Universities as learning organisations--or not

Abstract: Increasingly in recent times universities funded by national or state legislatures have implemented management strategies that involve tensions between dollarship and scholarship. While fiscal pressures have created difficulties for universities it will be argued that emerging problems are attributable substantially to internal decision making. In developing corporate identities institutions have introduced management practices adapted from business and industry, but the presence of delayed feedback means that outcomes have been problematic. This typical systems outcome undermines the intentions of administrators who have tended to assume rapid and direct outcomes from initiatives. Pressures to achieve results, and competitive aspects introduced at all levels, have implications for relationships, both structural and personal, that are fundamental to the operation of a ‘learning organisation ’ culture. The paper discusses a range of system properties and behaviours in relation to the disciplines of organisational learning, inferring that such institutions are presently some distance from this culture