Organizational Change and Technology

1
Organizational Change and Technology

• Introductory information
• School reform and the aims of educational reform
• The tradition of change in American education
• Strategies of planed change
• Organizational Development
• Deming and Total Quality Management (TQM)
• Organizational Health and Self-renewal
• Basic shifts in beliefs, politics, and practices
  that are necessary to move ahead with authentic
  reform
• Currents of Change Affecting Higher Education
• Conclusion

2
Definitions

• Developmental change- doing something the same
  way but better
• Transitional change- finding a new way to do the
  same thing
• Transformational change- doing something
  different by creating new structures and new
  processes to fit new objectives

3
Elements that need to be considered for a
successful change strategy

• The People- Thought should be given to the
  skills and attitudes of the people involved.
• The Process- Should be planned and should
  consider stakeholders, time frame, context, and
  outcome
• The Structure- Should be flexible enough to be
  reconfigured and reshaped as needed with changing
  circumstances

4
The belief that society can direct change has
been shaped from two principal sources

• Marxist political and social theory
• The empirically based social sciences

5
Education

• Viewed as the key to equality in societies
• Expected to transmit traditional values
• Expected to be vehicles for change

6

• How can schools be restructured?
• Can we change educational organizations from the
  top?down?
• Can we change educational organizations from the
  bottom?up?
• What approach is more effective?

7
School Reform

• Reform efforts have not been effective in
  altering organizational culture.
• The nucleus of the core of organizational
  behavior is power.
• Dealing with power relationships in school is
  central to bringing educational change.

8
Power Relationships and School Restructuring

• Reform means to give new form to a school
  changing it in fundamental ways.
• The key to restructuring lies in changing power
  relationships in the school.
• Schools can change through different directions
• Outside (mandates from the state)
• Within (involving everyone in the process of
  change)

9
What kinds of changes does educational reform
seek to bring about in the schools?
10
Scanlon Plan

• A method of changing from within involving
  everyone in the process
• Two major contributions in our thinking about
  educational organizational change
• It conceptualizes the organization as a whole.
• It is an educational rationale that seeks to
  promote the development of everyone.

11
Sarason listed five aims that most agree would
constitute major changes

• To reduce the wide gulf between the educational
  accomplishments of children of different social
  classes and racial backgrounds.
• To get students to experience schooling as a
  process to which they  are willingly attracted,
  not a compulsory one they see as confining and
  boring.

12
Sarason listed five aims that most agree would
constitute major changes (cont.)

• To enable students to acquire knowledge and
  skills that are not merely memorized
  abstractions, but are acquired in ways that
  interrelate the learning and give personal
  purpose.
• To engender interest in and curiosity about human
  accomplishments, past and present.  To get
  students to want to know how the present contains
  the past.
• To acquaint students with the domain of career
  options and how schooling relates to these
  options in a fast-changing world of work.

13
The Tradition of Change in American Education

• Natural diffusion-  New ideas and practices arise
  in some fashion and appear in some unplanned way
  from school to school and from district to
  district.
• Natural Diffusion Processes
• It typically takes about 15 years for an
  innovation to spread to three percent of the
  school systems.
• It then takes an additional 20 years for an
  almost complete diffusion into an area the size
  of an average state.

14
Planned, Managed Diffusion

• The strategy by which money is spent may have
  greater impact on change than things such as per
  pupil expenditure.
• One successful strategy involved three phases
• Inventing the new curriculum
• Diffusing knowledge of the new curriculum widely
  and rapidly among high school science teachers
• Getting the new curriculum adopted in local
  schools

15
Strategies of Planned Change

• Robert Chin posited that three "strategic
  orientations" are useful in planning and managing
  change
• Empirical-rational strategies
• Power-coercive strategies
• Normative-reeducative strategies

16
Empirical-Rational Strategies of Change

• These strategies focus on linking the findings of
  research to the practices of education by
  improving communication between researchers and
  practitioners.
• Knowledge Production and Utilization (KPU)- The
  scientific production of new knowledge and its
  use in daily activities (This is key to planned
  change).

17
Assumptions/Implications of KPU

• New knowledge (product, technique) will be
  perceived by potential adopters as desirable
• That adopters (being rational and reasonable)
  will do what is desirable because it is in their
  own self interest

18
Other Empirical-Rational Strategies

• Personnel Selection and Replacement"Clearing out
  the dead-wood" changing the criteria for
  certification and employment of new people.
• Utopian ThinkingRational attempts to project
  what might exist in the future, what the
  alternatives may be, and what ought to be can
  lead to planned efforts to direct the course of
  events toward a desired goal.

19
Power-Coercive Strategies of Change

• This differs from an empirical-rational approach
  in its willingness to use sanctions in order to
  obtain compliance.
• Innovations are explained by the characteristics
  of the organization and the management rather
  than the nature of the innovation and federal
  funding.

20
Schools Successful in Implementing Innovative
programs exhibited the following characteristics

• Tendency to reject rigidly packaged innovations
• Strongly involved in developing their own
  materials
• Engaged in continuous planning and preplanning
• Engaged in ongoing training of people
• Consistent technical assistance was available
  locally for projects
• Innovative projects received strong support from
  key administrators

21
A Normative-Reeducative Strategy

• Those who exist in the organization can
  deliberately shift to more productive norms the
  organizations interaction-influence system
• Attitudes
• Beliefs
• Values

22
Organizational Development (OD)

• Organizational Development- A coherent,
  systematically-planned, sustained effort at
  self-study improvement focusing on change using
  behavioral science concepts.
• OD is the process for increasing the self-renewal
  capability of school districts and schools.

23
Concepts That Characterize OD

• The goal of OD
• System renewal
• A system approach
• Focus on people
• An educational strategy
• Learning through experience
• Dealing with real problems
• A Planned Strategy
• Change agent
• Involvement of top-level administration

24
Findings regarding OD Effectiveness

• Success is more likely when faculty senses a
  readiness to change and welcomes the project.
• Entering into OD requires a skilled consultant.
• Open, active support from administrators is
  critical to success.
• OD is more likely to be helpful if staff is in
  agreement on goals.
• An OD project can be thought of as consisting of
  four main phases

25
Deming and Total Quality management

• Deming devoted much time to cooperation in the
  workplace
• Power-sharing
• Motivating power of a shared organizational
  vision
• Transforming leadership
• Win-win conflict management
• Growth-enhancing organizational culture
• He became a powerful advocate of participative
  management, empowerment, and transforming
  leadership.

26
Transforming Change

• Demings Total Quality Management (TQM) deals
  with the organizations culture.
• Deming suggested that low-quality work rested on
  the shoulders of company managers.
• Transforming change happens when something is
  changed into something that is very different.

27
Lessons from Demings Work

• The concept of Total Quality
• Management Responsibility
• Testing is Not the Answer
• Intrinsic Motivation is Best
• Emphasize Problem-Solving
• Eliminate Performance Ratings
• Emphasize Sensitivity to the Needs of the
  Customer
• Kaizen, or the Principle of Continuous
  Improvement

28
Organizational Health and Self-Renewal

• To be affective, an organization must accomplish
  three essential core activities over time
• Achieve its goals
• Maintain itself internally
• Adapt to its environment

29
Good Indicators of Organizational Health

• Goal focus (people understand/accept goals)
• Communication adequacy (vertical/horizontal,
  internal/external)
• Optimal power equalization (collaboration)
• Human resources utilization (effective use of
  personnel)
• Cohesiveness (people like the organization)

30
Good Indicators of Organizational Health(cont.)

• Morale (feelings of satisfaction)
• Innovativeness (new ways of growth)
• Autonomy (tendency of organization to determine
  its own behavior)
• Adaptation (ability to change, correct, and adapt
  fast)
• Problem-solving adequacy (sensing solving
  problems)

31
Organizational Self-Renewal

• Ways of managing the interaction-influence system
  of an organization to stimulate creativity,
  promote personal growth, and facilitate solutions
  to organizational problems.
• The process of renewal includes the increased
  capacity to
• Sense and identify emerging problems
• Establish goals, objectives and priorities
• Generate valid alternative solutions
• Implement a selected alternative

32
What are some basic shifts in beliefs, politics,
and practices that are necessary to move ahead
with reform?
33
Basic shifts in beliefs, policies, and practices
that are necessary to move head with reform

• From individual to institutional responsibility
  for achievement
• From instrumentality to entitlement
• From control to empowerment
• From the inevitability to the interruptability of
  outcomes
• From bureaucracy to democracy
• From commonality to diversity
• From interconnected services to open,
  comprehensive child and family services
• From competition to collaboration
• From intervention to facilitation

34
What are some trends affecting higher education
as we know it?
35
Currents of Change Affecting Higher Education

• Trends of change affecting higher education as we
  know it
• The communications Revolution
• Shifts in the Intellectual Division of Labor
• Shifts in the funding streams
• Demographic Shifts and Accessibility

36
Conclusion

• School reform and the aims of educational reform
• The tradition of change in American education
• Strategies of planed change
• Organizational Development
• Deming and Total Quality Management (TQM)
• Organizational Health and Self-renewal
• Basic shifts in beliefs, politics, and practices
  that are necessary to move ahead with authentic
  reform
• Currents of Change Affecting Higher Education

37
References

• Astuto, T., Clark, D., Read, A., McGree, K.,
  Fernandez, L. (1994). Roots of Reform
  Challenging the Assumptions that Control Change
  in Education. Bloomington, IN Phi Delta Kappa
  Educational Foundation.
•  
• Jurow, S. (1999). Change The Importance of the
  Process. Educom Review. 34.
•  
• Owens, R. (1998). Organizational behavior in
  education. Boston Alyn Bacon. Sixth Edition.
•  
• Ward, D. (2000). Catching the Waves of Change in
  American Higher Education. Educause Review.
  Jan/Feb, 23-30.

38
THANK YOU!
39
(No Transcript)