How Change Unravels: The Failure of Ideal-centered Organizational Change at Regional Comprehensive Universities

Cecilia M. Orphan and J. Matthew Hartley

The Journal of Higher Education, 2021, vol. 92, issue 3, 385-409

Abstract: This multiple-case study examined the factors promoting or impeding ideal-centered change efforts focused on reclaiming the founding civic commitments of three Regional Comprehensive Universities. Findings showed that successful change agents engaged detractors in defining the ideal and shaping the change while assessing change efforts and recalibrating their approach as needed. Successful change agents also initiated ongoing cultural engagement with the ideal early on and ensured that it was present throughout the change process. These findings contrast prior research portraying cultural change as the final stage of organizational change, not as an ongoing process. This study is significant because it exposes how postsecondary institutions might enact ideal-centered change focused on reclaiming founding civic commitments despite neoliberal pressures that conflict with these ideals.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00221546.2020.1809269 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:uhejxx:v:92:y:2021:i:3:p:385-409

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/uhej20

DOI: 10.1080/00221546.2020.1809269

Access Statistics for this article

The Journal of Higher Education is currently edited by Mitchell Chang

More articles in The Journal of Higher Education from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().