William G. Tierney

Organizational Culture in Higher Education: Defining the Essentials.

Within the business community in the last ten years, organizational culture has emerged as a topic of central concern to those who study organizations. Books such as Peters and Watermans In Search of Excellence [37], Ouchis Theory Z [33], Deal and Kennedys Corporate Cultures [20], and Scheins Organizational Culture and Leadership [44] have emerged as major works in the study of managerial and organizational performance. However, growing popular interest and research activity in organizational culture comes as something of a mixed blessing. Heightened awareness has brought with it increasingly broad and divergent concepts of culture. Researchers and practitioners alike often view culture as a new management approach that will not only cure a variety of organizational ills but will serve to explain virtually every event that occurs within an organization. Moreover, widely varying definitions, research methods, and standards for understanding culture create confusion as often as they provide insight. The intent for this article is neither to suggest that an understanding of organizational culture is an antidote for all administrative folly, nor to imply that the surfeit of definitions of organizational culture makes its study meaningless for higher education administrators and researchers. Rather, the design of this article is to provide a working framework to diagnose culture in colleges and universities so that distinct problems can be overcome. The concepts for the framework

Qualitative Research and Institutional Review Boards

Although it is not their intention, institutional review boards (IRBs) often impede the conduct of studies that are not conventional and/or experimental designs. As a consequence, studies that are qualitative, participatory action research, action research, postmodern, and/or critical theorist in orientation often undergo endless revisions as IRBs seek to make them appear more conventional. Among the reasons for this are lack of training in alternative epistemologies and/or paradigms for conducting research, lack of understanding the kinds of data that will be generated by these studies, and occasionally, prejudice on the part of members of the boards regarding what constitutes sound research. Several actual case studies are reported, and a variety of strategies for addressing IRBs’ concerns are proposed.

Fictive Kin and Social Capital The Role of Peer Groups in Applying and Paying for College

In this article, the authors suggest that peers have the potential to create fictive kin networks, and in this role, peers become a social support that helps enable a culture of success. Discussing peer counselors and their role in helping students understand financial aid, the authors’ purpose is to suggest that peer groups—as social relationships that cut across classroom connections—create a viable solution that helps youth attain access to college. Findings from focus groups, observations, and interviews suggest that students benefit from the socioemotional and informational aspects of participating in peer counseling programs.

Get real: Representing reality

In this article I suggest that qualitative researchers broaden the narrative strategies we employ so our texts are built more in relation to fiction and storytelling, rather than in response to logical empiricism. My point is not so much to criticize the work of others, but rather to open up a space in social science texts for a more protean and engaged portrayal of those lives we observe and live. My stimulus is a concern with the defensive posture many of us have assumed with regard to the utilization of the narrative voice. Furthermore, I am concerned that a new orthodoxy will arise where we simply replace one narrative voice with another. My assumption is that the creation of innovative narrative strategies is made that much more difficult when the author assumes a defensive posture; rather than write in relation to empiricist norms authors need to transgress those norms and invent writing strategies. In what follows, I briefly discuss the crisis in representation and I consider the responses the crisis has elicited. I then delineate my concerns with the responses and outline subsequent steps that might be taken if we want to move beyond current narrative formats.

The roles of institutional cultures and decision approaches in promoting organizational effectiveness in two-year colleges

The effectiveness of a college or university is a function of how it responds to external forces and internal pressures in fulfilling its educational mission. Most of the research on institutional effectiveness has focused on four-year institutions. Yet, two-year institutions comprise the single largest institutional sector of American higher education with over twelve hundred of these institutions serving more than five million students (Pincus & Archer, 1989). This article focuses on the organizational effectiveness of two-year colleges.

Finding Money on the Table: Information, Financial Aid, and Access to College.

This article considers trends in state aid and research suggesting that low-income high school students do not prepare for college because they believe it is unaffordable. Authors posit a cultural ecological framework for examining how students think about going to and paying for college, asserting that preparation for college and financial aid is multifaceted and longitudinal.

The Parameters of Affirmative Action: Equity and Excellence in the Academy:

This article provides a historical, philosophical, and theoretical analysis of affirmative action in higher education. It begins with the historical basis for affirmative action and the rationale for why it has been needed. The author outlines the philosophy behind affirmative action and its legal ramifications. The article then evaluates the success of affirmative action, outlines the criticisms that have been made of it, and considers alternatives. It is argued that affirmative action goes to the heart of what we mean by public higher education and what we mean by “merit.” Although the policy has not succeeded in creating dramatic improvements, it has been consistent with basic assumptions about the meaning of academic community.

American Indians in Higher Education: A History of Cultural Conflict

(1991). American Indians in Higher Education: A History of Cultural Conflict. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning: Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 11-18.

Facts and Constructs: Defining Reality in Higher Education Organizations.

Abstract: This paper considers the implications for researchers and administrators if the organizational environment is interpreted as “enacted.” In so doing, the paper demonstrates now supposing that environments are socially constructed implies (different orientations to problem-solving and raises new research questions than if we assume environments are a finite number of objective facts. The essay differentiates between objective and enacted environments and suggests ways administrators might identify what they need to do and how they do it, given the socially constructed organization in which they find themselves.

Re)Presentation and Voice

This article considers the accessibility of language in scholarly work and discusses what makes a work boring and what the implications are for those who have a broad range of inquiry. In particular, the author discusses the development of the text in qualitative research and the struggles authors face as qualitative researchers. The author first considers the role of the author in the text and he then takes up the issue of readership. He subsequently discusses the relationship between the researched and the researcher and offers avenues for further consideration.