International Journal of Higher Education Management

On a recent trip to Brazil, one of the authors encountered a different model of recruitment and organizational development for an emerging startup software company called Chaordic. The author was impressed with the passion and excitement of the company spokesperson, Anderson Nielson, who explained the model they were using as founded on ACDC - Amore, Consciousness, Discipline, and Commitment (ACDC). Company founder Joao Bernartt, a student of artificial intelligence and his colleague Nielson developed these concepts because they saw them as having great significance for achievements in human history including but not limited to human endeavour and great accomplishment. Bernartt and Nielson were then successful in building them into the foundation of their company through teams, shared goals, learning leadership and accomplishments, all directed towards a common good. Authors Simon Robinson and Maria Morales have expanded on ACDC and developed them within their theory of Holonomics. In this paper, the authors explore these concepts as increasingly relevant for today’s global business world, contrary to the usual managerial and dominant way of thinking about business. If organizations are actually using this philosophy and process as a means of recruitment and simultaneously building their business success, then how should business schools respond, especially when their basic teaching philosophy has as its foundation a framework of traditional managerialism? We suggest that if companies such as our Brazilian company wish to hire employees for their passions, so that they can better contribute to their success, then business schools need to recognize this and provide a new kind of business education, especially as it pertains to a different way of thinking and working.

This paper revisits Ghoshal’s views (2005, 1996) on the implications of bad management theory for managerial practice.  In particular, it examines the persistence of assumptions underpinning moral governance and associated managerial practices in organizations, despite countervailing evidence of efficacy. Drawing on mini-case illustrations, and notions from systems thinking (Senge, 1993, 1999, 2010) and cognitive psychology (Tversky and Kahnemann, 1974), the paper develops a systems perspective that suggests how in some circumstances, cognitive bias rather than intention may explain a paradoxical persistence or adherence to ideology, ideology-based theory and to theory-informed practice.

The paper presents the analysis of universities' potential for knowledge transfer to the business environment. The first part of the paper shows the analysis of university organisational units related to various parts of the innovation process. Each stage of the process creates distinct challenges for university operations, hence in the paper the basic framework to observe the capacity of organisational structures to respond to them has been constructed. The analysis focuses on relatively large units with complex operations, such as technology transfer centres, as well as on the organisational role of one-man positions, such as dean’s representatives for business relations. The results of the theoretical analysis are referred to the results of the research concerning knowledge transfer practices among universities in Lodz (Poland). A total of thirty-five cases of knowledge transfer practices were included in the analysis. The analysis conducted in the Lodzkie Region covered types of practices, the initiative of carrying out practices, their duration, the nature of practices, their subject scope and impact, as well as risks and benefits associated with implementing knowledge transfer practices. The preliminary exploration, interviews and innovation studies conducted indicate that the analysis covered a vast majority of such practices

The Ontario post-secondary environment is divided between colleges and universities, each with differing mandates.  While there is cooperation, this divide has led to competition and conflict between the sectors. The University of Guelph-Humber is a partnership between a college and a university offering an integrated curriculum leading to both a college diploma and a university degree.  This qualitative intrinsic case study was designed to provide insight into the nature, evolution, benefits, and challenges of the partnership.  This paper focuses on what the participants described as the most important aspect of the sustainability of the partnership— leadership. Thirty-three participants were interviewed, documents reviewed, and field observations conducted. The resulting data was interpreted through the lens of Social Interdependence Theory (Deutsch, 2014).  The interpretation of the data showed that senior leadership commitments to the partnership—clearly communicated— were crucial to sustaining the partnership.  Leadership as described in some cases was transformational, but in others as transactional.  In situations of transactional leadership, the goal interdependence (Deutsch, 2014) for followers was directed at career aspirations rather than directed at overarching organizational goals.  Whether employees buy into the goals of the leaders (transformational leadership), or they adopt those goals due to the perception of interdependence between their own career goal and the goals of the leader (transactional leadership), the fact remains that the goals of the leader—clearly communicated—influenced those within the organization.  The weakness observed with more transactional leadership was the lack of motivation to move organizational goals forward during periods of leadership change or absence.  Leadership was the linchpin of the partnership that has sustained an “impressive an example of cooperation between postsecondary sectors as exists anywhere in the world” (Skolnik, 2005, para. 29).  While a linchpin is critical to holding a complex system together, and hence a positive influence on organizations, it is also a great vulnerability when in its absence, the system is left unsupported.

The author spent five months in Rwanda as a Strategic Advisor to the Ministry of Education’s Task Force for creating a single national university by amalgamating the existing seven public institutions of higher education located in various regions of the country, and in this article he outlines some of the main lessons learned during that engagement. After providing the contextual background for the project and his engagement by Academics without Borders to undertake it, he summarizes the main outcomes of that work. He then identifies the first lesson learned from this experience as ‘conventional wisdom needs to be applied with pragmatic realism’, particularly when interpreting the fundamental principles of academic freedom, institutional autonomy and participative decision-making. Secondly, he learned that ‘managing expectations can be devilishly difficult’; and finally, it became clear that ‘one should not undertake this kind of work without a local “champion” in place’. The article concludes with the author’s main impressions of Rwanda and its people.