Innovations as Symbols in Higher Education

J. David Johnson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781138039049
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351708951
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Examining the role of symbolic innovations in higher education institutions, this book distinguishes between the real, material changes universities undergo and the ways universities present them and symbolic changes to outside and internal stakeholders. By defining symbolic innovations and their general role in organizations, this book provides a thorough view of innovations in university contexts and the underlying factors that motivate and generate them. This volume addresses ethical concerns about the impact of symbolic innovations and how they relate to traditional and current views of academic leadership.

1 Introduction and Overview

People’s lives are often intertwined with ideas, and there are numerous social interests attached to them as well, so we often innovate as a means to other ends, not as an end in and of itself. The classic diffusion of innovation paradigm assumed that the purpose of innovation was adoption of a more effective practice (Dearing & Kreuter, 2010), the efficient choice perspective. This perspective, which has dominated the diffusion of innovation literature, essentially took the view that organizations were free to choose to adopt when they were relatively certain about their goals and the assessment of how innovations could be used in attaining them.

Traditionally one of the central missions of the university has been the preservation and transmission of culture. Western culture values progress, especially through the application of technology, and most of the innovation literature shares this pro-innovation bias (Abrahamson, 1991a; Rogers, 1995). However, often the primary purpose of participating in innovation is purely symbolic—a demonstration that you are forward looking and modern, willing to jump on whatever bandwagon may be rolling by (Abrahamson, 1991a; Abrahamson & Rosenkopf, 1993; Birnbaum, 2000). Not only must an innovation meet certain criteria in terms of its qualities, but it also must be acceptable, in both a social equity and a moral sense, to the larger social milieu that a user finds themselves in (Sapp & Korsching, 2004).

In this introductory chapter, we will first examine the contemporary university and the importance of prestige and rankings. The trends associated with them are the starting point for a focus on the symbolic elements of innovations, as well as the traditional focus on material ones. In defining symbolic innovations, we identify four conditions resulting from the commingling of material and symbolic elements. We will be especially interested here in decoupled innovations that are largely pursued for symbolic reasons drawing on institutional fads and fashions to highlight their importance for the operation of contemporary institutions of higher education. We conclude this chapter by distinguishing different types of innovation processes and preview how they relate to the subsequent chapters in this work.

The Contemporary University

To some faculty, they [administrators] seemed more concerned with the “image” used to market their product (a university education) to customers (students and their parents) and clients (the firms that would hire the university’s graduates) than with the product itself.

(Tuchman, 2009, p. 11)

A university anywhere can aim no higher than to be as British as possible for the sake of the undergraduates, as German as possible for the sake of the graduates and the research personnel, as American as possible for the sake of the public at large—and as confused as possible for sake of the preservation of the whole uneasy balance.

(Kerr, 2001, p. 14)

American colleges and universities have drawn from a number of traditions throughout their history from an early emphasis on religion, to a 19th-century emphasis on utility (Rudolph, 1962), coupled with the German tradition of research universities (which also in many ways served industry). The founding of A (agriculture) & M (mechanical, mining, military) colleges reflects the emphasis on utility in state institutions (Thelin, 2004) and leads to many of the symbolic uses of innovations we will explore. Historically, institutionalism argues that institutional development is path-dependent: past decisions tend to constrain future institutional change (Bannerman & Haggart, 2015). In neo-institutional frames, the imprinting of the contextual, historical milieu on universities can affect their operations for very long periods of time, sometimes centuries (Johnson, 2007). The array of strategies that universities pursue is typically rather limited (Schmidt, November 10, 2008) in part constrained by these historical developments. More recently, there has been a movement to rationalizing universities (Meyer, 1986), in part through the diffusion of management fads (e.g., TQM), which were often championed by the nation’s top political leadership (Birnbaum, 2000). Universities certainly reflect the larger societal value of social development and progress (Birnbaum, 2000), which has entailed a deeply functionalist approach to the sociology of education (Meyer, 1986).

Today, American colleges and universities are facing a near perfect storm of environmental threats: declining funding; unsustainable fringe benefit costs; increasing dissatisfaction of major stakeholders, including parents, students, and government officials; pressures to cap tuition increases; possibly disruptive technological changes; and so on. These crises are often seen as necessitating the adoption of innovations whose sole intent is often to symbolically address them (Birnbaum, 2000). Interestingly, and most disturbingly for university administrators struggling with state legislators, higher education is increasingly seen as a private (e.g., critical to achieving individual economic success) rather than a public (e.g., essential for a democratic society, ensuring social mobility) good (Wadsworth, 2005).

Clayton Christensen (1997) has detailed the impact of disruptive innovations on companies and more recently universities (Christensen & Eyring, 2011). Many university critics, such as Peter Drucker, have long foretold their demise, because they are as ill suited for their changing environment as the dinosaurs were (Rhodes, 2001). Even though major changes appear to be on the horizon, there is a reluctance to create unique institutional changes. So, university presidents often look to the actions of their more prestigious colleagues for inspiration. This tendency towards emulation, rather than developing unique approaches, substantially dampens true innovation and institutional creativity within American universities. The general conclusions of institutional theory are particularly appropriate for the modern research university.

Universities are in highly fragmented fields that are moderately centralized (e.g., state boards, accrediting bodies) with stakeholders who are likely to impose conflicting institutional demands (Pache & Santos, 2010). They often have problematic goals, unclear technologies, and fluid participation of different professions. They are also relatively opaque fields where observers have difficulty: establishing causal relationships between policies and outcomes; identifying the nature of prevailing practice; and measuring results (Wijen, 2014). Goals and information are often unclear or ambiguous, cause-effect relationships are poorly understood, and there is cultural diversity (Bolman & Deal, 1991). No one really understands the nature of prevailing practices, the causal relationships involved, or how goal accomplishment should be measured in opaque organizations (Wijen, 2014). Compliance with the ‘letter’ of the law may interfere with the ‘spirit’ associated with ultimate goals (Wijen, 2014). In the presence of uncertainty, institutions inevitably turn to social processes (e.g., emulating those of higher status) to determine the proper activities and routines they should engage in (Birnbaum, 2000).

Universities have become umbrella organizations for professional guilds, splintered into different functional groupings and ‘occupational communities’ (Johnson, 1993). Loosely coupled, but collegial, they often defy the established canons of management (Rhodes, 2001), while at the same time attempting to adopt many managerial practices (Birnbaum, 2000). They have taken on the structure of classic multidivisional organizational structures. At the heart of the M-form organization is a separation of strategic and tactical planning (Freeland, 1996). However, upper level management still needs to be informed of the activities of units and the units need to feel some commitment to strategy that develops in part from their having input in its formulation. The extensive use of fiat will result in disorder (deans undercutting university goals with key stakeholders and faculty) and various forms of passive-aggressive behavior (Freeland, 1996). The loose coupling of universities and the relative autonomy of faculty members also means that more classic models of the diffusion of innovations (e.g., Rogers, 2003) may apply. Those of low status in an organization may push forward innovations that diminish the status of others while increasing their own, just as the adoption of new medical technologies can transfer status from older practitioners to newer ones (Burkhardt & Brass, 1990). Similarly, academic researchers constantly pursue the new and fashionable.

Some might argue that one of the primary reasons universities will continue in some form is the campus, which many high technology organizations (e.g., Google) try to emulate, which provides social network opportunities and the possibility of creative abrasion when people in close physical proximity, who would otherwise not interact, share ideas (Leonard, 1995). Physical factors often have symbolic value for organizations and those who interact within them (Steele, 1973). Increasingly, organizations are using corporate architecture to define themselves symbolically to the public (and to their own members). So, land-grand universities in the Big Ten have the classic pastoral campus dominated by large student unions. More recently, in their competitive quests to recruit students, there has been enormous growth in new dormitories and amenities such as physical fitness centers, which contribute as well to university rankings that enhance their prestige.

Rankings, Prestige

The status motivations for adopting innovations have been understudied in past diffusion research.

(Rogers, 1995, p. 214)

Decisions about innovations are made partly on the basis of desirable status or image; the innovation is a means to achieve status or image.

(Dearing & Kreuter, 2010, p. s102)

Dearing and Kreuter go on to suggest that the norms of an individual’s reference group (e.g., profession, community of practice) are critical to adoption and can outweigh carefully reasoned judgments of an innovation’s efficacy. In fact, the functionality of an innovation is only one criterion that might lead to adoption and, often, not the most important one. Certainly some innovations can result in improved work performance and enhanced skills/capabilities, but often, as in the case of technological innovations, at the cost of considerable training and experimentation. A focus on innovations as symbols draws us to the more intangible benefits of innovations in terms of prestige, status, and one’s own career advancement. Recognition from one’s peers and from one’s organization has been found to be much more motivating than financial incentives in encouraging innovative behaviors (Angle, 2000) and this might be particularly true of universities. The coin of the realm for universities is prestige (Schmidt, 2008), if not necessarily money, although in times of budget cuts, money often rises to the top as a criterion for consideration.

Veblen (1918) recognized long ago that prestige (and the associated need for publicity) was more central to universities than it was for profit-making enterprises. Climbing the ranking ladder and the Harvardization of aspiring universities have often driven forces of emulation (Rhodes, 2001). Purely symbolic innovations are used to manipulate prestige and associated ranking systems. The Latin root of prestige also suggests its implicit linkages to some of the problematic aspects of symbolic innovation: praestigium means magic, illusory, and full of deceitful tricks (it is also the root of prestidigitation) (Pastore, 2005).

The prestige, status hierarchy of American higher education institutions has inflated costs (Ehrenberg, 2002), leading to an insatiable appetite for money and resources, but it also has increased competition among them that has led to more rapid scientific advancements and their current elite standing among other institutions in the world that do not have the same competition locally or federally (Graham & Diamond, 1997). Of course, the opposite side of the prestige arms race is that it is insatiable (and risky) as long as your competitors stay in the game.

In the presence of uncertain environments and ambiguous goals, organizations are more likely to model themselves after those that are perceived to be successful (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). Because the advantages and prospects of an innovation are often unclear, social pressures can result in over-adoption, which often means that inappropriate innovations are taken up because they are status conferring (Rogers, 1983). Tuchman (2009), drawing on a report from the Chronicle of Higher Education, described six characteristics of a Wannabe University: translates strong regional presence (e.g., state Flagship) into national recognition; spends hundreds of millions on buildings, recruits top faculty, and students; develops slick advertising and branding; publicly states ranking aspirations; argues that it acts as an engine for the state’s economy; and nurtures start-up companies in its research park. We will touch on many of these characteristics at greater length in later chapters.

Symbols also come to represent one’s standing in the social order (Firth, 1973). For individuals, normative innovations will be quickly adopted when others who are structurally equivalent have already done so (Burt, 1980). Often coalitions of organizations develop standards that they impose on other organizations (e.g., accreditation) that wish to join them (Wejnert, 2002). The unique US history of accreditation has encouraged diffusion of symbolic innovations as well as competitive pressures for emulation. In some ways, there is a university-level institutionalism with units down the prestige hierarchy mimicking the efforts of those seen as having higher status. This is maintained by mechanisms like four- or six-year reviews of units within universities, which become like internal accreditation processes. But, somewhat paradoxically, the lack of a centralized authority in the US has encouraged competition: “Decentralized, feistily independent, uncoordinated, pluralistic, American universities have been opportunistic, adaptive, creative and responsive to new opportunities” (Rhodes, 2001, p. 13). Rankings have become a way of incorporating all of these dynamics and they also play an important role in recruiting students (Ehrenberg, 2002) and satisfying philanthropists.

Espeland and Sauder (2007) conducted a thorough study of the impact of ranking systems on law schools. Over the last couple of decades, a variety of measures designed to increase the accountability and transparency of various university programs have been developed by nonacademics. These measures are often used by students in their selection of which universities they should apply to. However, while often these measures are well-intentioned, the very act of measuring programs results in reactivity where people change their behavior in reaction to being evaluated, observed, or measured.

This is a global phenomenon with budgets, hiring, and evaluation of faculty often dependent on ranking systems of one sort or another (Bornmann, 2014). Critics of these systems point to their unintended consequences, especially when various actors play to the test, whatever that might be, which can result in people being more concerned about surface-level indicators than deeper levels and more nuanced approaches to evaluating academic programs. Espeland and Sauder’s study focused on US News and World Report rankings examining how reactivity in this case resulted in redistribution of resources, redefinition of the work, and the proliferation of gami...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction and Overview
• 2 Teams in Academe
• 3 Undergraduate Studies
• 4 Information and Communication Technologies and Distance Learning
• 5 Tech Incubators and R & D Parks
• 6 Summing Up
• Index