Academic Fads - Can Universities Become True Learning Organisations?

Effects of Academic Fads on University Learning Efficiency

At the end of the 20th century an increasing number of universities were placing an emphasis on other areas in addition to academics to separate themselves from smaller colleges. Much of these changes were economically motivated, in order to receive more income from external sources not directly tied to educational organization such as "big-time" college athletics, corporate R&D and adult education. The cultural norm, "big is always better" was also established at many of these universities to have more societal prestige, with campuses that were uniquely designed with impressive landscaping, buildings and library holdings. At the same time, the public's expectations grew for these institutions. Universities needed to be equipped to handle the many societal challenges and broaden their capacity through outreach programs such as internships and co-ops. Many of these universities also further extended their reach into other countries. To further their standing in the community, the universities (and colleges that were shifting to university status) began focusing on outcome measures of success and quality.

In many cases these changes led to an emphasis on strategic planning processes. Similarly, changing federal regulations concerning processes for hiring, firing and employment review, Affirmative Action guidelines, and equal employment mandates drove personnel departments and administration to gain new knowledge and skills in specific areas of management. The typical academic leader from a smaller institution was not prepared to deal with these new regulations. Lastly, these universities started hiring numerous part-time faculty, many of whom were from the corporate environments where a strong vertical structure was the norm. These new faculty members brought in many ideas and systems popular in their own companies, which they discussed in their classes, included in the curriculum and disseminated throughout the campus.

As this new management culture became established in universities, the administrators were required to be effective managers of both people and funding. That meant they needed to employ management theory. Cohen noted: "Just as large business enterprises were emphasizing functional organization and efficiency, the universities were incorporating such practices." This was the beginning of what Birnbaum calls the management fads, or management programs designed to improve effectiveness and efficiency: "Although they may not appear to have a political purpose, academic management fads are solutions that further specific ideologies. Academic management fads have not themselves degraded the narrative...but they are technical vehicles that contribute to the degradation" (p. 227).

The theory of management fashion primarily is based on the work of Abrahamson's theory that described the process by which "fashion setters," or "fashion evangelists," which are typically consultants, management gurus, publishing companies, and business schools, disseminate beliefs that certain managerial techniques are the vanguard of leadership excellence. Abrahamson looked at the lifecycle of the management system Quality Circles, which confirmed researchers' suggestions that the Quality Circle movement was certainly a management fad. Conducting a meta-analysis of Quality Circles articles that appeared over a ten-year period, Abrahamson graphed a trend line. He found that the Quality Circles movement had a bell-shape pattern, which depicted rapid growth that started in 1978 and then that reversed in 1982. By 1986, this approach returned to its pre-popularity level, which represented a management fad.

Blake, Mouton and Williams, managerial theorists from the corporate arena, in the 1980s were one of the first to adapt management theories to the academic setting. Although Blake, Mouton and Williams said that a university must develop its own organizational model, they still used corporate terminology, such as "managing the academic personnel function" (301). Presently their analysis is still prominent at some universities across the country, but the tools of organizational development that they promoted have been forgotten and longer widely used. Since then, there have been many attempts to transfer corporate systems to universities: A number of these systems or "management fads" were met with skepticism or even hostility, but others, according to Birnbaum, were accepted, because they had characteristics that influenced managers. He noted six reasons or biases for why certain management fads are accepted: 1) role bias, because academic managers feel pressure to take charge, regardless of limited resources and understanding, confusing or conflicting strategies, and unchangeable problems. 2) cognitive bias, where management makes decisions based on hunches rather than evidence, makes decisions from positive anecdotal rather than empirical evidence and selectively assesses the effect of an approach on the university; 3) placebo bias when the fad hides symptoms without paying specific attention to the underlying issue; 4) normative bias, which causes managers to generalize from one situation to another, such as copying the behavior of other managers in uncertain situations rather than making logical decisions; 5) self-efficacy bias, when the managers back a fad to reinforce their image as problem solver and importance to the organization; and 6) commitment bias where management is so completely engaged with a system that its judgment is not sound.

Birnbaum suggested that most of these managerial fads from the corporate sector are based on and furthered by a shared cultural belief: "Business and industry are highly efficient and effective; higher education is not. Higher education could improve if it adopted the management techniques of business..." (pp. 227-228). The university management team must therefore be encouraged to take an entrepreneurial and market-driven stance and follow these fads, each with their own separate ideology. Birnbaum defined these management fads as pervasive, obsessive and thankfully short-lived applications often imported from government or the private sector long after they had run their course. The educational institution is supposedly implementing them to help find a better way of doing things, reduce ambiguity, and shift power. He stressed that each of these management systems goes through five stages: In the first stage, a crisis is identified by the fad's supporters that just happens to invalidate an aspect of current operations. These early adopters enthusiastically relate their successes and provide others at the university with evidence on how this new approach can solve the crisis at hand. Other organizations at the institution come aboard. Any criticism is deflected by stressing the consequences if the fad was not implemented. Momentum builds into stage two, where supporters elaborate the first reports; widespread organizational peer pressure grows as the early supporters receive praise. Little to no attention is paid to the possible costs of implementation, and any opponents to the management system are seen as self-interested or narrow-minded.

Birnbaum explained that the third stage occurs in the time between the fad's widespread dissemination and independent analysis by those other than supporters. The fad continues to be positively received, but accounts of counter-anecdotal results begin to mount. The pendulum begins to swing the other way in the fourth stage, as the claims regarding effectiveness are greatly diminished. Negativity begins to increase, but supporters discount these comments to protect their financial and personal investment in the fad. However, in the fifth phase, even these early supporters begin to rationalize and blame the lack of success on such factors as poor leadership, improper implementation and lack of resources in order to save face. It is not the system itself that has a problem, but the way it was implemented or by whom that is the issue.

A great deal of time and resources are wasted during the adoption and implementation of these management programs: Much effort goes into agreeing to utilize the program, implementing it and training employees, and the owners of the copyright and the consultants who work with the university make out well in payment for their assistance. However, according to Birnbaum, the most damaging outcome of fads appears to be their impact on the narrative that provides a foundation for higher education. As he writes: "In the United States, the educational narratives of the past have been stories of personal virtue, civic participation, democracy, and social justice. The narrative gods of the present appear to be economic utility, consumerism, and technology-a weak foundation on which to build a just social order or excite the imagination" (p. 266). The meaning of higher education as a social institution is displaced by higher education as an industry. Fads promote a narrative where higher education lacks the effectiveness and efficiency of business. Faculty members are frequently seen as the villains in this narrative, if they oppose the introduction and implementation of such management techniques to protect their pay, benefits and status. When the universities accept the ideology of these fads, it is subjecting higher education to the same market standards as the private sector. Birnbaum argued: "[T]he simplicity of this narrative is its power, and the story of a small, privileged elite that benefits at the expense of the public is an evocative story that taps into the American psyche. So is the narrative of a fad that pledges to right the wrong and put the university in its place. Interesting stories are more likely than accurate ones to be accepted" (p. 227).

Birnbaum explained this fad phenomenon in 2000, but other researchers have followed suit by looking at other systems that have been accepted by universities and their ultimate success/demise. According to Temple, for example, the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model is a perfect example of the fad noted by Birnbaum, and which is following the same five stages described. When it was first established for business organizations in the late 1980s, the goal of the EFQM was to give companies guidelines for achieving and measuring success. At the beginning of the 21st century, Sheffield Hallam University in the U.K. created a higher education version of the model that included a 22-page guidance model for self-evaluation on 32 specific categories of institutional activity. The results of this evaluation were noted in a mathematical leadership score and that could be benchmarked with other institutions. The originators of this model claimed that it offered a "holistic approach" to the analysis of higher education organizations, addressed "the fundamental concepts of excellence in higher education," and "has been tested and applied within higher education" (as cited in Temple, p.265). The success of implementation depended on "senior management commitment and drive," where leaders needed to become role models and communicate the program's mission, ethics, principles and values, at the same time as listening to and learning from others.

Temple said that most likely this model was never the key to achieving important improvements in higher education. Rather, it is just another passing fad, because it neither engages adequately with the realities of management nor fits the specific contours of higher education. The model fails in its benefits to management in two essential ways: First, it is derived from the unstated assumption that there actually is a conflict-free way to establish organizational priorities and the allocation of resources. The Excellence Model assumes if enough attention is paid to institutional processes, then difficulties that result from dichotomous goals and resource constraints can be overcome. Given the very many different shareholders involved in the university setting from students to board members and the community at large, this goal is impractical.

The second problem is that EFQM assumes that a general systems approach to management, or how every activity interacts with each other, is practical. Putting this into effect, argued Temple, "would be organizational paralysis" (p.268). Although the model's literature claims that is has been developed specifically for the university environment, EFQM does not adequately take into effect the distinctive character of these educational institutions. It clearly makes the assumption that there is something akin to a "market-based contractor-client" relationship between the university and its students. It has its roots in the ISO manufacturing model that the customer is always right: quality is defined "in terms of the exact reproduction of a product or service for which the customer is prepared to pay" (Sallis, as cited in Temple, p. 269). The whole model becomes moot when the idea of buying and selling is replaced by a joint effort between teachers and learners, where students are transformed by sharing personal meanings with others in an academic environment.

As a result of the inadequacy of the EFQM Excellence Model, Temple stated that it will most likely follow the same rise and fall noted by Birnbaum. The claims have already been made, such as this Excellence Model is a necessity for the fast-changing world. It is needed because the government has a strategic and operational agenda for the public sector that requires organizations like the universities to delve more deeply into a performance management culture. According to Steed, Maslow and Mazaletskaya, for example, the Excellence Model is founded the five key enablers of excellence--leadership, people, policy and strategy, partnership and resources, and processes--which result in a level of excellence of organizational performance. These enablers measure and determine whether effective approaches are in place to enable the organization to achieve its plans. "This is the pressure bias, perceived or real, that using this model is a requirement for retaining the confidence of funders. Thus, the program would be implemented and strongly supported by those who wanted to look good by the constituents" (Steed, Maslow & Mazaletskaya, p. 310). However, as noted by Temple and Birnbaum, the real picture about the value of this fad will undoubtedly emerge, and the university players will recognize that it was not working. Rationalization will set in as "other pressures and priorities" prevent its full-scale application.

Although Birnbaum's said that typically the rise and fall of a fad occurred over a 10- to 15-year period, according to Temple, it appears that this changeover is happening more rapidly. Temple concluded that "we must learn to live with management fads in higher education: they will continue to come and go. And they may, in some cases, bring benefits" (p. 273). However, university leadership and other institutional stakeholders have to be aware of the pressures that can result from adopting and implementing such programs and accept them with great caution. "The best protection for higher education against fads, and the damage they can cause, is to have managements with the self-confidence to say to those outside: thank you for your concern, but we know best how to manage our own institutions" (p. 273).

One fact is for sure: There is no shortage of these management programs. As soon as one goes out of favor, another one is becoming popular. Knowledge management (KN), which has been used in business settings since the 1990s, is one of the latest fads now utilized on student campuses.

There are many different definitions for KM, with no general agreement about what constitutes knowledge in the first place. Thus, KM can be considered "the process through which organizations generate value from their intellectual and knowledge-based assets" (Levinson, np). In order to determine the value derived from the assets, it is necessary to analyze and measure what the employees and shareholders know and disseminate that information throughout the organization and even with other companies for the process of sharing best practices. Although the definition does not mention technology, KM is often facilitated by IT, but technology by itself is not KM.

When reporting on the present KM popularity, Wilson pointed out that these are nothing new: Management strategies date back to Taylor's scientific management of the early 1900s. Since then, there have been scores of fads or fashions. He stated that although some of these strategies have been somewhat helpful, others have been disastrous: For example, Stephen Roach, who was the chief economist at Morgan Stanley, strongly supported downsizing, arguing that it could be seen as a cure for any company problems; later he reversed his opinion and argued that, to the contrary, downsizing could be a recipe for industrial disaster. According to Wilson, some techniques fail, or at least are dropped from the list of popular approaches, because they are Utopian in character: Managers are told that the technique must be applied organization-wide for the full benefits to be achieved. This was the case with business process re-engineering, for instance. Organizations quickly realized that the costs of carrying out such a process companywide would be crippling; when applying the technique to only part of the company, the results would be unsatisfactory. Two-thirds of such programs have thus failed. "Knowledge management (whatever it is) also shows signs of being offered as a Utopian ideal and the results are likely to be similar" (np), Wilson forecasted.

Ponzi and Koenig said that starting in 1995 there was an explosion in the literature surrounding the developing concept of KM. Today, it is nearly impossible to attend a conference or read a journal without seeing literature referring to it. Despite its popularity, no one knows for sure whether it will become a significant and permanent component of management, or just another management fad. The authors stated that to a great extent, many now consider KM as an emerging multidisciplinary subject equal to systems engineering or organizational learning. Others, however, argue that KM is just another fad like Total Quality Management or Quality Circles. As a result, Ponzi and Koenig applied the same meta analysis as Abrahamson did to Quality Circles in 1996 in order to determine its present state of acceptance. Quality Circles, popular in 1979, seemed to have momentum and to peak in just five years. The similar pattern occurred for for Total Quality Management, which was kicked off in the late 1980s and peaked in 1993, and Business Process Reengineering, which began in 1991 and peaked 1995. Ponzi and Koenig hypothesized that KM would its lose popularity in about five years.

The authors (Ponzi & Koenig) found that KM made it past the five-year mark and may be on its way of becoming a long-term management practice. The popularity of KM grew rapidly from 1997 through 1999, fell in 2000, but then recouped in 2001. To further explore the growth period of KM and confirm what they had found, Ponzi and Koenig also conducted a bibliometric technique, which indicates the degree to which other disciplines have adopted and integrated the theories. It looks at the same articles as in the meta analysis, but assigns discipline codes.

Discipline 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
Computer Science 35.7% 43.1% 42.0% 38.8% 28.7% 36.2%
Business 21.4% 16.9% 32.4% 25.6% 18.0% 20.7%
Management 42.9% 7.7% 5.3% 12.8% 13.2% 17.2%
Information Science & Library Science 15.4% 10.6% 7.9% 16.9% 14.2%
Engineering 10.8% 4.3% 8.6% 13.6% 7.7%
Psychology 6.2% 5.3% 1.7% 1.8% 1.5%
Multidisciplinary Sciences 2.0% 4.0%
Energy & Fuels 0.7% 3.7% 0.7%
Social Sciences 1.7%
Operations Research & Mgt. Science 1.0%
Planning & Development 1.0%
Total: 14 65 207 407 272 401
Interdisciplinary Breadth: 3 6 6 10 8 8

Table 1: Interdisciplinary activity by column percentage, 1996-2001 (Ponzi & Koenig)

In 1996, interdisciplinary activity for KM appeared in computer science, business, and management. Through the next three years, the number of disciplines widened to ten, due to new technological developments and organizations wishing to increase their competition strength. In 2000, the amount of articles dropped by about 30%. Three disciplines dropped, and six increased. Such downward falls may be directly caused when organizations do not gain as many benefits. For example, in 1999 Bain & Company conducted a survey on management tools and techniques, noting that KM "not only had relatively low utilization but also very low satisfaction scores relative to the average" (as cited inn Ponzi & Koenig). In 2001, the top two disciplines nearly returned to 1996 proportions and the extent of disciplines more than doubled. According to Ponzi and Koenig, therefore, the jury is still on out whether or not KM is a fad. They reported that if KM does actually mature into a permanent new component of managerial attention, it will continue to grow but continually undergo changes, as with the dip in popularity in 2000. To examine whether KM truly has survived and is on its way to developing into a meaningful and long-lasting technique, will take the passage of time along with continued analysis.

Birnbaum asserted that it is difficult to determine the popularity of fads; for example, KM may burn out in another five years by following Birnbaum's 10- to 15-year run versus the shorter one theorized by Temple and Ponzi and Koenig. Nor, as Birnbaum added, is it always possible to assess the positive or negative effects of a fad. He explained that even limited exposure to fads may somewhat change organizational structure for the better. For example, a management fad may place pressure on the university to recognize the value of data in decision making. These fads also encourage institutions to evolve by implementing new practices that are more appropriate to the needs of the environment or make management more aware of the needs for cost effectiveness and innovation. On the other hand, fads may alter priorities at the university for the wrong reasons and reduce the amount of funding awards, limit an institution's capacity to expand enrollment or needlessly layout valuable staff.

When asked if universities can become "learning institutions" that justly place an emphasis on improved performance, Jeffrey at New York University concluded that it needs to be a slow, steady-as-you-go process rather than jumping in and out as with a fad: "It is possible when change leaders address legitimate reservations regarding differing institutional purposes, when they reward and facilitate change, when they sustain their efforts, when they establish formal and informal structures to promote collaboration, and when they implement change at a judicious pace." However, by doing so, universities are expected to resist any threat to their core values. "The best advice for those seeking to transform institutions of higher learning into learning organizations may be to start small and to proceed with caution."

References Cited

Berequist, W.H., & Pawlak, K. The Six Cultures of the Academy. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Birnbaum, R. Management fads in higher education: Where they come from, what they do, why they fail. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Blake, R., Mouton, J.S., & Williams, M.S. Academic administrator grid. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Jeffrey, J. Higher Learning and Learning Organizations. Teague Foundation.

Ponzi, L. J., & Koenig Knowledge Management: another management fad? Information Research, 8(1).

Steed, C.; Maslow, D.; Mazaletskaya, A. The EFQM Excellence Model for Deploying Quality Management: A British-Russian Journey. Higher Education in Europe 30(3-4), 307-319

Temple, P. TFQM Excellence Model: Higher Education's Latest Management Fad? Higher Education Quarterly 58(4), 26-274.

Wilson, T.D. The nonsense of "Knowledge Management" Information Research 8(1).