Parchoma, G. (2006) A Proposed e-Learning Policy Field for the Academy. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 18 (3) pp.230-240.
Field theory states that there are three stages to organisational change:
Critiques of field theory highlight the following weaknesses in its use as a model for understanding organisational change:
As increasing numbers of countries move towards knowledge-based economies, the importance of human capital - shareable knowledge, leadership capacity and creativity of a human involved in creative activity - will continue to grow. In the foreseeable future, workers who create and use knowledge to add new value to products and services will be "a prominent and perhaps the dominant group in the workforce" (Alcaly, 2003, p.9). The growing demand for higher education will therefore place significant physical demands on tertiary institutions in terms of rising enrolments and increasing numbers of adult learners, and the competing responsibilities in the lives of adult learners will lead to increased demand for distance learning options.
A disruptive technology is defined as any technology capable of "overturning the established order" (Norton, 2000, p.129). The "irony" of disruptive technologies is that "in the face of a disruptive technology, good management can contribute to organisational failure" (p.130). The reason for failure is that disruptive technologies:
package over time while still charging a lower price. At some point the over-served established market will start to turn to the minimalist newcomer, and all bets are off for the leaders” (Christensen, p. xvii).
Many new players, institutions that specialise in e-Learning (e.g. Phoenix and Athabasca) have focused their attention on the least profitable "customers" in the educational sector: undergraduates. They are the least profitable because they do not contribute to the "most lucrative part of the market addressed by the traditional universities" (Archer, Garrison & Anderson, 1999, p.18). As research is the currency of traditional universities, the predominant source of tenure and promotion for faculty, and as undergraduate students rarely contribute to this currency, emphasis on undergraduate teaching may be less valued. Those who cannot access a conventional university program for geographic, economic or academic reasons are a particularly unprofitable group, but their educational aspirations have created an opportunity for the emergence of distance education as a disruptive technology. As long as distance education almost exculsively served this unprofitable market segment, within traditinoal universities it was marginalised in continuing education and of little interest to the academy at large.
However, a driving force behind the increased emphasis on the development of an entrepreneurial culture with the academy has been accelerated competition among universities. While traditional universities have focused on securing funds for recruiting renowned professors and the most talented students, newcomers in the arena of higher education have focused their efforts on providing access to higher education via e-Learning.
Five powerful forces warrant consideration in change management strategies because the currently exert influence on a "variety of social, economic, governmental and legislative activities around the world" (Lincoln, 2001, para 1).
Postmodernism: influences the way complex problems, such as whether or how to embed an e-Learning initiative into the core activity of the academy, are articulated, analyzed and resolved. This enables a deeper sense of the issues to be obtained. A deeper sense of the issues involved in e-Learning initiatives in traditional universities involves an analysis of potential impacts on existing academic culture, as well as their alignment with and attunement to emergent social, cultural, economic, educational and organisational trends.
The Interpretive Turn: is an acknowledgement that "facts are only 'facts' within some theoretical framework, and that much of what passes for science is, in fact, some assertion within a theoretical discourse system" (Lincoln, 2001, para 1). Within theoretical discourse systems, social constructivism posits that two kinds of realities exist side by side, and operate within the same domain:
Identity Politics: issues of identity and ethnicity are deeply connected to issues involving information technologies because both are “social construct[s] that might evolve in one context and change in another” (Zurawski, para. 2). Therefore, it is important to “understand the relationship between cultural identity and information technologies and how the dynamic of the information age affects the collective identities of groups and their modes of self-organization” (Zurawski, para. 3).
Globalisation and the Post-Colonial Critique: While e-learning policy makers need to be cognizant of the potential effects of exporting “Western forms of thinking,” which may “impinge” (Lincoln, Globalization, para. 2) upon learners’ lives in international contexts, it is possible to include opportunities for critique of Western ways of thinking and respect for international contexts, and as a
result, promote East-West, North-South dialogue. However, Variant levels of faculty expertise in cross-cultural issues and awareness of post-colonial critiques regarding “negative impacts on indigenous universities” (Hanna, 2000, p. 343) may be restraining forces in the success of e-learning.
The relative strengths of driving and restraining forces remain context-specific and time-sensitive.
Furthermore, existing and emergent forces, which are not identified in this field analysis, may be
particularly formidable in some contexts. Analysis of the context of an individual institution may benefit from the application or adaptation of the posited policy field, but the outcomes of such an analysis at any given time are not predictable.
Field theory states that there are three stages to organisational change:
- Unfreezing: destabilising the status quo
- Moving: identifying and evaluating the relative strengths of foces within a social field, considering available options and initiating incremental change
- Refreezing: process of returning to a sense of stability in the changed environment
Critiques of field theory highlight the following weaknesses in its use as a model for understanding organisational change:
- It takes a linear, simplistic and mechanistic approach
- It can only support small-scale, incremental change and is therefore not appropriate for large-scale transformational change is needed
- It naively excludes issues of power and politics within organisations
- It constitutes a top-down approach to change management, thus lacking relevance to the culture of contemporary organisations
The Knowledge Economy
As increasing numbers of countries move towards knowledge-based economies, the importance of human capital - shareable knowledge, leadership capacity and creativity of a human involved in creative activity - will continue to grow. In the foreseeable future, workers who create and use knowledge to add new value to products and services will be "a prominent and perhaps the dominant group in the workforce" (Alcaly, 2003, p.9). The growing demand for higher education will therefore place significant physical demands on tertiary institutions in terms of rising enrolments and increasing numbers of adult learners, and the competing responsibilities in the lives of adult learners will lead to increased demand for distance learning options.
Disruptive technologies and organisational failure
A disruptive technology is defined as any technology capable of "overturning the established order" (Norton, 2000, p.129). The "irony" of disruptive technologies is that "in the face of a disruptive technology, good management can contribute to organisational failure" (p.130). The reason for failure is that disruptive technologies:
- do not serve the needs of existing organisatianl structures
- do not support existing business incentives
- do not provide avenues to "increase profit margins on existing products", and
- do not meet the needs of an organisation's most valued customers (p.130).
package over time while still charging a lower price. At some point the over-served established market will start to turn to the minimalist newcomer, and all bets are off for the leaders” (Christensen, p. xvii).
A parallel in Higher Education
To date, Faculty responses to e-Learning competition from the private sector tend to lack a sense of urgency "due to [faculty] belief in the quality and rigor of their own programs" (Olcott & Scmidt, p.269). However, leaders of traditional universities may wish to consider the extent to which e-Learning is driving a "transformational market" within Higher Education (Olcott & Schidt, p.269). The educational sector cannot hope to escape the influence of the new economy, including its disruptive technologies; therefore, universities may need to consider how to adapt to this influence.
Many new players, institutions that specialise in e-Learning (e.g. Phoenix and Athabasca) have focused their attention on the least profitable "customers" in the educational sector: undergraduates. They are the least profitable because they do not contribute to the "most lucrative part of the market addressed by the traditional universities" (Archer, Garrison & Anderson, 1999, p.18). As research is the currency of traditional universities, the predominant source of tenure and promotion for faculty, and as undergraduate students rarely contribute to this currency, emphasis on undergraduate teaching may be less valued. Those who cannot access a conventional university program for geographic, economic or academic reasons are a particularly unprofitable group, but their educational aspirations have created an opportunity for the emergence of distance education as a disruptive technology. As long as distance education almost exculsively served this unprofitable market segment, within traditinoal universities it was marginalised in continuing education and of little interest to the academy at large.
However, a driving force behind the increased emphasis on the development of an entrepreneurial culture with the academy has been accelerated competition among universities. While traditional universities have focused on securing funds for recruiting renowned professors and the most talented students, newcomers in the arena of higher education have focused their efforts on providing access to higher education via e-Learning.
External social forces
Five powerful forces warrant consideration in change management strategies because the currently exert influence on a "variety of social, economic, governmental and legislative activities around the world" (Lincoln, 2001, para 1).
Postmodernism: influences the way complex problems, such as whether or how to embed an e-Learning initiative into the core activity of the academy, are articulated, analyzed and resolved. This enables a deeper sense of the issues to be obtained. A deeper sense of the issues involved in e-Learning initiatives in traditional universities involves an analysis of potential impacts on existing academic culture, as well as their alignment with and attunement to emergent social, cultural, economic, educational and organisational trends.
The Interpretive Turn: is an acknowledgement that "facts are only 'facts' within some theoretical framework, and that much of what passes for science is, in fact, some assertion within a theoretical discourse system" (Lincoln, 2001, para 1). Within theoretical discourse systems, social constructivism posits that two kinds of realities exist side by side, and operate within the same domain:
- the first reality resides in tangible objects, sites, and events, and is peopled by individuals and groups with specific social interests
- the second reality is constituted in the minds of...stakeholders, and is driven by the sense-making and meaning-imputation activities of the human minds (The interpretive turn, para 1)
Identity Politics: issues of identity and ethnicity are deeply connected to issues involving information technologies because both are “social construct[s] that might evolve in one context and change in another” (Zurawski, para. 2). Therefore, it is important to “understand the relationship between cultural identity and information technologies and how the dynamic of the information age affects the collective identities of groups and their modes of self-organization” (Zurawski, para. 3).
Globalisation and the Post-Colonial Critique: While e-learning policy makers need to be cognizant of the potential effects of exporting “Western forms of thinking,” which may “impinge” (Lincoln, Globalization, para. 2) upon learners’ lives in international contexts, it is possible to include opportunities for critique of Western ways of thinking and respect for international contexts, and as a
result, promote East-West, North-South dialogue. However, Variant levels of faculty expertise in cross-cultural issues and awareness of post-colonial critiques regarding “negative impacts on indigenous universities” (Hanna, 2000, p. 343) may be restraining forces in the success of e-learning.
Potentially restraining forces within the Academy
- The need to reconsider existing residency requirements (DiPaolo, 2003; Olcott & Schidt, 2004)
- Imbalanced research and teaching reward systems (Archer, Garrison & Anderson, 1999; Boyer, 1990)
- Problematic intellectual property policies (DiPaolo, 2003; Hilton & Neal, 2001; Tallman, 2000)
- Insufficient application of research-based distributed learning strategies (bates, 2000)
A Proposed e-Learning Policy Field
Conclusion
The relative strengths of driving and restraining forces remain context-specific and time-sensitive.
Furthermore, existing and emergent forces, which are not identified in this field analysis, may be
particularly formidable in some contexts. Analysis of the context of an individual institution may benefit from the application or adaptation of the posited policy field, but the outcomes of such an analysis at any given time are not predictable.
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