Managing Organisations

ASSIGNMENT FOR MODULE:

Managing the Organisation

Ian Bolam

BA (Hons) Post Compulsory Education

New College Durham (at Newcastle College)

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 3

ORGANISATIONAL DESIGN AND STRUCTURE 4

EDUCATIONAL MANAGEMENT 8

CULTURE & CULTURAL CHANGE 10

LEADERSHIP 12

EMPOWERMENT 13

LEARNING ORGANISATIONS ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING 14

SUMMARY 14

Bibliography Managing the Organisation 20

NOTES 22

Figure 1 The 7-S Framework - Peters & Waterman (1982) 11

Figure 2 Single, Double and Triple-Loop Learning 14

Table 1 Models Of Educational Management 9

Table 2 The Learning Organisation -Creating a Learning Environment 15

Table 3 HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF MANAGEMENT 15

INTRODUCTION

T

he aim of this paper is to provide a vehicle through which I can explore the learning issues for the unit. In particular understanding, or seeing, the complexities of organisations together with the task of attempting to evaluate an existing managerial procedure concerned with aspects of institutional organisation, form a framework for discussing the issues involved. The task is problematical however, since the issues are contentious. Firstly, there are ontological and epistemological problems relating to an “existing” managerial procedure, that is, how can it be shown to exist when its existence is uncertain (Pheysey,1993). Secondly, the word managerial poses similar problems concerned with what management is (Drucker, 1974). In this context, the paper draws upon and follows my paper on management skills in which I discussed the problem of management knowledge. Thirdly, the term “institutional” raises the problem of what sort of entity is the subject of examination with regard to educational establishments, that is whether on is concerned with an organisation or an institution (Duke, 1998; Stein, 1995). It is thus important to note that the unit title is “Managing the Organisation” while the learning outcomes and assessment task refer to institutional organisation. Stein (1997) argues that organisations and institutions are different entities, the validity of applying corporate organisation theory to educational institutions may therefore be questioned (Chapman,1995).

The problematical areas outlined above suggest that it is not a straightforward matter to evaluate an existing managerial procedure. However, in the context of education espoused procedure is identified as being concerned with change on a macro level, that is the creation of a learning society (Coffield, 1995), and at the organisational level, transformation to a learning organisation (Senge, 1997; Roth & Senge 1996)44. The relationship between government policy and institutional policy is clearly identified here and is discussed further in my Policy Analysis paper. Further, I have already discussed the relationship between policy and organisational activity in my papers for Course Designs & Validation and Quality Assurance, where the funding and National Targets for education and Training (NETTS) were identified as key policy issues in governing organisational activity of New College Durham and Newcastle College. In order to demonstrate why the issue is problematical, I will outline and analyse some of the areas of contention which are argued to be central to the learning organisation (Starkey, 1996). The discussion is informed by acknowledgement of the role of “Senge’s five disciplines- systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, shared vision and team learning.” (Mumford,1995,10) and their relationship to engendering a movement form single-loop or transactional learning to double-loop or transformational learning (Argyris, 1976).

ORGANISATIONAL DESIGN AND STRUCTURE

Focusing on an organisation