Research Design and Methods

Abstract

Higher education scholars and graduate students in higher education policy and other social science disciplines will find this chapter interesting. Practitioners would be best served by moving directly to Part II of the book (“the Case Studies”) and Chapter 9 (section “Practical Implications” of the study’s findings) and then to Chapter 10 (“Current and Emerging Challenges”). This chapter provides a detailed account of the research methods employed in the empirical work and why these particular research methods were adopted, outlining my ontological and epistemological positions. Readers may also want to peruse the appendices for even more detailed information about construction of the sample and interview questions. The empirical work analysed in this book comprised a qualitative study using inductive research methods. Case studies investigating how 16 academic units from Australian public universities responded to changes in their exogenous environments were undertaken. Three sources of data were obtained: (1) semi-structured face-to-face interviews with heads of academic units, senior and junior academics (faculty) and senior and junior administrators from each case study unit, (2) strategic plans, budgets and policy documents from the units and universities and (3) semi-structured face-to-face interviews with university executives (vice-chancellors and their deputies). Data obtained from these sources was analysed using ATLAS ti; common themes, contrasts, sensitive and important issues in the data were identified. These findings were then contrasted with theories on organisational adaptation and resistance from organisational theory and higher education studies to evaluate the extent to which this study’s findings matched or differed from these existing conceptual frameworks on adaptation including strategic choice theory, resource dependency theory, neo-institutional theory and complex adaptive systems theory. As a result of this work, this book offers some new conceptual insights about academic units’ modes (strategies) and processes (actions) for adaptation and resistance. It also offers practitioners some suggestions of ways to enhance academic units’ adaptive capacities and develop units’ fiscal self-reliance.