Compatibility, profitability, and leadership: Successful innovation and the culture of higher education

This case study focuses on the culture of one selective liberal arts college. The host institution\u27s culture provides the context for explaining the persistence and success of an innovative adult degree program. The research design is rooted in the naturalistic paradigm which takes a holistic, process-oriented view. The research took place over a full academic year at the site, utilizing a hybrid methodology which included a gamut of qualitative techniques as well as a quantitatively-scored questionnaire to elicit both an historical and current perspective of key participants. An initial reading of the literature on innovation in higher education pointed to the hypothesis that compatibility with the host institution\u27s values and norms and profitability for that institution are necessary and sufficient factors in insuring the success of an innovation (Levine, 1980). Findings from this dissertation corroborate the importance of these factors but suggest that they are not sufficient to account for the success of this particular innovation. The additional feature which emerges from this research is the crucial role of leadership in shaping positive perceptions that an innovation meets the criteria of compatibility and profitability. The critical leadership is two-dimensional: first, there must be an innovative policy entrepreneur who initiates the innovation, then skillful managers must lead it from early stages of development through maturation. In this case, the host institution\u27s core values centered on the faculty\u27s sense of their college as primarily a teaching institution at which serious, self-motivated students, exemplified by the adult students, are highly valued. Moreover, the centrality of the teacher-student interaction was affirmed as a key norm; therefore, features of the innovation which differed from these values were not sustained over time. The value of collegiality between the faculty and the program director and significant administrative autonomy which characterized the program\u27s governance also emerged as central. These findings point to a model for the successful persistence of an innovation in higher education which can be utilized for subsequent comparative case studies. This study should be of interest both to practitioners in adult higher education as well as to theorists concerned with innovation and institutional culture