HE-D05 — Institutional Change Management

Course Code: HE-D05  |  School: School of Higher Education  |  Cluster: Institutional Development

Level: Advanced  |  Estimated duration: 6 weeks (approximately 40 hours)  |  Language: English  |  Certificate: Professional Certificate (non-degree)  |  Format: Self-paced with AI support under human supervision

Overview

Change initiatives in universities fail at a rate that would be considered scandalous in any other sector, and they fail in consistent ways. A new structure is announced, a consultation is held after the decision, implementation is delegated to people without capacity, the initiative is declared complete, and practice reverts within two years. This course studies that pattern closely enough to design around it.

The theoretical core is the distinction between technical and adaptive challenges drawn from Heifetz and Linsky. Technical problems have known solutions and can be solved by authority and expertise; adaptive challenges require the people involved to change their beliefs, habits and loyalties, and authority alone cannot produce that. Most failed university change programmes are adaptive challenges treated as technical ones.

Adrianna Kezar’s synthesis of change theories in higher education, and Paul Trowler’s work on the disciplinary cultures through which any change is refracted, give learners the tools to predict where a specific change will meet resistance and why. Karl Weick’s account of loose coupling explains why a decision made centrally frequently produces no change at all at the point of practice.

Learning outcomes

On completion, a successful learner will be able to:

1. Distinguish technical from adaptive challenges and select change approaches appropriate to each.
2. Apply multiple theories of organisational change to a specific institutional initiative and compare their predictions.
3. Analyse disciplinary and departmental cultures and predict how a proposed change will be received in each.
4. Explain loose coupling and design implementation that reaches the point of practice.
5. Design a change process with sequencing, participation, communication and capacity provision.
6. Anticipate resistance, distinguish its legitimate from its defensive forms, and respond appropriately to each.
7. Build monitoring and sustainment mechanisms that prevent reversion after formal completion.

Who this course is for

Senior and middle leaders responsible for implementing institutional change, project and programme managers in university settings, human resources and organisational development staff, and consultants working with higher education clients.

Prerequisites

Experience of working through at least one institutional change initiative, successful or otherwise. This is an advanced course; HE-D02 University Strategy and Leadership is a natural companion.

Syllabus

Module 1 — Why University Change Fails

The failure pattern is consistent enough to be diagnostic, and studying it is more useful than studying success stories written by those who led them. This module builds the failure taxonomy from real cases.

Lessons. 1.1 Documented patterns of failed higher education change  ·  1.2 Announcement as substitute for implementation  ·  1.3 Consultation after decision and the loss of legitimacy  ·  1.4 Reversion: why practice returns after formal completion

Deliverable. A diagnostic note anatomising one failed change initiative you observed, identifying the specific point at which it failed.

Module 2 — Technical and Adaptive Challenges

Treating an adaptive challenge as technical is the single most common category error in institutional change. The module teaches the diagnosis and its consequences for approach.

Lessons. 2.1 Heifetz and Linsky on adaptive leadership  ·  2.2 Diagnosing whether a challenge is technical, adaptive or mixed  ·  2.3 Regulating distress and the pace of adaptive work  ·  2.4 The personal risk of leading adaptive change

Deliverable. An analytical brief classifying one proposed institutional change as technical, adaptive or mixed, with the consequences for approach set out.

Module 3 — Theories of Change and Their Predictions

Change theories are not interchangeable: each predicts different obstacles and prescribes different first moves. The module applies several to one case and compares their predictions.

Lessons. 3.1 Kezar’s typology of change theories in higher education  ·  3.2 Planned change models and their assumptions  ·  3.3 Political, cultural and social cognition approaches  ·  3.4 Selecting a theory to fit the change and the institution

Deliverable. A design artefact: an application of three change theories to one initiative, with each theory’s predicted obstacles and prescribed first actions.

Module 4 — Culture, Coupling and the Point of Practice

A decision taken centrally is refracted through departmental cultures and may never reach the classroom or the laboratory. This module designs implementation that survives that refraction.

Lessons. 4.1 Trowler on disciplinary cultures and teaching and learning regimes  ·  4.2 Weick on loose coupling in educational organisations  ·  4.3 Schein’s levels of culture and the diagnosis of assumptions  ·  4.4 Reaching the point of practice: local translation and adaptation

Deliverable. An evaluation report mapping how one change will be received in three different departmental cultures, with tailored implementation for each.

Module 5 — Resistance, Capacity and Sustainment

Resistance is often the most accurate information available about a change, and dismissing it as obstruction discards that information. The module treats resistance analytically and designs for sustainment.

Lessons. 5.1 Legitimate objection, defensive routine and self-interest distinguished  ·  5.2 Capacity: workload, skill and time as preconditions for change  ·  5.3 Communication that admits cost and uncertainty  ·  5.4 Monitoring, reinforcement and the prevention of reversion

Deliverable. An implementation plan with a resistance analysis, capacity provision, communication sequence and a two-year sustainment mechanism.

Module 6 — Capstone: A Change Design

The capstone designs a complete change process for a real institutional challenge and is assessed on whether it would still be in place two years after launch.

Lessons. 6.1 Diagnosing the challenge type  ·  6.2 Selecting theory and approach  ·  6.3 Designing implementation to the point of practice  ·  6.4 Building sustainment and honest evaluation

Deliverable. A 3,000-word change design for one real institutional challenge, including challenge diagnosis, theoretical framing, cultural analysis, implementation sequence, resistance response and sustainment plan.

Assessment

Pass mark 70 per cent. All assessed components must be attempted. Every mark in this course is issued by a human assessor; no assessment outcome is generated automatically.

Rubric criteria

Each assessed artefact is marked against four criteria at four levels (distinction, pass with merit, pass, fail).

1. Diagnostic accuracy. The technical or adaptive nature of the challenge is correctly identified and drives the design.
2. Theoretical application. Change theories generate specific predictions rather than decorative framing.
3. Cultural specificity. Implementation is tailored to identified departmental and disciplinary realities.
4. Durability. The design plausibly survives the departure of its sponsor and the passage of two years.

Reading list

Core. Kezar, A. (2018) How Colleges Change: Understanding, Leading, and Enacting Change, 2nd edn. New York: Routledge.

• Heifetz, R. A. and Linsky, M. (2017) Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Change, revised edn. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press.
• Weick, K. E. (1976) ‘Educational Organizations as Loosely Coupled Systems’, Administrative Science Quarterly, 21(1), pp. 1–19.
• Trowler, P. (2008) Cultures and Change in Higher Education: Theories and Practices. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Schein, E. H. (2017) Organizational Culture and Leadership, 5th edn. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
• Kotter, J. P. (2012) Leading Change. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press.

Academic integrity and use of AI

Generative AI may be used in this course as a drafting, translation and critique aid, and its use must be disclosed. Every submission carries a short use-of-AI statement naming the tools used, the tasks they performed and the checks the learner applied to the output. Using AI to fabricate data, invent sources, impersonate an interview participant, or produce an artefact the learner cannot explain in a live viva is prohibited.

All citations are verified before submission; a reference that cannot be located by the assessor is treated as fabricated. Fabrication, plagiarism and undisclosed ghost-authorship result in failure of the component and referral to the academic integrity panel. Marks in this course are issued by human assessors, and any learner may be asked to defend a submission orally before a mark is confirmed.