Higher education under fire: implementing and assessing a culture change for sustainment

Abstract

Purpose Leadership development is a significant organizational investment and is considered a foundation for a culture change process. In a highly disruptive environment, higher education administrators are investigating the potential benefits of this investment. Specifically, while the great recession was underway in 2010, and with a backdrop of continuous enrollment decline, a business school in a public university in the USA utilized an experimental design to test a globally recognized business model for leadership development and its impacts on leadership effectiveness. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach The intervention included a two-day training session followed by a year-long process for cementing in learning, while examining ensuing leadership effectiveness. Potential control variables in the model included measures of four dimensions of leadership fitness which were defined as the physical, socio-emotional, spiritual and mental dimensions. When the leadership development intervention showed promising results the business school forged ahead to implement a culture change process based on the leadership development intervention to foster teamwork and innovation. Findings As a longitudinal implementation and assessment process, subsequent results of the culture change process spurred year over year increases in enrollments, student retention, student placement, along with consistently escalating faculty research and academic program rankings. The culture change process spread organically from the business school throughout the university as a whole with similar positive impacts. Research limitations/implications Implications, including an assertion that leadership development is a viable tool for higher education’s organizational sustainment are discussed. Originality/value Future research opportunities of institutional outcomes in higher education due to a systemic investment in annual culture enhancement are also discussed.

In search for the missing link: studying the interrelationship between organizational learning and organizational culture change

“…Recent literature reviews and conceptual studies aim at increasing our understanding on the impact of different types of OL processes as moderators of OC change, such as design thinking (Elsbach and Stigliani, 2018), distributed imaging processes for change sense-making (Peng, 2018), processes implementing contextual ambidexterity in organizations (Brix, 2019) or different types of strategy development processes in family firms (Tipu, 2018). Empirical studies show how the implementation of a leadership development program spurred OC Organizational learning and culture change change processes in higher education institutions (Kellis and Ran, 2015;Barrett et al, 2019). Cunha et al (2019) show paradoxical tensions and contradictions that can arise from change projects aimed at introducing an OC encouraging employees to speak up.…”

Development of integrated thematic teaching material used discovery learning model in grade V elementary school

“…Pendidikan sebagai salah satu investasi masa depan, tidak akan berarti apa-apa jika tidakdibarengi dengan senantiasa melakukan peningkatan, pengembangan, dan inovasi pembelajaran yang berkelanjutan (Barrett, Gaskins, & Haug, 2019;Bequette, Cardiel, Cohn, Kollmann, & Lawrenz, 2019;Lenk, Glinka, & Hesse, 2019). Salah satu upaya untuk mencapai tujuan tersebut adalah selalu mencarikan dan menemukan terobosan-terobosan baru atau inovasi dalam proses pembelajaran yang berdampak pada penanaman nilai-nilai karakter dan budaya bangsa (Desyandri, 2017).…”

Design of a Public Cultural Service System for the Elderly Based on Intelligent Computing

“…Due to different research perspectives and local practices, researchers have conducted different studies on the integration of public cultural resources. After summarising, current research mainly discusses the integration of public cultural digital resources, the integration of public cultural resources, and the integration of public cultural resource paths [8][9][10][11]. e comprehensive use of various current advanced management methods and technologies to optimise the allocation of resources and to develop a reasonable integration plan are key elements in the design of public cultural service systems for the elderly.…”