Strategic Curricular Change: A Case of the Norwegian Medical School in Tromsoe

Abstract

In this qualitative study, we aimed at exploring a curriculum development process that took place at the Medical School of the University of Tromsoe during a period of seven years. We applied the literature on organizational change in order to understand the curriculum development process. Our findings show that this process can be seen as a strategic organizational change, in which strategic actors act as sense makers for the rest of the organization.Our study contributes to the literature on the curriculum development process by emphasizing the role of organizational actors and strategies used in order to bring about the desired curriculum change. One important implication of our study is the strategic dimension of curricular change, which emphasizes an important but poorly understood aspect of the curriculum development process. One limitation of this study is that we focused mainly on the initial stages in the process.