MANAGEMENT FADS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

1. MANAGEMENT FADS IN HIGHER EDUCATION Where They Come From, What They Do, Why They Fail By Robert Birnbaum

2. Opening Statement • “Institutions of higher education are always under pressure to become more efficient and effective. In response, many have attempted (either voluntary or under mandate) to adopt new management systems and processes originally designed to meet the needs of business or government presumed to be more efficient.

3. The Gut Wrenching Truth About Fads • In higher education, fads have been described as management innovations borrowed from other settings, applied without full consideration of their limitations, presented either as complex or deceptively simple, relying on jargon, and emphasizing rational decision making. • They usually follow the cycle of early enthusiasm, widespread dissemination, subsequent disappointment, and eventual decline.

4. Have mechanisms to ensure that institutions were operating legally, efficiently, and effectively Would satisfy the interests of managers, those to whom the managers were responsible, and those who were subject to the system itself, 29 The Perfect Institutional Management System Would..

5. Reason Why There is No Perfect System • According to Birnbaum, no system can meet all of these criteria because of the demands of legality, efficiency, and effectiveness my be mutually inconsistent. • The interests of the various groups participating in institutional management are often in conflict. • Different systems serve different purposes and deciding on a specific one is both a political and technical judgement.

6. Seven Historical Major Management Systems • Planning Programming Budgeting System(1960-1974) • Zero-Base Budgeting(1970-1985) • Management By Objectives(1965-1980) • Strategic Planning(1972-1974) • Benchmarking(1979-) • Total Quality Management/Continuous Quality Improvement(1985-1996) • Business Process Reengineering(1990-1996)

7. Whatever Happened To….? • “PPBS was expensive, programs were unclear, and assessing alternatives too easily turned into management game playing.” • “MBO failed due to defects in design and implementation rather than flaws in the basic idea itself.” • “ZZB often failed for lack of support from the top, trying to do too much in tool little time, and the lack of a clear decision-making structure.”

8. Continued…………… • “Strategy was particularly problematic in colleges and universities because most of them were too complex to explicate the implicit…the most important strategic variables for most organizations-price,location,and program-were not under institutional control in much of higher education.” • “Top four reasons as to why benchmarking failed was poor planning, no top management support, no process-owner involved, and “insufficient benchmarking skills”.

9. Continued…….. • “When bringing TQM to campus, one brings a language developed in the realm of commodity production into the community of specialized academia discourse..it is not useful to compare the acquisition of knowledge in a college classroom with purchasing chicken nuggets at a fast-food restaurant… • “BPR was more unsuited for higher education than for the business corporations it was originally prescribed for. Its focus was on redesigning a fundamental business process, not on departments or other organization units. But the work that universities did was their departments.”

10. Five Stage Progression of Management Fads • First Stage-Identification of a crisis that overthrows existing operating assumptions • Second Stage-Premature reports of success become widespread and organizations feel pressure to adopt • Third Stage-Time between widespread distribution of the fad and widespread knowledge of user reaction and independent analysis • Fourth Stage-Momentum swings to counter-narratives and claims of the fad’s effectiveness begin to be undermined • Fifth Stage-Death of the fad. Widespread rationalization of the fad’s failure is what signals its demise.

11. 6 Reasons Managers Adopt Fads • Role Bias • Cognitive Bias • Placebo Bias • Normative Bias • Self-efficacy Bias • Commitment Bias

12. Fads: Pros • Academic Managers are pressured to recognize importance of decision making • Create opportunities for institutions to evolve by adopting new practices that better fit the environment, reinforce managers’ commitment to engage and actively shape their environment, and trigger intra-institutional interaction.

13. Fads: Cons • Overemphasis within and outside the academy on numbers that may reshape priorities towards the quantifiable or pressure institutions to alter their performance to get prettier numbers • Fads may undermine the narrative on which higher education was built. Modeling institutions after businesses subjects it to the market and “reorders governance to mirror that of the private sector”.

14. Using Fads Constructively • Consider With Skeptical Interest • Invest In Knowledge • Avoid the Bandwagon • Anticipate Resistance • Start Small • Do Not Overpromise • Culturally Customize • Adopt Experimentally • Do Not Relax Commitment or Support • Build in Assessment

15. In Conclusion.. • “Good academic management is not the same as good business management, and uncritical acceptance of management innovations and fads invented to meet the needs of government, business, or the military is more likely to harm than benefit colleges and universities.” • Hmmm “I wonder what he thinks of private, for profit universities?”