Organizational Structures in Higher Education
Introduction
Schuh, Jones, and Harper (2011) provide Bolman and Deal’s four-frame model within higher education. The frames are structural, human resource, political, and symbolic. Schuh et al. (2011) also provide four of Birnbaum’s organizational archetypes within higher education. The archetypes are bureaucratic, collegial, political, and anarchical. This paper will summarize the four organizational frames, compare and contrast organizational archetypes, and explain how they affect student affairs.
The Four Frames
In the structural frame, the institution is viewed as a factory with several moving parts. The leadership team often strives to align colleagues to a central organizational theme or specific mode of operation. In the human resource frame, the institution is viewed as an extended home, where family resides. The leadership team focuses on colleague development and empowerment.
The political frame can be described with three words: wild, complex, and competitive. Leaders at a higher education institution with a political frame strive to assist colleagues express their views, concerns, and interests. Lastly, the symbolic frame likens an institution to a place of worship or a center for artistic expression. Leaders are
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On the other hand, the political and anarchical models focus on dissimilar goals. In terms of leadership, operations, decision-making, and change, the bureaucratic and anarchical archetypes appear to be at odds. While the bureaucratic model is completely managed by one person or one set of policies, the anarchical model relies on the group as a whole to make decisions surrounding change and operations. Collegial and political archetypes are a little more similar. Both seem to have a leadership structure, but decisions are made with input from non-leadership as
In the world of higher education, we as students who have chosen this profession strive to one day possibly becoming a President of an institution. In the article written by Michael D. Cohen and James G. March, “Leadership in an Organized Anarchy” the authors detail their beliefs that most college presidents face four fundamental ambiguities which strike at the heart of a president’s interpretation of leadership. The four ambiguities are ambiguity of purpose, power, experience, and success. But is Cohen’s and March’s concept true for every president and their institution? To determine this I have decided to compare them to the current leadership of 16th president of the University of North Texas (UNT), Dr. Neal Smatresk.
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Top-level managers in bureaucratic organizational structures exercise a great deal of control over organizational strategy decisions, which is ideal for business owners with a command and control style. As for the disadvantages, bureaucratic structures can discourage creativity and innovation throughout the organization. No matter how ingenious a business owner is, it is virtually impossible for a single individual to generate the range of strategic ideas possible in a large, interdisciplinary
The human resources framework is one of the four framework approaches identified by Bolman & Deal; this frame regards people’s skills, attitudes, energy, and commitment. The human resource frame defends the ideas that organizations can be stimulating, rewarding, and productive (Bolman, & Deal, 1991). The human resources framework focuses on leadership styles of support, advocate and empowerment, and provides efficient and transformative change for your organization by addressing human issues, leading to greater accomplishment of goals and better individual, team, and organizational performance. The leaders increase participation, support, share information, and transfer decision making down to employees in the
The Complex Structure of Higher Education. The university is a complex organization. Baldridge, Curtis, Ecker and Riley (1982) found that colleges and universities have characteristics that distinguish them from private enterprises as well as other government organizations. They describe the higher education environment as one where resources allow individuals within the organization room to grow in different directions without the tight restraints seen in other types of environments. They go on to describe the role of the president and other university leaders as catalysts or facilitators rather than the “my way or the highway” mentality of some private CEOs. Baldridge et al. describe this environment as “organized anarchy” where this facilitation role, also described as collegial decision making, leads to an environment where decisions “happen” rather than are “made.” Politically, this environment tends to be mostly inactive with very fluid, fragmented participation. The president assumes the role as “first among equals”, a mediator between power blocs on campus. This is very different in all but a few private corporations.
Bolman and Deal (2008) noted there are five structural configurations, Mintzberg derived five structural configurations: simple structure, machine bureaucracy, professional bureaucracy, divisionalized form, and adhocracy. “Each structural configuration creates its own unique set of management ch...
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According to Armstrong and Hamilton, there are three types of college pathways: the party pathway built for the most socially and upper class oriented students; the mobility pathway designed for the least privilege and more vocationally oriented and the professional pathway built for the most competitive and ambitious students. Armstrong and Hamilton claims that each college pathway requires a lot of the university resources, like time and energy, to be built and conserve. Moreover, there is also the constant challenge from the university to balance the deve...
In every institution the type of leadership style is important for a successful environment. In order to establish a successful school environment to compete globally, the leader should comprehend the basic leadership theories and styles (Glickman et al., 2010). The cultures at schools are important to the success of the students and overall of the school, but also can be very difficult to establish and maintain without the proper leadership knowledge (Waite, 1995). In United States many schools could be place in the categories of conventional, congenial, or collegial, because the strategies used for their leadership (Glickman et al., 2010).The chosen school could be classified according to different criteria and could be determine in which area their leadership pertains more. In order to analyzed and classify the leadership, it was imperative to observed the way the leader make decisions, the approached with the stakeholders, how the instruction is delivered, and how they realized their job (Marshall, 2005). In this analysis will be identify the category that this school will be, the school climate, the type of supervision and leadership.
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When reading Bolman and Deal, it helped put a lot of situations that occurred with my previous employer into perspective. It was easy to see how decisions were made in reference to the structural frame and the political frame. Overall, the human resources frame was most useful in identifying deficits of my previous employer, particularly toward the end. However, there is a particular situation that is best explained using the Human Resource Frame.
In any organization, effective management is difficult to achieve and maintain. Analyzing organizations from multiple perspectives allows people to better understand the system and potential issues involved and to identify solutions. Bolman and Deal utilize a four-frame approach focusing on the structural frame, human resource frame, political frame, and symbolic frame.1
With anarchism there is a belief that once all government is abolished by the people that everyone will come together in a community of mutual aid and understanding without laws or authority to direct. Their philosophy can be considered opposite of most other ideologies, especially that of contemporary liberalism. Contemporary liberalism strives to hold on to the classic liberal's ideals pertaining to political, economic, and social liberties but it tends to look at democratic government as a tool rather than a hindrance. John Stuart Mill, John Dewey, and Franklin D. Roosevelt are established ideologues of contemporary liberalism. Just opposite of anarchism, modern liberalism puts its' faith in government to change and adapt to the failures of capitalism.
The structural frame can help provide Bethel University with leadership strategies that are unique to the current situation of the organization. (6) The structural frame can help Bethel University leadership personnel gain a better perspective of what is currently taking place within the company and assist with creating problem-solving