Faculty management after higher education reforms – exploring the organizational structure of faculties considering their context factors

Abstract

With the implementation of the new steering model (NSM), universities should align themselves more closely with management principles. Especially, the heads of faculties must cope with higher demands of management tasks. As a result, more management positions are established and organizational structures are changed. To shed light on how structures change, we investigate the faculties of one comprehensive and one technical university within Germany – which are similar in many factors – using the contingency approach. Information about context factors and the number and type of established positions is gained from a systematic analysis of their homepages. Dimensions of the organizational structure are used to interpret the results. Our comparison shows that the technical university, which has established itself as an entrepreneurial university, orients its organizational structure more towards the NSM than the comprehensive university, which is reflected by more support positions in faculty management. Thus, the profile and type of the university seem to be crucial context factors, while our study revealed that the number of students of the faculties and the number or type of degree programs are less crucial context factors.

Análise de riscos do processo de execução financeira na área de TI e propostas de melhoria: aplicação de FMEA e FTA

“…Destaca-se também o artigo sobre os fatores contextuais da estrutura organizacional e sua eficácia, utilizando uma análise de conteúdo qualitativo de entrevistas especializadas com 16 gestores de ensino superior na Alemanha. Nesses estudos ou autores assinalam que a TI e a concorrência têm impacto na eficácia organizacional e na estrutura organizacional, enquanto a lei e orçamento estão associados apenas à estrutura organizacional na percepção dos entrevistados (Hagerer & Hoppe, 2020).…”

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“…However, managing structural units or leading a team at higher education institutions is a completely different issue. Some literature exists about how to manage universities or faculties (see for example, Hagerer 2020, McGaffery 2019, Scholz and Stein 2014 and NPM (e.g., Bleiklie 2018, Broucker and De Wit 2015, Wan et al 2021), but only less information about the specific management of the several faculties (see as an example, Mahajan et al 2021). As the authors experienced, there is nearly no literature which deals with managing an engineering faculty or department.…”

It’s Just Not Sexy: How Managerial Assumptions Adversely Affect Corporate Sustainability Engagement and Sustainable Technology Adoption

“…To structure this elaboration, as well as the overall process, we used the four-step outline of Mayring [29]: (i) planning the research; (ii) conducting the interviews; (iii) preparing the analysis; (iv) conducting the analysis. Researchers also frequently use this generally accepted approach for qualitative data generation and analysis to, for instance, investigate the contextual factors of organizational structures and organizational effectiveness [59], evaluate the dimensions of digital transformation success [60], or develop new constructs for technology acceptance and adoption [61]. However, we should not mistake this for a standardized process that is to be strictly followed.…”

“…investigate the contextual factors of organizational structures and organizational effectiveness [59], evaluate the dimensions of digital transformation success [60], or develop new constructs for technology acceptance and adoption [61].…”