“The Learning of Learned ‘Learning Organizations’?”: How Southern African Universities Use a Professional Competency Framework for Research Management and Administration: Selective Cases

Charmaine Williamson, Karin Dyason (), Caryn McNamara and Garry Aslanyan
Additional contact information
Charmaine Williamson: University of South Africa
Karin Dyason: Southern African Research and Innovation Management Association
Caryn McNamara: University of the Witwatersrand
Garry Aslanyan: World Health Organization

Systemic Practice and Action Research, 2024, vol. 37, issue 2, No 7, 229-249

Abstract: Abstract How universities, respected for their position at the apex of learning, employ competency frameworks in order to increase learning impacts is acknowledged by the authors as a researchable problem. The respective natures of universities and professional work, the latter, which is often intensely integral to universities, means that universities have to take on board managerial as well philosophical means of learning. This article explores how staff at six universities employ a Professional Competency Framework for Research Management and Administration (PCF-RMA) to bring about organizational learning. Participants provide qualitative data which are condensed into six narrated cases to show how a PCF-RMA, created through action research, enters into the university systems and translates into individual and organizational systems thinking towards applied outcomes. Using the theoretical lenses of Senge’s five disciplines and core competencies for competitive advantage, we argue that systems thinking is not essentially about the system as an abstracted entity, but about sensitized individuals who actively ‘think through’ using the PCF-RMA to improve their own work and career prospects, while also improving the work of the research support offices for university research purposes. In short, systems and funding impacts. As such, the PCF-RMA, while initially carried through individuals, has a systems opportunity to change not only individuals but also set up a trajectory for generative holistic changes as articulated within organizational learning theories. The study recommends future research to employ a diverse and broadened scope in the domains of theory, context, and methodology. Aside from prompting ongoing research, this study offers an opportunity to demonstrate increased research impact, an area which stakeholders of research, including the funders, increasingly emphasize.

Keywords: Professional competency framework; Research management and administration; Universities; Systems thinking; Learning organization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11213-023-09660-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:syspar:v:37:y:2024:i:2:d:10.1007_s11213-023-09660-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/11213

DOI: 10.1007/s11213-023-09660-0

Access Statistics for this article

Systemic Practice and Action Research is currently edited by Robert Flood

More articles in Systemic Practice and Action Research from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().