An Organizational Analysis of Technical Institutions

Abstract

In the 1960's technical colleges expanded rapidly in response to economic, social, political pressures, and to technical changes, which led to greater organizational complexity. The extension of democratic ideas in society found expression in movements by teachers for greater participation in the government of educational institutions, and to an extension of their professional role. With the growing complexity of educational institutions more attention was focused on educational administration involving the application of behavioural sciences to organizational problems and analysis. The research had its origins in these developments, which had their impact on technical colleges through changing forms of government proposed by the Department of Education and Science. Academic Boards were established in colleges following Circular 7/70. But there was little research on colleges as organizations, and the aim of the research was to analyse the operation of colleges, the degree of participation by staff in decision-making processes, the effectiveness of participative forms of government, patterns of control, and management systems. A questionnaire was designed to measure organizational variables, the extent of participation in decision making processes, and the patterns of influence in colleges.  It was distributed to staffs in a sample of six colleges selected on the basis of size and form of government. Analysis of the data indicated that colleges tended to be authoritative organizations, with only one college having a consultative system. Decision-making was centralized, colleges had hierarchies of authority over areas of work and within the academic board, with managers having a great deal of influence and rank and file staff little influence. Academic board government had not led to participative types of organization with a wider distribution of influence in decision-making processes. The size of college was not an important factor in determining the characteristics of organization control structures and decision-making processes. A comparative analysis of the colleges found that management systems were related to control structures. Colleges with authoritative systems had autocratic structures. The one college with a consultative management system had a control structure with polyarchic characteristics.