Constructing ‘Fit for Purpose’ University Management in 2035: the influence of worldviews

MAREE CONWAY

JUNE 2013

Can you imagine…

PhD

University manager for almost 30 years – loved it but too ‘hard’

I believe in universities and underpinning values - I care deeply about their future

I practice foresight now, I think foresight now, I want to apply that to the future of university management

Previous research on the relationship between academics and administrators, and in applying Causal Layered Analysis to that relationship suggested there was a topic here worth exploring.

President of Association for Tertiary Education Management in 2001-03 & spent around 15 years in voluntary capacities with them, seeking to professionalise role of administrators and improve recognition of value of their work.

Long held passion to see professional managers regarded as part of the DNA of universities – but now realise only part of the picture.

My future

My preferred future for university managers…

Present

Future

Content

Research Context and Problem

Research Questions

Literature Review

Approach and Methodology Methods

Data Collection

Data Analysis

Contribution to Knowledge

Significance of Research

Timeline and Budget

Context: tension, dysfunction or just difference?

Shifting responsibility for university management since 1970s.

My practice and anecdotal evidence suggests that the way things get done in universities is different to generic management approaches.

Now reported tension between academics and managers in the literature (REFS)

Previous research (Conway 2012) showed there are different worldviews underpinning that tension: Managers: everything is as it should be for the university to

be managed

Academics: management today is inappropriate for the academic context

Context: tension, dysfunction or just difference?

While holding different views about management is not an issue, when those views are at odds with each other, desired outcomes are often not achieved and life in universities is often not pleasant. And there is a real risk of the bureaucracy taking on a life of its own, being

regarded by those who manage as valuable for its own sake, rather than being designed to fit the context in which it is applied.

Things happen in universities today, but the research I conducted in 2008 (Conway 2012) suggests that it is only the goodwill that is strong between academics and managers at the individual level , and the commitment to the university and what it does, that keeps things happening - not efficient and effective management structures.

Context: tension, dysfunction or just difference?

Why the tension? Is it because the ways of managing today are not ‘fit for purpose’ for an academic environment?

Research Question/Sub-Questions

What will characterise ‘fit for purpose’ university management in 2035? What worldviews underpin how university management is

understood in the present?

What are plausible, alternative futures for university management in 2035?

How might ‘fit for purpose’ university management characterised in 2035?

What worldviews might underpin how university management is understood in 2035?

How and in what ways have the worldviews of participants shifted during the research?

What are the implications of the answers to the above questions for the practice of university managers today?

Fit for purposeAppropriate for the particular context and of a necessary standard to achieve intended application and outcomes

WorldviewA particular perspective or belief system from which an individual interprets and makes sense of the world

This research is about how people who work in universities construct university management now and into the future

Other stakeholder groups interested in the future of university management (government, industry, parents, students).

My main focus is on university managers and academics who work within the university – how is university management as we understand it today constructed through their interaction and how, and in what ways, might that interaction might shape and influence its future?

Literature Review

External environment – changes shaping the university as an organisation and how it is managed

The Changing University – shifts in our understanding of the ‘idea of the university’, academic work, academic culture

Changing University Management – evolution over time

Images of the Future University – review of existing scenarios about the future of the university

The story of university management

Major shapers of change Management undertaken by Worldview

The far past (to 1970)- the traditional idea of the university

Part of academic role, administrators to support + God Registrar (who was often an academic)

Master-servant – we all know who’s the boss and that’s just fine

The recent past (1970-1990)- expansion of the system

A new group challenging for their space in the division of labour, new roles, new ways of working; no place for the interested amateur academic

Academics: who are these upstarts calling themselves professionals? They don’t have an academic background.Managers: we are and we are partners in the academic endeavour.

The emergence of the present 1990 – today)- corporate managerialism

Two distinct groups in universities – those who manage (professional/ academic managers) and those who are managed; distancing of academic work from management

Academics – we must resist this neoliberal invasion at all costs – not ‘fit for purpose’Managers – resistance is futile, just do what I say and we’ll all be happy. And we are often just as qualified as you are, and have management qualifications too.

The future (the present - 2035)- globalisation, neoliberal capitalism, technology, knowledge

Not explored in survey of scenarios for the future of the university

Management an assumed function OR a critical factor in the success of the university?

Ways university management is understood today From a functional perspective – what work happens and how (Warner &

Palfreyman 1996) As a corporate managerialist ‘basket case’ – impact seen as negative

(academic) or positive (manager) (Popenci and Kerr 2013) Emergence of new professional groupings: professional and academic

managers for this research (there are more), How university management could be improved by applying particular

frameworks/theories - for example, complexity theory (Lewis 2010), system dynamics (Galbraith 2012).

External critiques of universities and suggested solutions – for example Ernst and Young (2013).

New management spaces – the third space (Whitchurch 2006, 2008). As happening within two camps – academic manager and professional manager,

not university manager.

How is the future of the university understood today

Shaped by globalisation, neoliberal capitalism, technology, demographics, knowledge shifts, social expectations of learners and society in general.

Assumption that teaching/learning & research – knowledge creation, dissemination, evaluation and credentialing – will remain core activities of the university.

And it’s management-less!

Management can be assumed, but if management is regarded as critical success factor for the future university, not including it in scenario work risks taking today’s management with its tension and ‘it’s too hard’ into the future.

Approach and Methodology

Qualitative and interpretive – there are no future facts I hold a foresight (relativist) ontology – there are multiple ways

of knowing and no single truth; I see value in many perspectives

My epistemological home is social constructionism – social reality is shaped by individuals through their interactions and in turn, those interactions are shaped by individual worldviews Foresight is a social construction process (Fuller and Loogma 2009)

My methodology is bounded by foresight as paradigm and foresight as method. It can be no other way for me. seeking diversity, participative approaches, ways to uncover and challenge

assumptions about the future, and explore worldview shifts.

Method: Worldviews

Pre and post testing Vidal (2008) six worldview questions:

Worldview Question Traditional Research Philosophies

1. What is? Ontology (model of reality as a whole)

2. Where does it all come from? Explanation (model of the past)

3. Where are we going? Prediction (model of the future)

4. What is good and what is evil? Axiology (theory of values)

5. How should we act? Praxeology (theory of actions)

6. What is true and what is false? Epistemology (theory of knowledge)

Method: Scenarios & CLA

Integrating Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) & Scenario Planning/Thinking/ Learning

The integration of these methods has never been used in this way before

CLA surfaces worldviews and unchallenged assumptions, scenario planning tests those assumptions in a range of alternative futures, and provides a space where new ways of seeing the world and new stories can emerge

1. Causal Layered Analysis

(deconstructing the issue)

2. Scenario Planning (GBN

Method)

3. Causal Layered Analysis

(rebuilding the issue in new

ways)

Data Collection Research Question Data Collection Process Data Obtained

What worldviews underpin how university management (UM) is understood in the present?

1. Worldview Pre-Testing (Vidal 2008) via interviews

2. First CLA process (deconstructing the issue)

1. Baseline data on worldviews today2. Data on (i) unchallenged response to

UM today; (ii) drivers of change shaping UM today, (iii) worldviews shaping UM today, & (iv) assumptions/myths constructing worldviews

What are plausible, alternative futures for university management in 2035?

3. Scenario planning (GBN method) using data obtained from first CLA process and literature

3. Four plausible alternative futures for the future of UM in 2035

How is ‘fit for purpose’ (FFP) university management characterised in 2035?

What worldviews underpin how university management is understood in 2035?

4. Second CLA Process (rebuilding the layers)

5. Data derived from CLA process

4. Data on (i) assumptions/new myths about FFP UM in 2035; (ii) worldviews shaping UM in 2035; (iii) drivers of change likely to shape/construct UM in 2035; & (iv) a new story about FFP UM that can be used today

How, and in what ways, have the worldviews of participants shifted in the research?

6. Worldview post testing (Vidal 2008) via interviews

6. Data to compare with baseline data collected in Step 1.

Still to decide (i) whether data can be collected face-to-face, virtually or combination of the two, and (ii) whether to use a case study approach or ‘crowdsource’ participants.

Participants

Academic Managers (for example, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Heads of School)

Professional Managers (for example, Corporate Directors, Faculty Mangers)

Academics

For the GBN scenario process, 20-26 participants is optimal – could be more than one group

Data Analysis

Iterative, beginning during data collection

Initially, thematic analysis, other data analysis techniques will be identified during the research

Using Atlas.ti software as analysis tool

Validity: transactional validity (Cho and Trent 2006) – member checks, critical reflexivity, redefining the status quo.

Contributions to Knowledge

Considering university management as a single work domain rather than considering it as an either/or analysis: That is, the work of

professional managers and academic managers is a single construct, not differentiated, as it is currently in the literature.

Exploring the future of university management (which may in itself be a first) through the use of a new methodological frame that seeks to identify as explicitly as is possible how worldviews shift during the research.

Contributions to Knowledge

Using a method that integrates CLA and scenario planning in a new way.

Expanding current knowledge about the future of the university, by exploring how the worldviews of people within the university construct that future, both for the organisation as a whole, and for its management.

Significance of Research

Management contributes to an organisation’s strategic agility Low agility = reactive

approach to change, institutionalised way of behaving and decision making locked into the present

Universities have always adapted to change, but level of change now requires high levels of agility underpinned by new ways of thinking and new ways of working to craft a future relevant to, and respected by, societies in which they will operate in the future and that contributes to positive outcomes for those societies.

Significance of Research

If ‘dysfunctional’ university management taken into the future, potential range of university futures likely to be constrained as will potential positive contributions to society.

Research will provide outcomes of practical value to university managers today, improving their ability to make positive contributions to the university’s successful positioning in society today and into the future.

TimelineBudgetYear Milestones

2013 Confirmation of candidature

Finalising first draft of literature review

Identifying participants and case study site(s) and gaining access to sites (if I do case studies)

Identifying logistics of data collection

Ethics application

2014-2015

Data collection, analysis, validity checks, and writing

2016 Finalise thesis and submit

Year Activity

2014-2015

Transcribing interview tapes

2016 Conference attendance

Indicative Budget

$1200

$1500