MARY KLINGER'S PERSONAL WEB SITE

My anticipated sabbatical activities included completing an extensive literature search and readings in the area of organizational culture and learning as they relate to various aspects of higher education institutions. Another activity anticipated during my sabbatical included the development of a personal faculty web site that would be attached to the Empire State College web site.

Organizational Culture and Learning in Higher Education

I decided that my reading should begin with a review of the business realm of organizational behavior, culture, and learning, as well as with a review of the latest research in these areas. Since the field of organizational behavior is still in its infancy (compared to other fields) there is still much discussion as to its place in the field of business as well as the social sciences. There is still divergence as to the conceptualization and applications of organizational culture research and many definitions abound in the literature. Most definitions, however, identify the importance of shared traditions and values that somehow steer the behavior of people in organizations.

As I began to look at higher education I found much of the literature concerning organizational culture and learning ties directly or indirectly to the term “learning organization.” Peter Senge, who popularized the term in The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (1990), discusses five disciplines of the learning organization: personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning, and systems thinking. Senge has stated, however, that because of overuse the term is now no more than a buzzword, although the concept is still enormously important. Taken with the adult education angle, Marsick (2000) uses critical reflection, collaboration, and communication to describe the elements of organizational learning that foster a learning organization. Interestingly though, there is little consensus on a definition for either organizational learning or learning organization and very little empirical research on learning organizations. I found that there are no universally applied steps to move toward a learning organization. It seems that each organization must deal with its own uniqueness.

In the higher education literature on organizational culture, organizational learning, and learning organizations I was surprised to discover that much of the material is not directed at United States four-year traditional institutions. Most of the literature is connected to traditional educational institutions in the United Kingdom and Australia, as well as to community colleges in the United States. I was struck that in much of this literature the suggestions of researchers to enhance organizational learning and steps to become a learning organization leaned toward an organizational culture change that sounded very familiar to me. Suggestions ranged from more interdisciplinarity among departments, to enhanced organizational communication and active governance, teaching students to learn how to learn rather than teaching facts, and restructuring institutions to make them more learning focused.

Since much of what I was reading reminded me of Empire State College, I realized at this point that I needed to move my attention to another category of higher education institutions, namely non-traditional higher education. I found a wonderful book called Utopian Colleges (1999) by Constance Cappel. She researched a number of non-traditional colleges and universities in the United States and abroad: Antioch, Sarah Lawrence, Goddard, The Union Institute, and World College West. She explains in her book that the “utopian” institutions, although different, share several characteristics.

[In these utopian colleges] the students, faculty, and administrators strive to be open-minded, while the colleges have a history of being non-sexist and non-racist. The idea of community is fostered and the organizational structure emphasizes equality and sharing in a non-hierarchical model. The entire institutional body tends to be more idealistic than in traditional schools. Personal growth is encouraged in an interdisciplinary educational setting not based on competition but on individual accomplishments (p. 2).

Many of these characteristics are similar to concepts of a learning organization.

I met with Dr. Cappel and a number of other academics at The Union Institute and University and Vermont College to gain more insight into the culture and learning beliefs at other non-traditional institutions. One of the interesting themes that I found concerning non-traditional higher education organizations is stated concisely in Kline and Saunders’ Ten Steps to a Learning Organization (1998).

The price we [organizations] pay for excellence is often to establish a set of templates which are so solidly established that we cannot effectively interact with anything which falls outside their sphere. That’s why the great revolutionaries of one age become the reactionaries of the next. Having created new ways of seeing things, they cling to them and are unwilling to admit new possibilities that go beyond what they have created (p. 31).

I found this as a recurring theme in studying the organizational culture and learning of higher education institutions, especially non-traditional organizations. It appears from my initial research that non-traditional institutions do tend to cling to established models (models once considered radical in the academy) and continue to adhere to those models and perceive them as “the only way to do things” even when the reality of a given situation clashes with the shared vision of the institution.

Questions that I developed as I worked were answered in part by my study of organizational learning and learning organizations. Non-traditional organizations of higher learning are experiencing an evolving culture change that is not necessarily of their making. For example, how is the culture of non-traditional institutions changing in response to the problems of external mandates and internal integration? Are we being proactive and creative in the ways we respond? Are we communicating with each other? I believe that the more we look at the theories and practices of learning organizations, we will be able to be more proactive and respond creatively to these kinds of recurring questions. I think that this is also true for traditional higher education institutions that are dealing with different but equally difficult impositions on their organizations.

Near the end of my sabbatical as I thought through my activities, I had the beginnings of one of those mini – “Aha” moments. As I contemplated the elements of one of the learning organization models that I had studied, the Luthans model, I realized that we at Empire State College use the learning organization concept, but not necessarily related directly to the institution as a whole. Luthans et al in Organizational Behavior (2002) created a broad theoretical framework of a learning organization for business, based on Argyris’ work in double-loop learning and Senge’s generative learning, as well as through a comprehensive review of the available literature on learning organizations. Their work describes three essentials for a learning organization. The first is the presence of tension (Senge calls this “creative tension”) or the stimulus to learn, in effect the gap between a vision and reality. This gap causes questioning, inquiry, challenges to the status quo, and critical reflection. The second essential is systems thinking, where there is a shared vision of the people in the organization and an openness to new ideas and the environment beyond the institution. The last essential element is a culture that facilitates learning, where suggestions are accepted and there is teamwork, empowerment, and empathy. According to Luthans, these three elements, when working together, allow a learning organization to develop. The “Aha” moment came when I realized that this framework looked a great deal like a framework that could be used to describe the mentoring model used at Empire State College. Faculty use it everyday in our mentoring practices – shall we say a learning organization of two (or a few). In the coming months, as time allows, I would like to pursue this idea and see if thinking about this model as a model for mentoring can move the college closer to understanding and developing a more effective learning organization. These concepts presented by Luthans are reproduced on my website for discussion.