Dissertation

A Systems Inquiry into Organizational Learning for Higher Education

This study took an applied systems design approach to investigating social organizations in order to develop a synthetic perspective, one that supports pragmatism’s focus on consequent phenomena. As a case study of reaffirmation processes for four 4-year institutions and their accreditor, WSCUC, it looked for evidence of organizational learning in the related higher education systems of institutions and regional accrediting agencies. It used written documents as evidence of the extended discourse that is the reaffirmation of accreditation process. The documents were analyzed from a set of three perspectives in an effort to build a fuller understanding of the organizations. A structural analysis perspective looked for structural qualities within the discourse and its elements. A categorical analysis perspective considered the evidence of organizational learning that could be found by reviewing the set of documents produced by both WSCUC and the institution as part of the reaffirmation process. The review applied categorical frames adapted from the core strategies identified in Kezar and Eckel (2002b), the five disciplines proposed by Senge (2006), and the six activities identified in Dill (1999). It looked for relationships and interdependencies developed in the content within and between documents. A narrative analysis perspective considered each institution and its relationship with WSCUC through a set of six systemic lenses expanded from the three proposed by Banathy (1995). Each perspective yielded insight into how institutions of higher education reflect on and describe an intentional pursuit of organizational sustainability and improvement, as well as how both institutions and their accreditor use the reaffirmation process to understand and support their own organizational learning. This study supported the position that multiple perspectives can provide better, though not comprehensive, understanding of a system, and that a system can apply these perspectives to design for its intended future.

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