Human resource capacity has become a critical issue for contemporary universities as a result of increasing pressures from governments and global markets. As a consequence, particularly where the institution is the employer, changes are occurring in the expectations of staff and institutions about employment terms and conditions, as well as the…

In this article, the authors synthesize fifteen years of research about campus racial climates and present nine themes that emerged from a multi-institutional qualitative study they conducted. The primary goal is to illuminate trends that persist on many college and university campuses, especially those that are predominantly White. At the end of…

Context: Rural and frontier states are significantly affected by substance abuse and poverty. The high rate of substance abuse coupled with high levels of dependence on state-funded treatment systems places a burden on rural treatment systems and makes resource allocation a central planning issue. Purpose: The goal of this study was to combine…

This paper describes the most recent phase in a mature e-learning project, in the area of reusable learning objects, that has attempted to bring about technological and cultural change. Following an overview of the project and organisational context, an institutional change model is described that helps managers and stakeholders to identify…

Although private industry has been decentralizing for the past decade, community colleges have been slow to follow. For those colleges that have decentralized, traditional structured planning methodologies do not apply. The focus of strategic planning efforts at decentralized institutions is on the development of strategic themes to which…

This paper presents findings of a study that identified factors that facilitate or inhibit change, examined the effects of the change process on the school/community population, and provided recommendations to school and community personnel who may face change in the future. A three-tier research design included a review of the literature, a…

This book challenges traditional notions of leadership. It was written to help managers and nonmanagers alike improve their abilities to lead others to get extraordinary things done in organizations. Data were derived from administration of the Personal Best Questionnaire to 550 managers, interviews with 42 managers, and administration of the…

The development of modern planning theories and strategies, as applied to higher education, has been both contentious and inconsistent. Planning originated as a management function and responsibility, but by the 1960s, analysts, statisticians, and strategists were providing the rationales for the major planning decisions. The inflexibility of…

This paper describes two case studies that assessed the effects of staff training in schools participating in the accelerated schools model (Levin 1990). The model stresses the importance of total school-community involvement and shared decision making during all stages of the acceleration process. The two schools included a middle school (grades…

Although extensive research has been conducted on organizational change initiatives in recent years, much of this research has tended to focus on issues of the timing of the change, types of change, and/or rationale for change. In order to better understand the systemic dynamics of change, however, efforts should be made to examine the inherent…

A study examined the effects of high-performance innovations on workers and job quality by conducting six case studies of firms that had implemented reforms in both the production and the service end of their operations. All the firms were in the traditionally low-wage retail industry. These case studies were drawn on to examine, first, the nature…

Increasingly, educational leaders have adopted human-resource approaches in school administration. The approach has facilitated the development of transformational leadership. This paper explores in detail the nature of leadership associated with a human-resources approach toward educational administration. The paper describes the theoretical…

Outsourcing in higher education refers to the practice of contracting with private, off-campus firms to provide or manage services which have historically been provided in-house. Budget cutbacks and declining private support have led to increased use of outsourcing for non-mission-critical and non-instructional services, such as information…

Based on studies comparing leadership in two rural community colleges undergoing change and examining the management of change at Maryland's Allegany College, this paper presents a conceptual framework and model for managing organizational change. First, a framework for understanding the community college chair's role in organizational change is…

After a decade of institutional turmoil, including a succession of four chief executive officers, efforts were undertaken at one educational institution to identify the cultural dynamics at play in the organization and reframe its approach to management. A brief survey was distributed to over 125 people on the college's management council asking…