Perspectives of Organizational Change Initiatives and Culture in a University’s Department
type: CreativeWork
description: The current state of contemporary higher education institutions reveals challenges such as changing enrolment patterns (Association of American Colleges and Universities [AACU], 2002; Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada [AUCC], 2007; Levac & Newman, 2009), greater calls for accountability (AACU, 2002; Usher, 2015) and decreased public funding (AACU, 2002; Charbonneau, 2013; Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations [OCUFA], 2016). In addition to the external challenges of the higher education landscape, institutions are confronted with intersecting organizational issues such as the need for increasing productivity, improving communication processes, and motivating workforces (Jackson, 2010). These challenges require action, which often make change a constant in organizational life (Kogetsidis, 2012). Organizational culture encompasses those beliefs, values and meanings of the organization’s members (Kezar, 2014; Shultz, 1995) and, therefore, should be considered whenever trying to understand the change in an organization. However, due to the implicit nature of an organization’s culture, leaders tend to overlook the role of culture in the change process. In addressing the often neglected understandings of organizational change and culture, this qualitative, interpretivist intrinsic case study in one university department in Canada explored staff members’ understanding of organizational change initiatives and cultural shifts through semi-structured interviews. Using the framework of interpretive communities (Yanow, 2000), the intent was to explore staff members’ perspectives of change initiatives and their understandings of culture changes in the department. The findings of this exploration revealed that participants identified the practices of leaders, including behaviour, strategy and purpose, and unity, and departmental arrangements, including staffing, structure, and role as the change initiatives that had been the most significant. T…
abstract: The current state of contemporary higher education institutions reveals challenges such as changing enrolment patterns (Association of American Colleges and Universities [AACU], 2002; Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada [AUCC], 2007; Levac & Newman, 2009), greater calls for accountability (AACU, 2002; Usher, 2015) and decreased public funding (AACU, 2002; Charbonneau, 2013; Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations [OCUFA], 2016). In addition to the external challenges of the higher education landscape, institutions are confronted with intersecting organizational issues such as the need for increasing productivity, improving communication processes, and motivating workforces (Jackson, 2010). These challenges require action, which often make change a constant in organizational life (Kogetsidis, 2012). Organizational culture encompasses those beliefs, values and meanings of the organization’s members (Kezar, 2014; Shultz, 1995) and, therefore, should be considered whenever trying to understand the change in an organization. However, due to the implicit nature of an organization’s culture, leaders tend to overlook the role of culture in the change process. In addressing the often neglected understandings of organizational change and culture, this qualitative, interpretivist intrinsic case study in one university department in Canada explored staff members’ understanding of organizational change initiatives and cultural shifts through semi-structured interviews. Using the framework of interpretive communities (Yanow, 2000), the intent was to explore staff members’ perspectives of change initiatives and their understandings of culture changes in the department. The findings of this exploration revealed that participants identified the practices of leaders, including behaviour, strategy and purpose, and unity, and departmental arrangements, including staffing, structure, and role as the change initiatives that had been the most significant. T…
author: Boujos, Kristen K
language: en_ca
keywords: interpretive communities, higher education institutions, organizational change, organizational culture
date published: 2017-10-19
date modified: 2026-07-27T21:55:54Z
provider: Western University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: The University of Western Ontario

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14721/27626