Changing governance and management strategies

Abstract

External trends, new technology, and emerging organizational theories are changing institutional governance and management. These changes in governance and management will affect the character of institutional research.

The diversity of institutional research structures and tasks

“…Hearn and Corcoran (1988) explored the factors behind the emergence of research activities in noncentral units, postulated three theoretical arguments to explain such proliferation, and found support for their theories in a case study of the University of Minnesota. Schmidtlein (1985) has warned about the potential dangers of such dispersion, including redundancy, unnecessary competition, and loss of some advantages of scale. But Hearns and Corcoran not only explained some of the general forces working to promote proliferation but also noted several organizational benefits to be derived therefrom.…”

“…Thus, the work of an office is influenced by its location in the organizational hierarchy as well as by the expertise of its staff. The office's research agenda is shaped by the host office, which in turn receives power from the information generated by institutional research (Schmidtlein, 1985).…”