Five years of strategic environmental assessment efforts at a research university: A case study of an organizational innovation

Abstract

This study examined the emergence and subsequent five-year history of "environmental scanning" at a large research university. Proponents of strategic approaches to management in organizations usually recommend environmental scanning as a necessary support for effective decision making. The technique seeks to build systematic understanding of the external environment of the organization, via ongoing reconnaissance of relevant developments in technology, the economy, the political and legal arenas, and the larger society. Scanning's fit with educational organizations may be problematic, however. Over time, scanning efforts on the campus studied here became less theory-based and less centralized, and scanning failed to become an institutionalized innovation. The difficulties in institutionalizing scanning are traced to six factors: limitations posed by organizational structure, an absence of powerful champions, constraints from the organizational culture, the existence of a '~olicy vacuum" surrounding scanning efforts, the daunting demands of such efforts themselves, and questionable articulation with the fundamental goals and mission of the institution. The analysis suggests that the generic scanning model seems unlikely to win acceptance in research universities without substantial modification.Perhaps a majority of college and university campuses have experimented with planning approaches labeled ~'strategic" (McMillen,

The Effect of Institutional Culture on Change Strategies in Higher Education: Universal Principles or Culturally Responsive Concepts?

“…Several later studies on higher education linked institutional culture with organizational success (Chaffee & Tierney, 1988;Peterson, Cameron, Jones, Mets, & Ettington, 1986). Further studies demonstrated the way that different cultures shaped various institutional functions including governance (Chaffee & Tierney, 1988), leadership (Birnbaum, 1988), and planning (Hearn, Clugston, & Heydinger, 1993;Leslie & Fretwell, 1996).…”

Enhancing Institutional Revenues: Constraints, Possibilities and the Question of Values

“…Incentives for departments, colleges, staff and line administrative units are all important for successful implementation, but the financial, professional and personal incentives for individual faculty merit special attention (Hearn, Clugston and Heydinger 1993;Hearn 1996;Newman and Couturier 2001). How should institutions structure faculty salaries and resource contexts to create incentives for new revenue generation?…”

Institutional Adaptation: Demands for Management Reform and University Administration

“…The book by George Keller, Academic Strategy, is an excellent example of this approach (Keller, 1983). Later authors started to work on organizational characteristics of universities and how these influence strategic planning (Chaffee, 1985;Chaffee, 1989;Dill, 1993a;Dill, 1994;Hearn, Clugston, and Heydinger, 1993;Keller, 1995;Peterson, 1997).…”