Exploring Institutional Change at Three Ontario Colleges: 2002-2012

Legislative changes in 2000 and 2002 marked the beginning of the most dynamic period of change for the Ontario Colleges since their formation in 1965. Entering the time period of the study, the colleges were affected by large funding cuts in 1995/96 which created a condition where the colleges were forced to enhance existing, and create new, revenue streams. The Post-secondary Education Choice and Excellence Act, 2000 opened the possibility of offering degrees to the colleges. The Ontario Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology Act, 2002 altered the systemâ s governance structures to provide a new operational autonomy that allowed the colleges to pursue new revenue streams more flexibly. In addition, the 2002 Act included provisions for engaging in applied research at the colleges. The thesis applies a theoretical framework used in W.R. Scottâ s book (2000) Institutional Change and Healthcare Organizations: From professional dominance to managed care to analyze the changes within the Ontario College system and at the three colleges studied. The framework uses concepts from Resource Dependence Theory and Institutional Theory to define the material-resource and institutional environments respectively. Based on the contention that changes in these two environments provide evidence of institutional change, this thesis examines the material-resource and institutional environments over the period of the study, providing a description of the changes at the colleges. The study contains a survey of system-level changes, and an examination of the three individual case studies of Ontario colleges in response to those changes. The study was conducted using a qualitative case-study approach, using archival documents and a total of 26 in-depth semi-structured interviews of key policy actors and senior administrators at each college participating in the study. In the decade following the legislative changes, colleges adopted more activities and engaged with more stakeholders outside of the college, thus the operating environment of the colleges became more complex. The external environmental complexity was reflected onto the internal organizational structure of the colleges. As a result, each college reorganized in terms of structure, expertise it contained and more profoundly, it changed how and why the college made the decisions that it did.Ph.D