits-all university model—where universities are capable of successfully performing all competencies simultaneously—ever achievable? Has the balance between teaching and research activities grown even more fragile or is such a balance unfeasible? In this paper, we review studies of institutional diversity in higher education and bibliometric analyses. We prose a two-dimensional typology based on diversity in teaching and research by scientific fields. We investigate the diversity in teaching and research, respectively, at the disciplinary level and address whether these primary activities mirror each other. As a measure of mismatch between the two activities, we assess the distribution of students and publications by scientific fields through a clustering analysis. Our study of higher education institutions (HEIs) in Russia reveals that private universities are less diverse both in research and teaching and have high teaching intensity compared to state universities. Expectedly, universities in the rankings have more diverse profiles and they have a higher research intensity.     

Institutional hierarchies and research impact: new academic currencies,capital and position-taking in UK higher education

Abstract

Globally, performance-based research funding aims to support the most deserving academic institutions and researchers. However, overcoming entrenched assumptions about quality is a persistent challenge for higher education research policies worldwide; traditionally powerful institutions tend to maintain dominance. Research impact as a performance criterion presents an opportunity for position-taking through success according to non-academic criteria. Could impact-oriented research funding challenge institutional hierarchies? The UK university system presents an instructive case study for exploring this question. However, exposing the effects of such performance-based funding on institutional stratification requires focusing on the interface between institutions and disciplines. A Bourdieusian analysis of 53 cases of research-based impact on higher education policy/practice revealed the differential capital that researchers from more and less ‘prestigious’ universities mobilise when generating research impact. By uncovering how impact reinforces disparities in research power between UK institutions, the study contributes to understanding of sectoral reproduction through discipline-level mediation of research policy.     

Applying the Varieties of Capitalism Approach to Higher Education: comparing the internationalisation of German and British universities

In recent years, the global market for higher education has expanded rapidly, while internationalisation strategies have been developed at university, national and European levels to increase the competitiveness of higher education institutions. This article asks how institutional settings prevailing in national models of capitalism motivate distinct national approaches with regard to the internationalisation, globalisation, and Europeanisation of higher education systems. While the university is defined as an organisational actor embedded in the higher education system, the higher education system itself represents an institutional subsystem within the national model of capitalism. An analytical framework is then developed on the basis of the Varieties of Capitalism approach to compare the internationalisation of German and British universities. Findings indicate that the relations between the various actors involved in the internationalisation of universities are based largely on market coordination in the British case. In contrast, this process in Germany relies more on strategic interactions between the various organisational actors in higher education. The development paths in the internationalisation of universities are found to be influenced by and reflect the specific mode of coordination in the respective higher education system and the national model of capitalism more generally. This comparative case study shows that recent conceptions of path dependence as well as conceptual tools developed in the Varieties of Capitalism literature, such as institutional complementarity and comparative institutional advantage, may be fruitfully applied to research on institutional change in higher education systems.