The theory of Complex Adaptive Systems is granting legitimacy
to a new paradigm of organisations; one that replaces the metaphor of the
organisation as an organism with the literal assertion that both social
organisations and organisms are classes of complex systems maintained, and
specified by, replicators [or schemata Gell Mann 1994]. The theory has been
argued as a post-Kuhnian analysis of the scientific process [Hull 1990],
a rival economic paradigm [references in Hodgson 1993], a view of strategy
[e.g. Lloyd 1990] and an explanation of organisational transformation and
learning [Price and Evans 1993, Price 1994, 1995]. Our concern in this paper
is to:
1. Briefly review the paradigm of an organisation as
a replicator specified system. We will draw the specific parallel between
the genome specified biological system and the memome specified social system
[cf. Dennet 1995]. Replicators encode a system which ensures their own replication,
and ultimately operate for that replication
2. Compare strategic extinction and speciation events
in both systems. The stratigraphic record shows a dominant pattern of extinctions
and radiative speciations which then settle to stabilised ecosystems. The
historical and commercial [or strategigraphic?] record illustrates a similar
pattern [Rothschild 1990, Tylecote 1993, Arthur 1994]. The causes of extinction
events may be genuinely external to the system affected [e.g. asteroid impacts
interrupting a reptilian dominated system cannot plausibly be traced to
feedback processes in any coupled eco/ lithosphere] or they may be internal
when the success of a particular replicator system disturbs a wider systemic
balance [e.g. ice-house glaciations terminating plant dominated episodes
of earth history]. Strategic scale parallels of both forms of extinction
event can be seen in commercial and technological history.
3. Examine the possible signs of a equilibrium shifting
event using the UKís Higher Education sector as an example. Whilst
the current memomes preserved in the sector may find it comforting to see
the looming crisis as an external one [shortage of funds and misguided government
policy] one can argue that many of the forces of change [technology, changed
expectations of education and research, changed patterns of working] are
in fact internally generated. If so, then, regardless of policy, the system
may be prone to an equilibrium punctuating event]
4. Examine, with particular reference to academic leadership
[Middlehurst and Kennie 1995] the strategic leadership challenges that arise
when an organisation or sector must be steered through an episode of strategic
evolution as revolution.
One of the key challenges for the leader in such circumstances
may be to find ways of shifting the memetic pattern of the led, the pattern
that seeks its own replication in the collective mind of an organisation
[and a sector] and which will tend to seek that replication; even as it
may, by so doing, hasten the demise of the system it enables.
Biology, the organisation as an organism in an ëecosystemí
of competing - or even symbiotic - firms, has long offered a metaphor for
organisational theorists [see Morgan 1986 for a detailed treatment]. More
recently, and particularly since the appreciation of Complex Adaptive Systems,
[e.g. Waldrop 1992, Kauffman 1993, 1995, Gell Mann 1994, Stacey 1993a, 1993b]
the metaphor has begun to loom larger. Indeed the acceptance of complexity
theory by organisational researchers is granting a greater legitimacy to
an alternative paradigm of organisations which has holds that they are,
literally rather than metaphorically, systems which evolve through a process
of selection [Lloyd 1990, Price 1995].
Hence economists are rediscovering the importance of an evolutionary
approach to macro economic theory [see summaries by Hodgson 1993]. Hull
[1988] presents a detailed post-Kuhnian argument for the process of development
of scientific understanding being a selective competition between alternative
paradigms. The largely unwritten codes of behaviour upon which science,
and other areas of scholarly research, depend can be derived as a logical
by-product of a system in which alternative paradigms enable a self-organising
structure which preserves their existence. The biases inherent in, for example,
particular journals under particular editors, or particular schools of thought
and the institutions which maintain them, are likewise presented by Hull
as evidence for the working of a selection process. Price (1994, 1995) argues
for an extension of Hullís approach to organisational learning in
general.
The long-standing school of strategy making [e.g. Alchian 1950], which
argues for commercial competition as a process of ësurvival of the
fittestí [one that incidentally often advises practitioners to ignore
theory] has been revived in recent years [e.g. Henderson 1989]. Whittington
[1993] explicitly labels it ëthe evolutionary schoolí, though
tends to narrow his definition to those who emphasise a simple focus on
survival. Other writers have taken the comparison further, hence Lloyd [1990]
argues that we should see strategies, and the organisations they sustain
and are sustained by, as literally an alien species, ìthe first
our species has encounteredî. Rothschild [1992] and Moore [1993]
are others who have drawn strictly evolutionary models of the strategic
process.
The writers cited, and the original works they draw on, have tended to
an orthodox Darwinian, or Neo-Darwinian, view of evolution as a bleak selection
process in which the unfit [whatever value judgement is placed on the term]
are weeded out. Meanwhile, perhaps because of a reaction to such a reductionist
view of the world, or perhaps because of a desire to avoid the implications
of social Darwinism, an alternative school has sought, in the emergent understanding
of Complex Adaptive Systems [CASs] an explanation of evolution, in biological
or social domains, that rejects, or at least grants a lesser role to, Darwinian
selection [see Kauffman 1995 or Capra 1996].
We do not intend this paper as a review of the competing nuances of thinking
in this emerging area of discussion. It suffices, for the purposes of the
enquiry made here, to accept as common ground certain properties of CASs.
They share (Waldrop 1992 citing original work by Holland) attributes of
relationships, complex order, evolution, natural hierarchy and strategy.
Consider each in turn:
Individual organisms, and complete species, live in ecological niches defined by their relationship to other members of a particular ecological system. Within that set of relationships individual players, and whole species ëcompeteí for differential survival. (Note that we are deliberately avoiding a discussion of exactly which ëentitiesí - genes, individuals or species - compete and what ëcompetitioní means in this context). A company is likewise an entity that lives in a web of relationships; economic transactions with other players. There is again a ëcompetitioní for their differential survival. Economy and ecology are both defined by the repeated interactions component agents.
One of the best definitions of ëlifeí is owed
to Richard Dawkins (1986):
a property of improbable complexity possessed by an entity that works
to keep itself out of equilibrium with its environment.
To use Dawkinsí most graphic example a dead pigeon thrown into the air obeys the laws of physics, describes a perfect parabola and falls back to earth. A live one disappears over the county boundary; its component parts working together to maintain their collective entity against the force of gravity. Maintaining complex order in apparent defiance of the second law of thermodynamics distinguishes both organisms and organisations. A typhoon raging its way across the South China Sea feeds on a temperature and humidity gradient to generate short-lived, destructive order but it is order that decays as the energy which created it dissipates. Hong Kong Island, which receives its share of the dissipation is, in purely geological terms, a complex set of rocks, not exactly duplicated anywhere else in the world but those rocks do no work to maintain themselves as an entity. They are rapidly recycled in destructive mud slides following a typical typhoon. Meanwhile Hong Kong Island teems with complexity and energy: energy that has created one of the most densely settled, vibrant and architecturally challenging cities on the planet: in a location that almost defies logic. Would rational planners chose to build a city of elaborate skyscrapers on slopes of rotting rock prone to torrential storms and violent mud slides? Given a free choice perhaps not, yet the dynamic, metastable, confluence that is Hong Kong's economy exists, grows and survives. The myriad companies that contribute to a whole such as Hong Kong each possess the ability to maintain some form of order as, by definition, does any organisation.
Organic species evolve and adapt, through natural selection, in their system of repeated interactions. Such selection, played out over time produces all the infinite variety of organic designs. The resulting dynamics in the history of CASs are the central concern of the next section of this paper.
Biological hierarchy, the phylogenetic order, is well established. Similar but much more fluid hierarchies exist in social and economic agents. People group themselves into organisational units, units into companies and companies into networks of specialist relationships. Languages split from common roots and ultimately divide themselves into dialects. Analogous hierarchies exist in religions or scholarly disciplines though none are as clear cut, rigid or fixed as is an organic species.
At first glance it may seem strange to consider an organism
having a strategy, an anticipation of the future, but in one sense a gene
can be considered exactly that. It is a strategic algorithm [Dennet 1995];
an explicit set of instructions which says, build a body to this set of
parameters, anticipating an environment in which that body will successfully
occupy an ecological niche. The instructions are of course based on a projection
of the past; an implicit assumption that the rules of the game for the next
generation will be the same as they are for the present one. A gene can
do no more than pass on the recipe of a past success.
An organisation anticipates the future through the strategy it follows, explicitly or implicitly. Strategy concerns the design, the unique capabilities, the relationships by which the company accesses resources, and perpetuates itself at a node within its own web of relationships. A company has, in theory, a freedom to define the future that no genetic agent can ever possess. In practice, however, many strategies boil down no more than an anticipation that past formulae will continue to succeed in the future [Mintzberg 1994]. Even in organisations whose management have embraced change as a permanent need, unwritten rules [Scott-Morgan 1994, Price 1993, 1994, 1995], paradigms, industry recipes, common mental models and traditions, all too frequently conspire in presuming that the future will be much as was the past
The comparison of biologic and cultural evolution, especially
when presented in such a potted form, can appear seductively simplistic.
As several writers have observed, it is easy to overlook key differences.
Gould [1991] elegantly expressed them as speed, interbreeding, and the transmittal
of acquired characteristics.
Organic species are, with minor exceptions, incapable of
interbreeding. Once formed a species [or a gene] is a distinct entity, in
principle forever. Organisational entities can, in theory, merge and blend
at will. In practice, significant barriers stop individuals or groups cross-pollinating,
learning from one another. Witness the familiar ënot-invented-hereí
response to exchange of ideas along even one corridor of a firm, the difficulties
that speakers of any two languages have in appreciating each other or the
schisms and disciplines of most academic disciplines.
An organism cannot pass on acquired characteristics. Interactions
with the environment do not affect the genes. That fundamental tenet - part
of the central dogma of modern biology - distinguishes ëDarwinianí
from ëLamarkianí evolutionary theory. Cultural and technological
evolution is essentially Lamarkian. The ëpatternsí [Price and
Shaw 1996] an organisation acquires, as well as the patterns embodied in
culture and language, are passed on through education and cultural programming.
But even this distinction is blurred by the fact that we are not the only
species with the capacity to transmit acquired knowledge. Blue tits living
near humans have learnt, and have taught their young, to drink from milk
bottles. Foxes have discovered the possibilities of urban and suburban environments,
learning to forage from garbage bins. As even the response of wild species
to recent technological and economic developments shows, the evolution of
behaviours which do not require genes as agents of transmittal can be orders
of magnitudes faster.
There remains a fundamental difference between evolution
in human and non-human systems. Nature is ëred in tooth and clawí.
Species eat and parasitize each other in ways that strike most people as
decidedly unpleasant if judged by most current human ethical and moral standards.
One has to accept that nature cannot have any such ethical capacity nor
can we judge it by our own. The converse is that we have no reason to judge
human behaviour by natureís standards. Organisations and the individuals
in them can, uniquely, make an ethical choice [see Lloyd 1990].
The bleak side of the Darwinian message, particularly when translated into explanations of human or commercial behaviour that many find unacceptable, is one reason why firstly, evolutionary theory meets resistance in social sciences and secondly, why a sub-theme of the history of Complexity remains the search, in theories of self organisation, for an alternative to natural selection [see Dennet 1995 for an in depth treatment]. One of us has presented arguments elsewhere that organisations are enabled and specified and at the same time limited by an ëorganisational genomeí or more accurately memome [Price and Evans 1993, Price 1994, 1995, Price and Shaw 1996 & in prep]. Whilst we return, briefly, to this theme later in the present paper the reader should note that it is not essential to the arguments presented in the next section. If it is accepted that organisms and organisations both exist as part of Complex Adaptive Systems it is permissible to examine the dynamics of evolution in those systems without considering the process. It is to that examination we now turn.
The stratigraphic record preserves a fragmentary history of past physical
and biological processes. Over the last twenty or so years geologists, aided
by the technological developments fostered by offshore oil exploration [e.g.
Payton 1977] have come to realise that the constant operation of the same
physical processes can produce discontinuous rates of change (Ager 1973,
Gould 1987). The physical features of the earth reveal periodic, abrupt
[on the time scale of a geologist where abrupt might mean a few thousand
as opposed to a few million years] changes in physical environments interspersed
with long periods of geological stability. The new metaphor for the history
of life on earth is Agerís Life of a Soldier - Long periods of
boredom interspersed with short moments of Terror.
The biological record shows a similar discontinuity. Species, and ecosystems,
once formed remain stable for periods of time much longer than is represented
by evolutionary ëeventsí [once again ëeventí is
used in a geological sense]. The history of life is punctuated, at many
scales, by episodes of wholesale change when old ecosystems are terminated
in mass extinctions and new ones arise in their place [e.g. Eldredge 1991].
Kauffman [1993] uses data tabulated by Raup [1986] to argue that the organic
system shows, over time, a departure from pure self-organised criticality
with an in built tendency towards the preservation of a particular order.
The question arises as to whether the ëLife of a Soldier Dynamicí
is a property only of the biological system or whether it is also a property
of the evolving organisational system. If it is what implications arise
for strategy and strategic leadership? What causes equilibrium shifts in
stratigraphic systems and what parallels might there be in strategic systems?
A fully orthodox Darwinian view holds that extinctions are simply the
result of the chance evolution of ëfitterí biological capabilities.
Hence for example once life hit on multi-celled ëtechnologyí
- itself incidentally an argument for collaboration and symbiosis playing
a part in evolution [Margulis and Sagan 1986] - it was simply ìtoo
good a trick in design spaceî [Dennet 1995]. Likewise mammals, from
this paradigm, displaced dinosaurs because they were intrinsically superior
in some fashion. Elaborate hypotheses as to the nature of that superiority
ignore the reality of mammalís existing for more than 100 million
years in the ìnocturnal nooks and crannies of a dinosaur worldî
[Gould 1989].
More prosaically the demise of the dinosaurs in one of the larger mass
extinction events on record was, with a high degree of probability, due
to a 10 km diameter asteroid crashing into the sea off southern Mexico.
For the preceding 130 million years, dinosaurs and mammals had co-existed
but dinosaur genes dominated the ecology of the time. For some reason, perhaps
a propensity to hibernate, our ancestors survived when dinosaurs did not;
and were free to radiate into all the newly vacated ecological niches. Plants
also seized the moment. With the demise of the great grazers they took the
opportunity to cover as much land as possible in forests.
Despite theories which have tried to generalise the end Cretaceous impact
theory to all mass extinctions, or even to argue a regular periodicity to
such events [Raup 1986], few extinctions can be shown to have such a dramatic
cause. Few have such a magnitude. Some are global. Many are confined to
particular parts of the earthís surface and are enabled by geological
contingency. Some two million years ago, for example, the appearance of
the Isthmus of Panama, exposed the indigenous South American fauna to competition
that destroyed most of it larger species.
In either of these two extreme examples however, the causes of the extinction
can be said to have been unconnected with the system affected. No serious
astronomical theory has argued the end Cretaceous asteroid impact as being
influenced by the earlier evolution of the physical or biological systems
on the planet. No feasible property of biological evolution in South America
influenced the global tectonic plates whose juxtaposition created the Isthmus
of Panama.
| Internally sourced events. | Externally triggered events | |
Environmental Changes abiotic |
System induced crisis Extinction caused by changes to external environments coupled to the evolving system. e.g. atmospheric/ climatic changes due to the evolving biosphere |
Externally induced crisis Extinction caused by physical factors external to the system. e.g. End Cretaceous asteroid impact |
New competitors within an ecosystem biotic |
Evolution of the fitter Extinctions/ evolutionary radiations caused purely by the development of new biological capability. e.g. Cambrian explosion following evolution of multi-celled organic capability |
Arrival of the fitter Extinction due to biological competition but ënew competitorsí introduced due to external causes. e.g. Invasion of North American fauna/ flora into South America |
Figure 1 Classification of extinction events in evolving complex
systems
Conventional geological treatment of mass extinctions has always sought
such external causes. Geology just happened and biology responded. More
recently, influenced in part by Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis geologists have
begun to appreciate systemic links between the evolving biosphere and the
physical environment. Hence prokaryotic bacteria ëpoisonedí
the earthís early atmosphere with oxygen, destroying - once the surplus
could no longer be absorbed as ferric oxide in banded iron formations -
a large part of their habitat. The first successful colonisation of terrestrial
habitats by plants, produced as a side effect, extinction events in the
late Devonian ocean]. The first great age of plants, the late Carboniferous
culminated in the fixation of so much atmospheric CO2 as biomass that it
induced a global ice age one which probably contributed to the largest mass
extinction recorded in the stratigraphic record at the end of the Permian.
One way of distinguishing these evolutionary events is to separate ëbioticí phenomena, i.e. those induced by new biological competitors, from abiotic, those due to other changes in the wider environment. Another is to ask whether they are systemic, i.e. linked by feedback to the system affected or uncoupled. Combining the two distinctions allows a proposed classification of extinction events [Figure 1]. The evidence from the record of evolution in biological, or coupled biological/ geological, adaptive systems suggests that all four can be distinguished as fundamental shifts in an ecological equilibrium. If one accepts the basic tenet of Complex Adaptive Systems theory, namely that social and commercial systems are also evolutionary it raises the question as to whether a similar classification of events can be seen in organisational systems. If so, are the strategic imperatives, and leadership issues, different in each class?
Organisational theorists who have explored evolutionist positions, whether
as metaphor or theory, have tended to what would in the above model be termed
a biotic stance. Organisational evolution is seen as a process of displacement
of older ëless well adaptedí technologies or strategies by newer
forms. Hence, for example, Tylecote's [1993] argument that economic longwaves
or Kondriatev cycles, are driven by the evolution of new technological 'styles';
Rothschild's [1992] exposition of the economic process as a selective competition
between technologies or Lloyd's [1990] view of commercial competition as
a selection process between competing strategic memes [stremes]. If one
accepts the basic premises of a competitive economic process and an evolution
of technological capabilities, then the existence of ëevolution
of the fitter eventsí in the strategic record seems clear and
documented at several scales. Some of the clearest example come with the
growth of new industries or markets enabled by technological developments.
Arthur [1994] draws attention to the role contingency and positive feedback
play in determining the eventual dominant technological format, that emerges
in such situations [see also Gould's [ref] discussion of the evolution of
the QWERTY keyboard]. Moore [1993] emphasise how firms which succeed in
building lasting positions in such new industries maintain a hold on a critical
capability and build a web of dependant and interdependent players. Webs
of related firms succeed in systems that are simultaneously competitive
and collaborative. The strategic leadership challenge can be characterised
as entrepreneurial, visualising, and building a sustainable niche in the
emergent economic system.
When new technologies enable a new ecology the evolutionary history is
similar in both the stratigraphic and the strategic domains. The evolution
of multi-celled life forms triggered a wave of biological experimentation,
recorded for example in the famous Burgess Shale [Gould 1987] followed by
consolidation around a smaller subset of successful biologic designs. The
emergence of new technologies and industries shows the same pattern with
a wave of innovation and experimentation followed by consolidation to a
mature market [Moore 1993]. In such a mature system, one that has reached
an Evolutionary Stable State, the existing playersí selective interests
are served by maintaining the system to which they are adapted. For example
the QWERTY keyboard, a design which evolved to slow down the speed of typing,
still maintains a lock on data entry to computers. An existing technological
style, or simply a set of traditions, can similarly lock innovation out
of a mature economic system until the equilibrium is punctured by one of
the other classes of event distinguished above.
It may be a chance event that finally allows a new design access to a
given ecosystem. Rather than being selectively displaced by home-evolved
competitors existing players find themselves threatened by ëtechnologiesí
evolved elsewhere. Perhaps the most obvious examples in recent years is
the penetration of western manufacturing systems by, especially, Japanese
managerial ëtechnologyí. The 1980s witnessed a mass extinction
of domestic firms who were unable to respond to new methods and products
in what were effectively existing markets. The transition is genuinely Darwinian
in that a superior competitor destroys an existing ecology however the initial
threat is external. The leadership challenge depends on which side of the
competition one sits. For those whose position is threatened the strategic
necessity is to develop, fast enough, the capability to respond to a changed
competitive situation. The reality is all too often different. An established
pattern seeks to maintain, as long as it can, barriers to the new competitor;
a situation which, almost inevitably, makes the final crash worse when it
comes. The longer term survivors are those who learn to play by new rules,
shifting their competitive pattern to meet the incoming threat.
Biologic species placed in such a position, exposed to a new competitor
for their ecological space do not often have a choice. Their speed of adaptation
is constrained by their genetic codes; systems with their own survival imperative
[Dawkins 1976]. Human minds, individually and collectively in organisations,
carry similar codes or traditions which seek their own replicative survival.
Individuals and organisations trapped in these pre-existing patterns all
too often find it impossible to evolve fast enough to meet a new challenge
[Price 1994, Price and Shaw 1996]. The strategic leadership challenge is
to foster a shift in the thinking patterns and habits which have enabled
an organisation to survive in an older ecosystem.
Some events are initiated not by a new competitor but rather by the chance
extinction of the previous ecosystem by some agent unconnected with the
system itself. The resulting extinction creates the competitive ëspaceí
into which ësurvivorsí can move, evolving new forms in the process.
In commercial systems this is probably the hardest class of event to recognise.
Human systems constitute such a small part of the total planet ecology that
it is not clear to what extent any event can be argued as being independent
of another part of the system. The difference may boil down to the degree
of coupling between the event and the agents affected. Hence for example
changes in government policy that create or deny strategic space to particular
industries could be said to qualify. To distinguish this class of strategic
events from the first two it is necessary to ask whether the ëloserí,
the industry or technological style that is rendered extinct suffers because
of an inherent ëinferiorityí or whether its demise and replacement
is largely a matter of chance. A case can, for example, be made that the
current National Health Service is being replaced, by dictat, by alternative
managerial approaches without the resulting service being more effective
and efficient than the previous. The Facilities Management sector of the
UK economy, worth according to some estimates #40 to 50 bn per annum [Akhlaghi
1996a, 1996b] represents a new market opportunity, enabled not entirely
by the emergence of new or improved technology but by changes in business
fashions and global economic competition, Currently organisations with background
in a variety of unrelated industrial sectors are competing for long-term
strategic advantage in a new sector created by the forced exposure of public
sector services to Compulsory Competitive Tendering.
A topic meriting further consideration is the question of whether technology
enabled competition can be considered as a genuine external event where
a particular market sector is concerned. Various professions in the UK face
such challenges today, as for example the challenge to traditional high
street opticians by chains such as vision express, the threat to surveying
firms of on-line access to land registry data [Kennie and Price 1996]. Neither
professional tradition contributed strongly to the emergence of the technology
which enables others to challenge them. On the other hand the challenges
new technology may pose to traditional university teaching could be said
to represent a system threatened by the products of its success.
A genuinely externally driven crisis may however be a rare event, even
on the geological scale. Despite widespread searches compelling evidence
relating mass extinctions other than the end Cretaceous event to extraterrestrial
impacts remains scarce. More common may be a feedback event wherein the
demise of the existing dominant ecosystem is due to wider environmental
change that is itself ultimately a response to the success of a particular
ecosystem. Any social organisation which outlives the resource base that
sustains it risks such a crisis. A dramatic, and well contained, example
is, the collapse of the Easter Island Civilisation [Diamond 1993]. The feedback
in commercial systems need not however be strictly environmental. Any dominant
pattern of thinking, or organisation, which sees its continued pre-eminence
as pre-ordained risks triggering a crisis out of its own short-sightedness.
IBM, yielding strategic dominance of the emergent PC ecology to Microsoft
and Intel [Moore 1993] could be said to have precipitated a crisis of their
own making.
Superficially then it seems that a similar set of extinction ëeventsí
can be seen in the two classes of CAS. It remains to be tested by empirical
case study whether the classification of strategic events suggested here
proves to have general validity. The study of strategy from a modern evolutionary
perspective is still a largely untested field. Questions worthy of further
investigation include the distinction of separate classes of event, and
the question of the degree to which generic strategies and leadership issues
vary in different change situations. Our suggestion is that they
will; which carries the implication that the search for single models of
a successful strategy are inherently flawed. However a comprehensive treatment
of the subject would take us beyond the scope of this paper. We turn instead
to an example of one sector which is facing, we argue, a strategic scale
interruption of the prevailing equilibrium. The material presented is based
on research currently being conducted under the auspices of Sheffield Hallam
Universityís Unit for Facilities Management Research [Matzdorf and
Price in prep.].
That the UKís higher [and further] education sectors
face considerable challenges in the near future is hardly news [e.g. Macfarlane,
1992; Williams and Fry 1994]. There is an argument for a looming crisis
exacerbated by reports such as the TES headline of October 4, 70 head
for the red. Among the main challenges are:
Figure 2: Drivers of possible change facing ëeducationí in the HE sector viewed in terms of Porterís Five Forces model
Meanwhile new players are either starting, or planning,
to compete in both research and higher education. Not only are other education
and research institutions entering the traditionally ëprotectedí
university market but commercial organisations such as telecommunications
companies have identified the future potential of ëinfo. or edutainmentí.
Porterís classic [1980] Five Forces model offers one way of consolidating the pressures for change in both the ëeducationí and ëresearchí spheres; i.e. in the traditional strategic space of universities. Figures 2 and 3 present summaries. Whilst acknowledging the difficulty of considering either education or research as strictly comparable to industrial processes [are students for example a ëraw materialí that is supplied and delivered with value added, or a customer for the institutions services?] it is nonetheless apparent that, on each of the five dimensions in both teaching and research, there are considerable increases in competitive pressure. The sector carries, in fact, many of the hallmarks of an ecosystem that is facing a pronounced disruption to a prevailing equilibrium. How might it evolve in the future?
If all possible options for delivering a combination of
research and education are treated as a
strategic possibility space [Figure 4] all [or at least most] universities
are today competing to occupy a similar ecological niche; one that delivers
a relatively similar mix of degree courses and research activities. There
are however many signs of this pattern changing with increasing differentiation
and divergence of individual institutional strategies, differences likely
to be exaggerated by the success or failure of individual institutions to
differentiate themselves. It seems probable the universities of the future
will span a much wider range of possible designs in the strategic space
available to them. Does a deeper insight into the nature of the pending
event help inform suitable strategies?
Figure3: Drivers of possible change facing ëresearchí [and other provision of knowledge based services] in the HE sector viewed in terms of Porterís Five Forces model
Given such pressures for change, how is the HE/FE sector
likely to evolve in the future ?. Returning to the concept of equilibrium
shifts in organisational ecologies discussed in section 3, it is possible
to offer four possible future scenarios for the tertiary education sector.
These are summarised in Figure 5.
Considering each in turn, and the nature of the equilibrium
punctuating events associated with each, University 2000 may need to consider
its future in relation to a;
System induced crisis - a future
within which success (in terms of the development of a mass education system)
is followed by a system wide crisis. The crisis is induced by the inability
of the various ëcontrolí measures to cope with the increasing
level of complexity in the system. Additional levels of financial and quality
reporting, supplemented by demands for increased public accountability,
all in the context of continuing ëefficiency gainsí demanded
by government. The composite impact of all these factors might create a
system which faces the credibility and service level challenges most recently
experienced by the child support agency.
Externally induced crisis -
a future in which the apparent link between investment in HE/FE and economic
success in a post-industrial society is seriously challenged. A new paradigm
with another approach to ënew public managementí leads to resources
being re-deployed towards primary and secondary education and a return to
an ëeliteí system of HE underpinned, perhaps, by a high quality,
more standardises system of lifetime vocational and distance learning for
a larger population.
Figure 4: A likely consequence of the inherent forces operating in the sector is the greater differentiation of strategic positioning by different institutions. Note that this prediction is largely independent of government policy, or, for example, the Dearing Review.
Evolution of the fitter - a
future which demands that institutions clearly differentiate themselves
and clearly communicate their ëmissioní to their various customers.
No longer can all universities attempt to play in all four quadrants of
Figure 5. Clear strategic choices will be made and the consequences of such
choices in terms of institutional capabilities (e.g. a focus on enhanced
service quality or on rapid responsiveness to changing market conditions)
will be developed. Survivors will also be seen to practise what they preach
in terms of learning. A number of institutions will exhibit the characteristics
of learning organisations ?
Arrival of the fitter - a future
in which the high ground (in terms of market share) will be determined by
a few large, international alliance partners. Education is already a key
target sector for most large communications companies With the cable/satellite
and home computer infrastructure in place, the mass ëedutainmentí
market will become of increasing significance. The development of global
alliances between major ëbrandí universities and global communications
companies may revolutionise the education sector.
Preparing for such a range of futures will demand clear
strategic leadership. Such leadership will be required at a sector wide
level, at an institutional level and the subject level.
Internally sourced events. |
Externally triggered events | |
Environmental Changes |
System induced crisis Success scenario. The existing system grinds to a halt as ëmanagerialí overheads become cumbersome and existing quality/ administrative systems impede adaptation. |
Externally induced crisis Doomsday Scenario A new political paradigm replaces mass education with a return to a differentiated elite. |
New competitors within an ecosystem bioti |
Evolution of the fitter Differentiation/ learning Scenarios Clear differentiation emerges in the sector as existing institutions evolve new forms [learn]. |
Arrival of the fitter Intellectual Capital Brokers Scenarios New entrants and alliances with global brands [e.g. AT&T, MIT or Microsoft and Harvard] go global. |
Figure 5 Classification of Future Scenarios in an evolving HE/FE
adaptive system
At the sector wide level a more systemic view of the education system
will be demanded. This will systems wide approach will require that a more
explicit link between investment in education and economic development is
established. The numerous power ësilosí which exist in education
(such as the CVCP, the HEFC, FEFC, the DfEE, the new single quality agency)
will require a more integrated strategy than appears at present. However,
it is not only for education to present a more unified voice, such leadership
also demands that education policy is more fully integrated with other national
economic development targets.
In addition to a systemic view of education policy the need also exists
for some a longer term scenario thinking. Little apparent action of this
type seems apparent within the sector. So often confronted with ongoing
government demands for further efficiency gains, the regular echo response
for more funding is heard from the ëeducation spokespersoní.
The ongoing erosion of academic conditions of service is but one indicator
of the lack of success of this strategy. A more imaginative and proactive
strategy is demanded, not one which is based on the assumption of growth
or consolidation or of further efficiency gains, but one which can also
identify other future scenarios. Such an approach might also help shape
government policy towards education since there is little evidence that
such thinking is developing at a political level. With no serious votes
to be gained through HE/FE policy is it not up to the sector to shape its
own future ?
At the institutional level the strategic leadership challenges are equally
demanding. In times of crisis or emergent crisis the style of leadership
required is rarely in tune with the more prevalent consensual style normally
associated with academic and other professional organisations [Kennie et
al. 1996]. Creating sufficient instability within organisations to stimulate
change, whilst at the same time ëmanaging the transitioní demands
vision, intellectual energy and above all courage. It is also unlikely to
be a long term role. Few ëtransformational leadersí survive
well in less crisis led conditions. Indeed success in the former does not
predispose such individuals to the demands of coping with consolidation.
Given such conditions the challenge for many institutions might involve
the appointment of senior academic leaders who have significant experience
outside of the education sector, but significant experience of leading major
change projects. To attract such individuals will require those responsible
for such appointments to also demonstrate vision and courage. Supporting
them in the transitional phase will be equally demanding.
At both the sector and institutional level one of the key challenges will be to challenge the prevailing paradigms which shape and direct current policy. In times of prevailing crisis such thinking is critically important, but as history and evolution demonstrates it can be critically important for survival and adaptation to a step change in the prevailing conditions.
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