The Social Psychology of Organizations.

Social Psychology of Organizations

Systems Analysis and Project Management

This paper seeks to facilitate research on the processes of innovation and change in higher education, an area of scholarly endeavor which is attracting much interest of late. To meet this goal, a conceptual distinction is first drawn between the broad process of organizational change and the more specific processes of purposive change and innovation. Then, a typology of four research frameworks relevant to innovation and change is presented and illustrated through exemplary studies in the field of higher education. Using techniques of causal modeling, a prototypic flowgraph is constructed to capture the major features of each framework. Flowgraphs are cast in terms of posited relationships between generic variables which can be operationalized to suit the particular needs and setting of a given study. The authors further suggest that the most productive research on change and innovation in higher education will be based on sound theoretical reasoning employing combinations of the four frameworks. They ar...

An Analysis of Frameworks for Research on Innovation and Change in Higher Education

The purpose of this study was to develop a conceptual framework for a comprehensive organizational development (OD) program to improve administrative and organizational functioning of academic departments and divisions at community and junior colleges. The basic approach employed in designing the OD program was to synthesize data obtained by surveying educators at community and junior colleges with data obtained through a review of the literature concerning OD. A questionnaire, Organizational Development Survey Instrument for Academic Departments/Divisions (ODSIADD), was administered to the membership of the National Council for Staff, Program, and Organizational Development (NCSPOD), an Affiliate Council of the American Association of Community and Junior Colleges. Two hundred ninety-one of 681 survey instruments were returned, representing a response rate of 42.7 percent. Respondents indicated a preference for an OD program for academic departments and divisions which would: (a) enhance the utilization of human resources; (b) reflect a normative value system encouraging humanistic treatment of individuals; (c) be action research oriented; (d) involve upper-level administrative units in conjunction with academic departments/ divisions; (e) be continuous and ongoing; (f) use the services of an internal change agent (consultant); (g) select external change agents, if employed, from outside the college, rather than merely external to the academic department or division.

An organizational development program for academic departments and divisions at community and junior colleges

Accounts of organization development interventions typically deal with business or industrial organizations, stress the significance of an external consultant, and use group-centered educational or attitudinal change methods. This study departs from tradition in all three instances. The client system in this study was a professional school within a major western university. The primary change agent was an interim director of the school; thus, he held line authority over the business of the school as well as the nature of the change process. The intervention technique was almost entirely the manipulation of the school's structural properties. The conceptual framework for the change process stressed two primary elements: (1) the appropriateness of the Lewinian model of social-system change, and (2) the necessity to recognize the "systemness" of the inter vention process. The study reviews literature in the field that is important in understanding the nature of this intervention, presents the background of t...

John F. Mckenna

Papers

A Structural Approach to Organization Development in a University Professional School