The Bureaucracy of Change: More Bureaucracy or More Change?

Abstract

In spring 2004, the senior executive team of Glonacal U decided that the university had to become more proactive in organizing its human and financial resources to enhance global engagement and competitiveness. Glonacal U had been known throughout Dreamland for its research scale and intensity. However, after the government announced that Dreamland should be seeking to project a new global image, the university’s stakeholders began to worry about Glonacal U’s weak engagement with international markets. Moreover, several internationally-engaged and powerful scientists voiced the opinion that the university still had to do a lot of work to become significant globally. Glonacal U had a well-established international infrastructure. However, its International Programs Office (IPO), reporting to the Vice-President for Research and International Relations, consisted of only several people. The IPO argued that the infrastructure was fragmented - various units within the Steering Hall (SH) channeled demands in research, international development, student exchange, student recruitment, and alumni relations without reporting to the IPO. In the previous 10 or 20 years, each administrative unit cultivated its own networks or “market niches” (in neoliberal speak) without coordinating its outreach with others. Managers of those units felt that they were efficient and resilient enough to respond to multiple demands, and the changing global environment. As reasonable as it might have looked to the SH managers, the fragmented approach often left a regrettable impression on many other institutional stakeholders. One senior administrator reflected on the situation by arguing that “the left hand [did] not know what the right hand [was] doing” [SC].