Hasan Simsek

Metaphorical images of an organization: the power of symbolic constructs in reading change in higher education organizations'

Based on interviews with 24 faculty members at a large, public university, this article reports the use of metaphors as a new conceptual strategy to analyze change in higher education organizations. Results of the study indicate that strategic choices guiding the behavior of the organization under study and the metaphorical images held by the faculty members about their organization show a high degree of congruence. Implications for change and maintenance of enacted realities in higher education organizations are discussed.

Anomaly-Based Change in Higher Education: The Case of a Large, Turkish Public University.

This paper analyzes an institutional change in a large, Turkish public university, the Middle East Technical University (METU), by using an anomaly-based change model. The model explains change as an organizational response to anomalies caused by internal and external organizational conditions. The study used a qualitative case study design that included interviews with 51 individuals, and, analysis of institution-specific documents. Anomalies derived from the interview findings compared with a separate set of anomalies, devised from the document study, that are attributed to the strategic change agenda developed by the current president of the institution. The paper argues that human thinking and problem solving as well as organizational cognition and problem solving do proceed through existence and recognition of a problematic situation. So, anomalies are the ID cards of any major change in organizations in that they carry important information about where the organization comes from and where it should proceed to. Implications for the nature and management of change in higher education organizations are discussed.

Vocational Schools in Turkey: An Administrative and Organizational Analysis.

The data used in this paper were derived from a larger project which had the aim of critically evaluating the Turkish vocational education system on a number of different levels. This article examines the administrative and organisational practices in a selected group of secondary vocational schools in Turkey from the point of view of school administrators, teachers and industrial managers. The results indicate that the Turkish vocational education system is characterised by a centralised, top-down bureaucracy, which inhibits innovative capacity. The authors argue that a degree of decentralisation is necessary at various levels of the system.

A comparative case study on school management practices in two schools in the United States and Turkey

This study aimed at comparing administrative processes in two schools, one in the United States and one in Turkey, in light of the two distinct administrative paradigms: the Anglo‐Saxon and Napoleonic traditions. The study showed that in the Turkish school, which is thought to be an example of the Napoleonic administrative tradition, school management practices were found to be relatively less effective mainly due to the centralized system, lack of communication among the staff, limited in‐service training options for the school staff and limited school budgets. On the other hand, the management practices in the American school, which is thought to be a typical example of the Anglo‐Saxon administrative tradition, were found to be more effective compared to the Turkish school mainly because of the schools embedded decentralized structure, participatory understanding among the school staff, effective communication strategies of the principal and various options of in‐service training offered to the school staff.