Project
Shaping Change – On the Interplay Between Department-Specific Organisational Cultures and Strategic Change Processes at Universities
- Headed by:
- Lea Segel
- Project Status:
- ongoing
E-Mail: leasegel@yahoo.de
Supervision: Prof Eva Cendon (FernUniversität in Hagen) and Prof Miriam Barnat (FH Aachen)
Universities operate in the tension between academic autonomy and strategic requirements imposed on them by government control. Thus, a central goal is to contribute to social progress through research and teaching and to prepare graduates for future individual and collective challenges. The organizational implementation of these strategic objectives is complex. Change processes within universities are characterized by different department-specific logics, routines, and cultures of action. Sustainable change can only succeed if it builds upon existing cultural influences and systems of meaning within the organization.
Lea Segel's doctoral project investigates how department-specific organizational cultures at universities of applied sciences interact with overall strategic change processes in studies and teaching. The empirical analysis is based on two contrasting departments at a large university of applied sciences. Situational analysis is used to analyse participant observations, audio recordings, and semi-structured interviews in order to examine the negotiation processes, power structures, attributions of meaning, and dynamics of organizational change processes.
The research project contributes to a deeper understanding of cultural factors influencing higher education development processes and opens up perspectives for a culturally and context-sensitive design of institutional change in higher education.
(in German)
