Strategic avoidance: can universities learn from other sectors (original) (raw)
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Effective strategic planning in Australian universities: how good are we and how do we know?1
Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 2018
Strategic planning was introduced to Australian universities as part of the Commonwealth Government higher education reforms of 1988. The 'Dawkins Reforms' implemented extensive structural reform, changed executive leadership roles and responsibilities, commenced the 'managerialisation' of the Australian university sector, introduced the Higher Education Contribution Scheme and facilitated the transformation of Australian universities from collegial academies to modern, 'enterprise' universities. There is an abundance of published marketing material celebrating 'effective' strategic planning outcomes in the myriad of strategic plans published by Australian universities. Yet, a recent study indicates that strategic planning remains a contested internal leadership function in Australian universities almost 30 years after traditional academic planning was replaced with commercially-focused strategic planning. This paper will review the effectiveness of strategic planning practices in Australian universities guided by the rhetorical question: 'how good are we and how do we know?'
Strategic management theory and universities: An overview of the Special Issue
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There are few theoretical frameworks to address organizational challenges and strategies of research universities. We conjecture that strategic management theory provides an opportunity to examine those challenges, such as increased competition, tight budgetary constraints, and rising stakeholder expectations. More specifically, the dynamic capabilities framework has emerged as a useful tool for universities to better manage important issues such as commercializing their innovations, partnering with industry and promoting economic and social development in their regions. Our essay and the papers in this special issue address these issues.
University Strategic Planning and the Foresight/Futures Approach: An Irish Case Study
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An intimate sharing of the environmental scanning, strategic foresight/futures thinking used at Dublin City University . Uncertainties and Complexity There are many forces shaping university futures today. We certainly cannot assume that the next five-year strategic period will be in any way similar to the last. Business as usual is simply not an option despite whatever conservative institutional impulses might wish to pull us in that direction. Managing higher education in an atmosphere of austerity will be the challenge for some time to come. As Shattock (2008) argues, in this scenario it is those institutions that are able to preserve institutional cohesion and to hold on to institutional values that will come out of the recession in better shape. We are now clearly moving into a post-public era of higher education funding. With operating uncertainties increasing both structurally and specifically, there may well be a greater differentiation of mission among universities. All the...
Strategic planning in higher education: who are the customers
… Journal of Educational …, 1994
The authors present an overview of strategic planning, examine its history and mystique, and conclude that planning, if properly implemented, can have a powerful impact on advancing and transforming colleges and universities.
2005
Planning has been shown to be a key ingredient in organisational success. However, the challenges confronting contemporary organisational management are making it increasingly difficult for senior managers to allocate sufficient time and focus to substantive strategic thinking and planning. As well, in higher education settings such as universities, extensive government reforms are compelling academic and general managers to integrate approaches to corporate planning and management with academic planning and management. This creates difficulties and challenges in reframing past ways of doing things, but at the same time affords significant opportunities to those institutions that are able to harvest the benefits of these synergies. This paper explores those elements of strategic planning which are unique to university settings and, in so doing, puts forward a methodology for integrating the needs of faculty and academe with that of enterprise and institution. This exploration reveal...
Strategic Model and Strategic Planning in Higher Education
International Journal of Social and Economic Sciences, 2014
In the era of the 21st century, the best higher education institutions have more than one role. Not only do they educate and train students but they also create new ideas and knowledge for the short-term contemporary issues as well as long-term complex problems. In the strategic goals, five aspects are critical in higher education: the democratization of knowledge and access, the contestability of the market and funding, the research technologies, the global mobility and the integration with the industry. Universities should have strategic plans including strategic goals. In this study, the strategic models and plans of the public (5) and private (5) universities are analysed from the five different aspects. In order to deeply understand the dynamics at these universities, the phenomenological interpretive analysis is preferred. University leaders and managerial departments should consider market needs and do strategic plan accordingly. Hence, they should develop the strategic thinking capacity of both their academic staff and researchers for short and long terms need of the industry. Results have shown that most universities have wrong perception regarding the strategic model and plan. Neither private nor public universities possess enough knowledge on the subject. Keywords: Higher education, university and industry partnership, strategic model and planning, higher education management, financing of higher education.
Strategic management of higher education institutions
Management of Organizations: Systematic Research, 2014
Paper submitted to the Conference on Indicators on Science, Technology and Innovation, Special session on Indicators for strategic management of higher education institutions, Lugano 15 th to 17 th
A Systematic Literature Review: University Strategic Management
Proceedings of the 6th Global Conference on Business, Management, and Entrepreneurship (GCBME 2021)
The purpose of this research is to get an overview of the strategies management implemented by universities to achieve university goals. Higher education is being modernized to effectively coordinate the education system into the worldwide instructive surroundings. Nevertheless, the lion's share of institutions' administration these days shows a poor degree model of proficiency. This research utilized a systematic literature review approach to explore the concept of university strategic management and identified future research in university strategic management. The results showed that universities were particularly important for studying strategic management methods.