Collaboratively Exploring STEM Departmental Change in Community Colleges

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to highlight the gap in organizational change literature in general and the large group interactive method (LGIM) literature in particular.Design/methodology/approachBy comparing LGIM and training literature studies, the absence of a concept in the former literature parallel to the well-known concept of “transfer of training” is highlighted. The concept of the transfer of change is introduced to address this gap.FindingsThis paper suggests that the transfer of change is as important to the success of organizational change initiatives as transfer of training is to the success of training programs.Originality/valueThis paper is the first to introduce the concept of transfer of change to the organizational change and LGIM literature studies. Furthermore, a tentative research agenda regarding transfer of change and LGIMs is presented. Therefore, the paper is a valuable resource for researchers who study organizational change initiatives in general and LGIMs in particular.

PurposeThis paper aims to discuss the alternative perspectives for studying management accounting and organizational change. It provides a comprehensive basis for the research of accounting and organizational change conducted in terms of theories used, influential factors, systems applied, dynamics and aspects of change.Design/methodology/approachThe paper applies a “theoretical framework” for studying accounting and organizational change based on obtaining an institutional perspective. By achieving this theoretic construction in the integration of a number of different works, this can summarize the common elements, contrast the differences and work in a way that extends the methodology. It is determined exclusively on a hybrid approach through the adoption of alternative perspectives and complements recent recommendations for bridge building and methodological pluralism among the different debates and perspectives concerning accounting and organizational change research.FindingsThe findings emphasize that the nature of organizational change is not static, rather, it is dynamic and varying over time. Organizational changes are occurring in both extra- and intra-organizational factors that shaped changes in accounting systems in organizations. The study concludes that accounting and organizational change literature has divided theoretical strands into two main perspectives: rational perspectives and interpretive and critical perspectives. Rational perspectives represented by the conventional mainstream of research can be classified into two approaches, normative economic models and positive economic models, which are grounded in neoclassical economic theories. On the other hand, the interpretive and critical perspectives emerged as alternatives to rational perspectives to explain accounting and organizational change within its broader social and economic context.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper has significant implications for the ways in which change dynamics can emerge, diffuse and implement at multilevel of institutional analysis. It also explains the interaction between the accounting and organizational change, which identified that change is both shaped by, and shaping, wider socio-economic and political processes. This broad sensitivity to the nature of change has important implications for the ways of studying accounting and organizational change. Hence, it has important implications for the way in which successful change can be defined in accounting and organizational change literature.Originality/valueThe study contributes to both accounting and organizational change literature by providing a comprehensive review about the development of institutional theory as it examines how the organization is simultaneously subjected to a high level of efficiency and considerable institutional demands. Thereafter, the domain of accounting and organizational change research itself will be extended.

By modifying the work environments, work routines, and work tasks of employees with health restrictions, organizations can effectively help them continue to perform their jobs successfully. As such, job accommodations are an effective tool to secure the continued employment of aging workers who develop disabilities across their life span. However, while accommodations tackle health-related performance problems, they might create new challenges on the part of the affected employee. Building on the organizational change and accommodations literatures, we propose a theoretical framework of negative experiences during accommodation processes and apply it to qualitative data from group interviews with 73 manufacturing workers at a German industrial company who were part of the company's job accommodation program. Although problems associated with health-related impairments were mostly solved by accommodation, affected employees with disabilities reported about interpersonal problems and conflicts similar to those that typically occur during organizational change. Lack of social support as well as poor communication and information were raised as criticisms. Furthermore, our findings indicate that discrimination, bullying, and maltreatment appear to be common during accommodation processes. To make accommodation processes more successful, we derive recommendations from the organizational change literature and apply it to the accommodation context. We also emphasize unique characteristics of the accommodation setting and translate these into practical implications.

Anyone in academe can attest to the saying that change is constant. For all sectors within higher education, this reality often poses significant leadership challenges, even for community colleges that have been perceived to be the greatest agents of change in postsecondary education. The level and direction of change confronting community colleges might rival any experienced in their past, leaving many scrambling to stay ahead of the curve, to energize staff and faculty for what lies ahead, and to find ways to effectively communicate what is happening to constituents within and outside the institution. At a time when external patrons frequently question the economic value of postsecondary education, there is much to consider in Daniel Phelan's commentary on the issues, challenges, and opportunities leaders face as they position the next generation of community colleges.Written to appeal to current and future leaders and board of trustee members more than to researchers, Phelan weaves together his extensive leadership experience in different college settings with contemporary leadership and management literature to explore a set of key questions for today's community colleges. What makes the text so compelling is the way that Phelan digs deeply into the issues and their consequences, and how he constantly examines these through the lenses of change, innovation, and risk. Rather than pose oppositional choices for leaders and their colleges, Phelan frames his discussion as a continuum of alternatives which may affect larger institutional goals. Again, this seems very straightforward for writing a leadership guide, but as Phelan indicates throughout the text, the complexity and murkiness of what leaders confront is often not straightforward or at least not something they can act upon in isolation.Phelan uses the extant literature and several personal experiences to illustrate the complexities and what is required of leaders (and others in the college) to work through them. For example, he shares a multi-year experience of the decision to build campus residence halls to show the preparation, seed planting, data gathering, negotiation, and space for reflection required to get buy-in to a proposal he at first thought was straightforward. This and many other examples shared in the book help show that if the goal is real change and innovation, then a good idea is only the start. Leaders must draw upon skills that reflect multi-framing, effective listening, the right balance of challenging ideas and providing support for anxiety produced by new ways of thinking, building and retaining trust when taking risks, and helping others find their roles and authority as disruptive innovations emerge. Phelan does not often refer to second order and deep change found in the organizational change literature nor does he focus only on first-order changes that do not challenge the mission, role, and vision of the college. He clearly intends, rather, to raise the reader's consciousness to the realities that lie ahead for community colleges as the world changes around them.After laying out his basic arguments and context, Phelan uses the metaphor of sailing--Innovation and Change Strategy Archetype for Innovation and Leading (SAIL) (p. 53)--to set-up the latter chapters of the book which address four issues of innovation and change (or battens, in nautical terms) that include leadership and institutional preparation, assessment, planning, execution, and evaluation. When applied effectively, Phelan argues these approaches increase the likelihood of improved change outcomes. …

Background The health system is continuously undergoing change in response to various internal and external drivers. The organizational change literature is complex and multi-disciplinary, making it challenging for health professionals to utilize efficiently. To support practitioners through times of change, The National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools (NCCMT) developed a health sector-specific model of organizational change, by synthesizing existing models and frameworks, and developed an online registry of resources to help guide practitioners through the change process. Objectives Existing change process models were identified through a scoping review of reviews published from 2000-2015, supplemental searches using a snowball method, and contact with key informants. A thematic analysis identified key themes and activities. To support the use of the model, a search of the academic and grey literature was conducted to identify practical organizational change tools. Resources were tagged with specific stages in the model and added to an online interactive Registry. The online Registry is available for practitioners to gain knowledge and understanding of processes of change relevant to the health sector, identify facilitators and barriers to change, and use methods and tools to support practitioners throughout the change process. Results A total of 30 organizational change process models were identified and synthesized to create a new five-stage model: assessing the NEED for change; PLANning for change; IMPLEMENTing change initiatives; SUSTAINing change within the organization; and EVOLVing to continuously meet drivers for change. The easy to use and interactive platform hosts over 100 practical tools linked to stages in the model to support organization and systems change. Conclusions This new resource will support the implementation of evidence-informed practices, policies and programs in public health and the broader health care system. Key messages The health system is continuously undergoing change and can be challenging to navigate. A health sector-specific organizational change process model and online registry of resources can help guide public health professionals throughout the change process.

PurposeOrganizational learning and unlearning is a popular and important topic in business as well as academia. Even though there is a plethora of studies on organizational learning, surprisingly little is known about the conceptualization and operationalization of organizational unlearning. The purpose of this paper is to discuss organizational unlearning based on the organizational change and memory literature enhancing the organizational learning and change scholarship.Design/methodology/approachIt is argued that unlearning is conceptualized as organizational memory eliminating, and is operationalized as changing beliefs and routines covariates in organizations. This is followed with a discussion of unlearning types, specifically, reinventive, formative, operative and adjustive, which are contingent on the environmental conditions. Finally, future research suggestions are proposed to leverage understanding on unlearning in the literature.FindingsShows that organizations first need to unlearn established beliefs and methods which have created rules and competency traps, in order to be receptive to new market and technology information.Originality/valueThis paper is of value in shedding light on the unlearning concept based on the organizational memory and change literature.

Recently Published Dissertations on Community and Junior Colleges

Informing strategic IS change: Towards a ‘meta-learning’ framework

An implicit assumption in most works on change recipient reactions is that employees are self-centred and driven by a utilitarian perspective. According to large parts of the organizational change literature, employees’ reactions to organizational change are mainly driven by observations around the question ‘what will happen to me?’ We analysed change recipients’ reactions to 26 large-scale planned change projects in a policing context on the basis of 23 in-depth interviews. Our data show that change recipients drew on observations with three foci (me, colleagues and organization) to assess change, making sense of change as multidimensional and mostly ambivalent in nature. In their assessment of organizational change, recipients care not only about their own personal outcomes, but go beyond self-interested concerns to show a genuine interest in the impact of change on their colleagues and organization. Meaningful engagement of employees in organizational change processes requires recognizing that reactions are not simply ‘all about me’. We add to the organizational change literature by introducing a behavioural ethics perspective on change recipients’ reactions highlighting an ethical orientation where moral motives that trigger change reactions get more attention than is common in the change management literature. Beyond the specifics of our study, we argue that the genuine concern of change recipients for the wellbeing of others, and the impact of the organizations’ activities on internal and external stakeholders, needs to be considered more systematically in research on organizational change.

Organizational change has been investigated for decades, with many works addressing change adoption challenges. Change aversion, like change resistance, is not uncommon, but going unchecked can reduce organizational change initiative success. This communication aims to provide a concise in-road for students and practitioners to the organizational change and change aversion literature. An attempt is made to enter this complicated discussion in a way that may assist the reader in understanding what change aversion is, how vital acceptance of organizational change is, and that there are operational practices that can facilitate a culture of change acceptance. Aversion to change may result from many factors, including (but not limited to) fear of the unknown, discomfort over a potential loss of control, and the instinctive tendency to prefer the familiar over the unfamiliar. However, despite advancements in the administration of inevitable organizational change moments, challenges related to change resistance can always occur, particularly lacking effective change leadership. Leadership can address resistance early, thus more readily guaranteeing a positive and productive organizational change outcome. Offering employees quality jobs and an inclusive, empathetic, and considerate environment can lead to early organizational buy-in and change acceptance, thereby improving long-term organization efficiencies and outputs. Ultimately, organizational change initiatives are most likely to succeed with buy-in and acceptance, thereby enabling businesses to remain competitive in a continuously evolving environment.

This paper highlights a variety of issues from the organizational change literature that are especially relevant to the implementation of initiatives in interprofessional education (IPE) for collaborative practice (CP). At the level of the individual, these include the existence of strong professional cultures and the need to motivate change. At the level of the organization, context and leadership for IPE and CP are relevant. At the system level, a discussion of incremental versus radical forces for change is particularly germane. Drawing on relevant theoretical and empirical literature, we address each of these three domains and highlight lessons learned from the study of organizational change to the implementation and adoption of IPE and CP. The paper concludes with a set of key recommendations suggested for reducing the incidence of implementation failure.

Diverse and often unacknowledged assumptions underlie the use of metaphors in the organizational change literature. This diversity is symptomatic of broader ontological and epistemological conflicts within organization theory. To gain a critical awareness of the assumptions underlying their use of metaphors, organizational analysts can use a reflexive approach. This approach entails addressing four issues: representation, enunciation, separation, and routinization. The organizational change literature is used to illustrate the implications of this approach for future research.

: Few studies in the organizational change literature have examined differences in the change process in different cultures. This cross-cultural study is designed to take a comprehensive view of change using a dynamic model that integrates content, process, context, and individual attribute factors simultaneously. The model is used to compare perceptions of organizational change held by members of military organizations in the United States and in Korea. The U.S. sample consisted of 264 employees who were members of Department of Defense organizations. There were two Korean samples: 280 employees of the Women's Military School and members of the Women's Battalion, and 181 employees of the Men's Artillery School and members of a men's infantry company. The organizational change investigated in the U.S. sample was implementation of a new organizational structure that clarified lines of authority and eliminated duplicate functions. The Korean organizational change was integration of the women's school and battalion into the men's school and infantry company. A questionnaire was administered to all three samples. The questionnaires measured the following variables as related to the organizational change faced by each group: positive affect, negative affect, perceived organizational support, perceptions of co-workers, participation, quality of information, readiness for change, job satisfaction, and affective commitment. The Korean questionnaire also measured self-efficacy, neuroticism, and self-esteem. The results show that change process, internal context, and individual attributes were positively related to employees' perceptions (i.e., readiness factors) that the change was justified. There were no significant cross-cultural differences in individuals' perceptions toward organizational change, nor were there significant differences in perception between genders (Korean samples 1 and 2). (24 tables, 92 refs.)

Reviewed by: Community Colleges and New Universities Under Neoliberal Pressures: Organizational Change and Stability by John S. Levin Carrie Klein John S. Levin. Community Colleges and New Universities Under Neoliberal Pressures: Organizational Change and Stability. New York, NY: Palgrave McMillan, 2017. 345 pp. Hardcover: $79.99. ISBN 978113748019–4 In his recent book, Community Colleges and New Universities Under Neoliberal Pressures, John Levin provides insight into how the higher education landscape has changed under the hegemonic influence of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism, based on classical liberal economic theory, posits that the free market, both unencumbered by state regulation and secured by state mandate, can best ensure individual liberty (Harvey, 2005). As a theory that has evolved into an ideology, neoliberalism's influence has shaped higher education institutions by creating a corporatization narrative that has pervaded both the institutions, themselves, and the political landscapes in which they exist. Levin explores neoliberalism's influence on higher education by revisiting, from 2000–2014, the seven U.S. and Canadian community colleges he studied in his 2001 book, Globalizing the Community College. In that book, Levin investigated the organizational change that took place at these institutions between 1989–1999 in response to an increasingly globalized marketplace. The result of this extension is a longitudinal narrative field study that describes how these institutions, three of which have become new four-year universities, both reflect and resist neoliberal values, policies, and practices. A major contribution of this book is Levin's use of the various study sites to illustrate how higher education institutions have responded to the impacts of neoliberalism. Readers will benefit from Levin's narrative approach in telling detailed individual stories of institutional evolution over the last three decades. Using data from policy and planning documents and interviews with college and university faculty and administrators, Levin successfully argues that the presence of an increasingly predominant neoliberal state has and is changing the work of the colleges and universities in this study. In the introductory chapter, Levin uses extant literature to lay the groundwork for this argument. He argues that neoliberalism has shifted the role of higher education institutions from being entities for the public good that benefit society at-large to becoming entities for the private good that benefit market development and the knowledge economy. Levin states that neoliberal discourse, policies, and practices value "national productivity and global economic preparedness" leaving "no room at the neoliberal inn for the public good" (p. 3). He notes that community colleges and new universities are particularly impacted by neoliberalism, because they often do not have the political or organizational capital, power, and resources to buffer themselves from neoliberal pressures. Also explained in the introductory chapter is Levin's choice to use an institutional logics framework coupled with the various contexts of the study sites to understand the ways in which institutions have responded to neoliberalism. Institutional logics are the "socially constructed, historical patterns of material practices, assumptions, values, beliefs, and rules by which individuals produce and reproduce their material subsistence, organize space and time, and provide meaning to their social reality" (Thornton & Ocasio, 1999, p. 804). Levin uses institutional logics as a "shared conceptual framework for the understanding of behavior in practices of participants in institutional fields" (p. 12), to help explicate the ways in which institutional members at the study sites make meaning of and respond to neoliberal pressures. Specifically, Levin contends that institutional logics act as a force of stability in the face of potential destabilization, by anchoring agency and decision making for institutional members, who are facing externally imposed organizational change. To provide context for these arguments, that neoliberalism is impacting higher education and that institutional logics are the mechanisms through which institutions respond to neoliberal pressures, Levin devotes Chapters 2 and 3 to the stories of organizational change at the study sites. Chapter 2 focuses on community colleges in both the U.S. and Canada. Chapter 3 focuses on three former community colleges in Canada that have, since 1999, transitioned into four-year universities. The strength of these chapters lies in the narratives used to highlight the history and context of each of these institutions and the various ways in which each of the institutions...

This paper describes a summit on Community Colleges in the Evolving STEM Education Landscape organized by a committee of the National Research Council (NRC) and the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and held at the Carnegie Institution for Science on December 15, 2011. This summit followed a similar event organized by Dr. Jill Biden, spouse of the Vice President, and held at the White House in October 2010, which sought to bring national attention to the changing missions and purposes of community colleges in contemporary American society.1 The NRC/NAE event built on the White House summit, while focusing on the changing roles of community colleges in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. An in-depth summary of the summit was prepared by the NRC and NAE for publication in late Spring 2012 by the National Academies Press (NRC and National Academy of Engineering, 2012 ). This paper provides a synopsis of that report, which is available at www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13399, and emphasizes how we can use the report to improve STEM education for our students, but also how much progress still needs to be made to realize this ideal.