Quality Enhancement in Principle and Practice: A Case Study in Leading Change

The paper presents a case-study about the experience of leading sector-wide change from within a national agency. This experience is analysed in relation to the literature on leadership and change and against the back-drop of wider social, economic and political changes affecting higher education in the UK -- changes that have parallels in other countries. From the literature, the author draws out certain 'principles' about leading change and highlights the activities that were developed in practice. The case that is discussed is that of the 3-year 'Graduate Standards Programme' mounted by the former Higher Education Quality Council in the UK. This Programme (the GSP) was formally set up to define and establish threshold standards for undergraduate degrees in the UK, but also sought to examine UK approaches to defining and assuring standards in the light of far-reaching changes affecting the higher education system. Lessons about leadership, managing change and quality enhancement in an academic context are drawn out. The author concludes that 'good process' is more important than the static notion of 'good practice' when seeking to create and lead change in higher education.     

Tensions in Higher Education Leadership: Towards a Multi‐Level Model of Leadership Practice

UK higher education is undergoing a period of significant change that generates a series of tensions and difficulties for universities and university leaders. This paper explores these tensions through analysis of findings from a study comprising 152 semi‐structured face‐to‐face interviews in 12 UK universities. Building on from theories of ‘distributed leadership’ in schools, five main constituent elements of leadership practice in higher education are identified (personal, social, structural, contextual and developmental) and explored to show how they shape perceptions and experiences of leadership. The paper concludes with a refined model that teases apart the multilayered nature of higher education leadership at individual, group and organisational levels. In particular, it is argued that ‘social capital’ and ‘social identity’ act as important bridges between individual agency and organisational structure and that although widely distributed, higher education leadership may be best regarded as ‘hybrid’.     

Understanding leadership experiences: the need for story sharing and feminist literature as a survival manual for leadership

This paper uses an auto‐ethnographic storytelling approach to connect an individual’s experience in leadership with the literature on women in leadership as a way of further exposing and understanding gendered organisational practices. Whilst the paper details only one women’s experience it was through the connection to the literature that most ‘sense making’ occurred and a realisation (on the part of one of the authors) that the experience was not unique or individualised but, rather, systematic of masculine, gendered, organisational cultures. The paper offers some ‘strategies for survival’ for other women who may find themselves in similar situations. It concludes with a call for programmes and strategies to bring about fundamental change. Although the setting is the higher education sector in Australia the paper’s findings and recommendations have much broader applicability.     

Leadership Values,Trust and Negative Capability: Managing the Uncertainties of Future English Higher Education

The complex leadership attribute of ‘negative capability’ in managing uncertainty and engendering trust may be amongst the qualities enabling institutions to cope with multiple recent government policy challenges affecting English higher education, including significant increases in student fees. Research findings are reported on changes in leadership values, trust and organisational cultures in higher education during the current ‘age of austerity’. Data from university experts, managers and academics in semi‐structured interviews were informed by questionnaires (n = 16), online surveys (n = 121) and a focus group (n = 6). Findings indicated that values‐based leadership characterised by skilful ‘negative capability’ is now needed in English higher education. ‘Negative capability’ is defined as the ability to resist the ‘false necessity’ of deterministic solutions in building staff trust to cope proactively with ambiguity and change. This capability is needed for academic leaders to maintain their role in shaping the enduring purposes of higher education during a recession, both in England and in the wider international environment.     

Hybrid configurations of leadership in higher education employer engagement

Recent literature has emphasised the distributed nature of leadership in higher education (HE) and the multitude of actors and factors that contribute towards organisational outcomes. Gronn suggests, however, that rather than using such evidence to provide broad, normative accounts of leadership practice, greater attention should be directed to mapping the ‘hybrid configurations’ through which leadership practice emerges. This article responds to this call through an analysis of employer engagement activities in UK HE. Using a qualitative case study approach, it illustrates the complex, interdependent and contested nature of leadership practice in cross-boundary environments. The article concludes by suggesting how a hybrid perspective may enhance leadership theory and practice in tertiary education.     

Not Enough Science or Not Enough Learning? Exploring the Gaps between Leadership Theory and Practice

This paper addresses the relationships between leadership theory, practice and development, drawing on both the higher education and wider leadership literature. It explores why challenges and problems exist within the contested field of leadership theory and why gaps remain between theory and practice after more than a century of research – and indeed, with increasing levels of research, scholarship and development in the last 25 years. After highlighting the importance of context for theory, practice and development, the first section of the paper examines a range of factors that contribute to theoretical ‘contests’ including different starting assumptions made by researchers, the different focus of studies, examination of different causal links to explain leadership, differences in values and cultural lenses and different constructs, terminology and perspectives. The second section examines the challenges faced by leadership practitioners, as individuals, and through exercising leadership as a collective responsibility in the context of changing operating environments within higher education institutions and across sectors and countries. The author highlights three areas where some re‐thinking of the links between theory and practice are necessary – at the input stage, linking research findings and recruitment practices; in terms of outcomes, by researching links between leaders, leadership and performance; and in process terms, to examine more deeply complex and relational dynamic of leadership in action. The third section offers a number of specific suggestions as to how closer alignment between theory, practice and development can be achieved. The paper concludes by arguing for greater maturity (in research, practice and development) that acknowledges that leadership is played out in complex, dynamic and changing social systems. A stronger emphasis on ‘leadership learning’ should deliver both better science and better outcomes for leaders and led in higher education.     

007 Spies,surveillance and pedagogical middle leadership: for the good of the empire of education

ABSTRACT

This research critically examines the role of pedagogical leadership as it is distributed amongst middle leaders. It seeks to better understand the playful utility of a popular culture metaphor as a frame for understanding empirical data about pedagogical leadership in two Australian schools during a period of imposed curriculum change. Utilising ‘the theory of practice architectures’ (Kemmis, Stephen, Jane Wilkinson, Christine Edwards-Groves, Ian Hardy, Peter Grootenboer, and Laurette Bristol. 2014. Changing Practices, Changing Education. Wagga Wagga: Springer), the paper explores a direct quotation as metaphor from several pedagogical middle leaders that ‘we’re spies’ – and from one participant, ‘in a good James Bond sort of way.’ This research plays with and interprets the politics of practice including collaborating or ‘licensed trouble shooting’, and empowerment or ‘interrogation’ in everyday pedagogical leadership practice where distributing leadership may create espionage, or compliance during reform. Educational reform is espoused for ‘the good of the empire’ of education through the enabling and constraining practices of pedagogical middle leaders.     

Change in a culture of collegiality and consensus-seeking: a double-edged sword

ABSTRACT

The study aims to move beyond idealised and predominantly trait-based typologies of leadership and leadership roles and addresses collegial leaders’ practice of change in higher education. Collegial leaders at two research-intensive higher education institutions, who had received educational leadership training, were studied. In the study, we explored ordinary actions and change practices as a way of understanding emerging practices among collegial leaders. Five categories were identified that show how collegial leaders experience change, process change and organise the practice of change. The article also contributes a critical discussion on the notions of collegiality in a consensus-seeking context, which may be relevant for academic developers, policy makers, and researchers alike.     

‘Teamwork’ or ‘Working as a Team’? The Theory and Practice of Top Team Working in UK Higher Education

This article focuses on the theory and practice of teamwork in ‘top management teams’ in UK higher education institutions. It is informed by some of the key findings from a recent two‐year research project sponsored by the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education that investigated the different ways in which UK higher education institutions organise their ‘top management’ and ‘senior management’ structures ( Kennie and Woodfield, 2008 ). The authors discuss literature from the corporate and higher education sectors on the meaning of ‘teamwork’ in top teams (e.g. Bensimon and Neumann, 1993 ; Katzenbach, 1998 ; Wageman et al., 2008 ) and relate the findings to the challenges of top level team working in higher education settings. Particular issues discussed include: the terminology related to higher education top teams, areas of decision‐making and time‐management, team orientation and agenda setting, team behaviours and team roles, team performance and evaluation, location, logistical support and resources, and team development. The authors conclude that the challenges of top team working in higher education settings are similar to those found in the corporate sector, albeit nuanced by different organisational cultures, and suggest some key principles to help top teams in higher education institutions improve their ability to work effectively together.     

Absence of the academic from higher education policy

This article argues that the individual academic is all but absent from the assumptive worlds of policymakers in UK higher education. It is taken for granted in research on academic identity that those who work in higher education as teachers and researchers refer to themselves as, and indeed are referred to by others as, ‘academics’. Evidence is drawn from a study of policymakers in the UK to demonstrate that the word ‘academic’ is not a part of the lexicon of higher education policymaking. Moreover, the concept of the academic is cast into shade by an overwhelming emphasis on ‘the student experience’, and, from another direction, by a location of professional academic accountability at the level of the higher education institution rather than the individual. The article concludes with an exploration of what work this absence of the academic in policy does in disrupting the possibilities for engagement between the worlds of academia and policymaking and in perpetuating the discourses of marketisation and new management in higher education. It also suggests understanding the assumptive worlds of policymakers is a crucial counterbalance to a growing body of literature on academic responses to change, some of which has tended towards the self‐referential.     

New Labour and higher education

The essay does not seek to add to the scholarly literature on UK higher education, so much as to give a sympathetic account of the dilemmas confronting a progressive government of almost any political stripe and especially one that faces the constraints of New Labour. It begins paradoxically by pointing out that serious investment in higher education requires an extension of Sure Start rather than Foundation Degrees, accepts that no government can wait 16 years for its plans to come to fruition, and examines some familiar issues about funding, quality management and the nature of ‘mass’ as opposed to ‘élite’ systems of higher education. Like some recent writers (Alison Wolf and Ewart Keep and Ken Mayhew most notably), the author is sceptical of the claimed productivity benefits of an expansion of higher education and even more doubtful than they whether in the long run degree‐level qualifications will retain their value even as a positional good.     

Design and implementation of an M.B.A. program in the United Kingdom

Abstract

The current leadership literature includes the concepts of visionary leadership, transformational leadership, situational leadership, breakthrough leadership, and shared leadership. This article relates the literature to specific distance education settings and presents cases in higher education that reflect relevant leadership issues and dimensions of leadership. The article includes theory‐ and practice‐based applications to assist leaders in higher education in the implementation of distance education initiatives. Case examples from outside the United States illustrate important leadership variables in exporting distance education to new settings. The significance of networking and collaboration as leadership strategies is explored as a major theme of the article.     

Bringing in Bourdieu's theory of social capital: renewing learning partnership approaches to social inclusion

Abstract

This article considers the concept of ‘team’ in a second‐level school setting, in the context of the priority given to teams in the implementation and co‐ordination of a variety of programmes (The Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme; the Leaving Certificate Applied; The Transition Year Programme and the Junior Certificate School Programme) in post‐primary schools. Having proposed a definition of ‘team’, which speaks to the moral purpose of education, the article identifies the competition for appointment to posts of responsibility leading to the co‐ordination of such programmes as a factor which, potentially, works against the creation of successful teams. The creation of co‐ordination posts has the potential to redistribute power and influence in schools, and create impediments to the realisation of a team culture based upon respect, autonomy and equality. For this reason, consideration needs to be given to the separation of team formation and the competition between individuals for career advancement and promotion.     

Overseas students' intercultural adaptation as intercultural learning: a transformative framework

In the context of increasing recruitment of overseas students by British higher education (HE) institutions, there has been a growing need to understand the process of students' intercultural adaptation and the approaches that can be adopted by British academic institutions in order to facilitate and support these students' learning experience in the UK. Drawing upon one‐year of in‐depth qualitative research investigating the experience of a small cohort of Chinese postgraduate students' in a British university, I explore the three‐fold ‘stress‐adaptation‐growth’ intercultural learning process of these participants by focusing the discussions on the their lived experience in the UK. The key argument of this article is that intercultural adaptation is in itself a process of intercultural learning, which has the potential to bring about profound changes in overseas students themselves, transforming their understanding of the learning experience, self knowledge, awareness of the Other, and values and worldview.     

Sixth‐Form Colleges and Incorporation: some evidence from case studies in the north of England

There are some important ambiguities in discussions about the implications of ‘evidence‐based practice’, both for educational research and for the work of teachers. In this paper we explore several of these through examining the Evidence‐based Practice in Science Education (EPSE) study—part of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP), a major UK research initiative that is explicitly committed to improving the contribution of educational research to policymaking and practice. The field of science education is in some ways a critical case, given that the notion of evidence‐based practice treats scientific research as a privileged source of evidence. We examine the assumptions built into the EPSE study, and how these relate to the classical medical model of evidence‐based practice, and to some other approaches to educational research that are concerned with closing the gap with practice.     

Mini‐Enterprise in Schools: The Pupils’ Experience

Abstract

Mini‐enterprise in schools is the most tangible manifestation of ‘education for enteprise’. Despite its growing presence in schools, and diverse views about its potential impact, little is known about how pupils experience such activity. Findings suggest that interpersonal learning objectives are achieved effectively through mini‐enterprise but more narrow economic goals (such as fostering positive attitudes towards self‐employment) may not be. This paper sets out the pupils’ perspective on mini‐enterprise in schools and raises questions about current models of practice.     

Changing Internal Governance: A Discussion of Leadership Roles and Management Structures in UK Universities

A series of reviews over the past six years – from Dearing ( NCIHE, 1997 ) to Lambert ( Lambert, 2003 ) – have addressed the question of whether the structure and process of ‘governance’ in higher education is fit for modern times. This is a proper question to ask as operating environments change and pressures on institutional resources increase. Indeed, it is not coincidental that both the recent government‐sponsored reports and those of the previous decade ( Jarratt, 1985 ; NAB, 1987 ) were associated with significant financial changes in the sector. There are further parallels in that both the reports of the 1980s and those of the later period heralded legislative changes that produced – or will produce – new patterns of higher education provision in the UK ( Education Reform Act, 1988 ; Further and Higher Education Act, 1992 ; Higher Education Act, 2004 ). The messages from the reports and White Papers ( DES, 1987 ; DES, 1991 ; DfES, 2003 ) published in this twenty‐year period have remained broadly similar, even though the wider environment has altered significantly. ‘Increase efficiency, find new sources of income and improve performance across an ever‐widening range of activities and services’ have been the watchwords of successive governments. Given the consistency of the message, it is useful to analyse the changes that universities have been making to meet these requirements and to consider what further changes may be needed in the light of new external challenges. The first part of the paper offers a historical perspective before addressing the evolution of leadership roles and management structures from the late 1980s. The second part considers some of the current drivers of internal and external change before discussing the kind of changes in internal governance that are emerging and that should be considered for the future. I conclude by arguing for a shift in focus from structure and roles to people and processes in the task of leading change in universities.     

Restrictive and expansive policy learning – challenges and strategies for knowledge exchange in upper secondary education across the four countries of the UK

Abstract

This article examines the challenges and possibilities for UK policy learning in relation to upper secondary education (USE) across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (NI) within current national and global policy contexts. Drawing on a range of international literature, the article explores the concepts of ‘restrictive’ and ‘expansive’ policy learning and develops a framework of dimensions for examining what is taking place across the UK at a time of change for all four national USE systems. From an examination of recent national policy literatures and interviews with key policy actors within the ‘UK laboratory’, we found that the conditions for expansive policy learning had markedly deteriorated due to ‘accelerating divergence’ between the three smaller countries and a dominant England that has been pursuing an ‘extreme Anglo Saxon education model’. The article also notes that some aspects of policy learning continue to take place ‘beneath the radar’ between UK and wide civil society organisations. This activity is more prevalent across the three smaller countries although each, to differing degrees, is still constrained by its position in relation to the UK as a whole.     

Market Ideology and Accountability: case studies in the early childhood and special education sectors in New Zealand

ABSTRACT

Conservatism is becoming evident in recent policy changes affecting some sectors in the New Zealand education system, such as the early childhood and special education sectors. An administrative mechanism called ‘contestability’ by the Treasury is used to encourage new providers to compete with services traditionally offered by the welfare state. The author argues that this introduced competition has meant women in particular, and Maori, have suffered setbacks to their progress towards better life chances.

Two models of ‘contestability’ are described and analysed in these case studies. The analyses show that the implementation of the models has been problematic and strenuously resisted by teachers and others. Teachers (and parents) are not comfortable with being thrust into the role of consumer as competition is created by the state.

Michael Apple's theory about Market Liberals reconstructing our ideas about managing inequality is used to explain the persistence of decision‐makers in the face of resistance.