Abstract
A powerful set of projections has constructed post-apartheid higher education in South Africa. Among these is the expectation that technikons (institutions similar to the British polytechnics) would become universities of technology, with a mission to drive the technology of national reconstruction and development. In this paper, one of the new universities of technology serves as a case study to explore organizational structure and to highlight the ethics of university management and leadership. Building a new university provides the opportunity to place ethics “upfront”, rather than as an afterthought, by constructing an organizational framework that makes ethical issues integral to management and decision-making processes. In imagining the structure of a university of technology, the authors were inspired by future scripting methods developed by Bastiaan De Laat, and by Duncan Den Boer, Arie Rip and Sandra Speller. The research process firstly involved the identification of themes related to values and ethics through an analysis of the environment. These themes were incorporated into three scenarios of possible futures for this new university type. Using these scenarios, the ethical issues that emerged (according to how the university of technology might choose to organise itself), are compared with the original themes. Conclusions are then drawn with regard to management structures that are hierarchical and entrench compliance, or that are traditionally collegiate and expertise-based, or that might enable mutual appreciation and allow for leaders to emerge within any functional space at a university of technology.
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Notes
New Public Management is a term first introduced by scholars in the field of public administration in the United Kingdom and Australia. It describes the approach that is an attempt to apply private sector business management principles to public service organisations in order to increase efficiency.
In his earlier work on innovative universities (Clark 1998), Clark formulated five common elements of successful innovative universities: a diversified funding base, a strengthened steering core, an expanded outreach periphery, a stimulated academic heartland and an integrated entrepreneurial culture. These have been criticized as underestimating the importance of the level of deans, research institutes, and research performers (Rip and Kulati 2015). Elements could still be used selectively to further articulate scenarios presented here.
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Engel-Hills, P., Winberg, C. & Rip, A. Ethics “Upfront”: Generating an Organizational Framework for a New University of Technology. Sci Eng Ethics 25, 1705–1720 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-019-00140-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-019-00140-0