DOMINANT COALITIONS AND DOMINANT GENERAL MANAGEMENT LOGIC: A CASE STUDY OF COMMUNITY COLLEGE DEGREE COMPLETION

By

Lucian Anthony Leone

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to Michigan State University

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a degree of

Higher Education Administration – Doctor of Philosophy

2016

ABSTRACT

DOMINANT COALITIONS AND DOMINANT GENERAL MANAGEMENT LOGIC: A CASE STUDY OF

COMMUNITY COLLEGE DEGREE COMPLETION

By

Lucian Anthony Leone

Community colleges in the United States are faced with several challenges, one of which is

increasing the percentage of students that earn an associate degree. Research (American Association of

Community Colleges, 2012; Amey, 2005; Eddy, 2010; Roueche, 2008) suggests that community college

administrators need to think, act, manage, and lead in ways not required or expected in earlier

generations. Significantly increasing the percentage of community college students that earn an

associate degree may require a change in the dominant general management logic (Bettis & Prahalad,

1986) of American community colleges. The dominant coalition is the group that creates and revises an

organization’s dominant general management logic. This study described the shared mental models of

members of the dominant coalition at one community college, and the relationship between those

shared mental models and the college’s performance as measured by the percentage of students who

earn an associate degree. The research explored the relationships between the dominant coalition’s

shared mental models, the community college’s dominant logic, and the college’s focus on associate

degree completion.

The research found that the Foundations Studies Committee, a group comprised of faculty, staff,

and senior leaders at the College, had a leading role in determining what the College would do to

improve the associate degree completion rate. This group has many of the attributes of a Professional

Learning Community (Lenning, et. al, 2013). Understanding the influence of Professional Learning

Communities on organizational development may be helpful as community college work to improve

performance on a range of outcomes metrics.

iii

I would like to dedicate this to my wife, Bernadette. Her support, encouragement and understanding

since I began my doctoral studies so many years ago have made this possible. Our daughter Leah has

only dim memories of a time when I wasn’t either taking classes or writing this dissertation. For

Dominic, Joseph, Gina, Leah, Angela, Kevin, JoJo, Luca, Gianna, Emma and Abby: “trust in the Lord, and

He will give you the desires of your heart”. I would also like to dedicate this to Angelo and Mary Grace

Leone. My father was an amazing example of faithfulness and commitment - to God, his family, and his

work. My mother instilled in me a deep belief that I could accomplish anything I put my mind to.

Thanks mom and dad. You are in my prayers.

Finally, I also dedicate this to fellow trekkers everywhere:

“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door," he used to say. "You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

Bilbo Baggins – The Lord of the Rings

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Acknowledgements

I could not have completed this process without the guidance and support of my faculty advisor,

Dr. Marilyn Amey. Thank you for sticking with me over the course of this journey. I would also like to

acknowledge my committee members for their commitment of time and interest in my study. I would

also like to acknowledge all of the faculty I have interacted with throughout the program for making this

a valuable learning experience. I would also like to acknowledge my colleagues at Lansing Community

College and Ferris State University who have provided both professional support and personal

encouragement. I deeply appreciate everything you have done. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the

participants in this study. I cannot thank them enough for their time, interest, and insightful responses

for this study.

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Table of Contents

LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................................................ vii LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................................................... viii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................... 1

Purpose of the Study ....................................................................................................................... 5 Definition of Terms ......................................................................................................................... 6

Dominant Coalition ............................................................................................................ 6 Dominant General Management Logic .............................................................................. 6 Learning Communities ....................................................................................................... 7 Tags .................................................................................................................................... 7

CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF LITERATURE ..................................................................................................... 8

Leadership ....................................................................................................................................... 9 Organizational and Cognitive Frames of Reference ...................................................................... 16 Mental Models .............................................................................................................................. 19 Dominant Logic ............................................................................................................................. 22

CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................... 30

Selection of Case ........................................................................................................................... 31 Data Collection ............................................................................................................................. 31 Analysis ......................................................................................................................................... 34 Validity ......................................................................................................................................... 35 Reliability ...................................................................................................................................... 35 Limitations ..................................................................................................................................... 36

CHAPTER FOUR: RESEARCH FINDINGS ....................................................................................................... 37

The Research Questions ................................................................................................................ 37 Great Lakes College ....................................................................................................................... 37 Interview Participants ................................................................................................................... 38

Leadership Council participants ....................................................................................... 38 Faculty participants .............................................................................................................. Administrator participants ............................................................................................... 40

The Dominant Coalition at Great Lakes College ........................................................................... 40 Leadership at Great Lakes College ................................................................................... 41 The Foundations Studies Committee as a key element in the dominant coalition .......... 43

The Shared Mental Models of the Dominant Coalition ................................................................ 45 Total commitment to student success ............................................................................. 45 Commitment to developmental and at-risk students ..................................................... 49 Relationships, not just transactions ................................................................................. 55 The importance of the Foundations Studies Committee ................................................. 60 Commitment to faculty and staff development .............................................................. 61 Curricular revisions to improve student success and completion ................................... 65 Data-driven decision-making, planning and accountability ............................................. 67

vi

Improving completion rates is complex ........................................................................... 70 Other themes expressed by some study participants ..................................................... 72

Getting the right people on the bus and in the right seats ................................ 72 Revisions to program and faculty review processes have been significant ....... 73 Students supporting students to improve completion ....................................... 74

The Impact of GLC’s Shared Mental Models on Degree Completion ........................................... 75 Summary of Findings: Conclusion ................................................................................................. 76

CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION ........................................................................................................................ 78

The Dominant Coalition at Great Lakes College ........................................................................... 79 The Shared Mental Model of the Dominant Coalition at Great Lakes College ............................. 81

Complexity Theory and the dominant logic at Great Lakes College ................................ 85 Organizational learning and degree completion .............................................................. 88 The shared mental model of the leadership team at Great Lakes College ...................... 91 The dominant coalition as a Professional Learning Community ..................................... 92 Constructive-developmental leadership theory at Great Lakes College ......................... 94

The relationship between the dominant logic of the dominant coalition and the College’s performance with respect to associate degree completion at Great Lakes College ................... 95 Implications for future research ................................................................................................. 101

APPENDICES ............................................................................................................................................. 104

Appendix A: Research Participant Information and Informed Consent Form ............................ 105 Appendix B: Interview Guide ....................................................................................................... 108 Appendix C: Mission, Vision, Statement of Beliefs and Values of Great Lakes College .............. 110

REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................................. 112

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Summary of fundamental complexity propositions and their general implications for leadership 12

Table 2. Three functions of presidential teams 13

Table 3. Single, Double, and Triple-loop learning 21

Table 4. Summary of themes at Great Lakes College 45

Table 5. Proposed community college dominant logics matrix 103

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. The dominant logic 4

Figure 2. The dominant coalition at Great Lakes College 41

Figure 3. Percentage of Students Earning a Degree or Transferring After 6 years 76

Figure 4. Astin’s Inputs-Environment-Outputs (I-E-O) model 98

Figure 5. Kolb’s learning cycle 100

1

Chapter One: Introduction

Degree completion rates are important to the vitality and competitiveness of the U.S. economy.

While it is projected that over 60% of the jobs in the U.S. economy will require a relevant post-

secondary degree (associate degree or higher) by 2018, based on current trends, less than 50% of

working-aged Americans will have a post-secondary degree by 2025 (Carnevale, Smith & Strohl, 2010;

Hussar & Bailey, 2011; Lumina Foundation for Education, 2009). These projections suggest the gap

between the educational demands of the U.S. workforce and the educational levels of that workforce is

significant and growing.

The Obama administration has sought to focus national attention and federal policy on

community college degree completion through a series of proposals in an effort to close this gap. In

February of 2009, in a joint session of Congress, President Obama set for a goal that “by 2020, America

will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world” (2009) (Retrieved from:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Investing-in-Education-The-American-Graduation-Initiative/). In

August 2013, the President announced his administration’s plan to develop a higher education rating

system. The intent of this system was to bring greater transparency to the value of a degree from any

college or university, public or private, which receives federal support. The key performance indicators

in the proposed system included degree completion rates, average student debt of graduates, job

placement rates for graduates, starting salaries for graduates, and how accessible the institutions are

with respect to admitting a diverse student population (Retrieved from http://www.whitehouse.gov/

the_press_office/Remarks-of-President-Barack-Obama-Address-to-Joint-Session-of-Congress). In

January 2015, the president announced his proposal to make two years of community college free for

students attending at least half-time who maintained a 2.5 grade point average (2015) (Retrieved from:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog /2015/01/08/president-proposes-make-community-college-free-

responsible-students-2-years). In lieu of a college rating system, the Obama administration launched

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Investing-in-Education-The-American-Graduation-Initiative/http://www.whitehouse.gov/http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog%20/2015/01/08/

2

the College Scorecard website in September of 2015. This site provides information on completion

rates, graduate salaries, and cost of attendance for most of the country’s colleges and universities

(www.collegescorecard.ed.gov).

In an effort to focus U.S. community colleges on degree completion, state governments are

establishing performance-based funding models (PBF). Performance funding is based on the belief that

“if you put a pot of money out there, people would change their behavior in order to chase that money”

(Dougherty & Reddy, 2011, p. 2). I would suggest that a fundamental problem with performance

funding is the often indirect connection to the place where the student experience is most significantly

impacted – in the classroom, with faculty. Incentive systems which do not directly connect to what is

going on in the classroom are likely to be ineffective in improving community college associate degree

completion rates. For significant change to occur, faculty and staff may need to be involved and

engaged in learning communities focused specifically on course completion as well as degree

completion (CCSSE, 2014; Dougherty & Reddy, 2011; Driscoll & Wood, 2007; Lenning, et al., 2013;

Sorcinelli, et al., 2006).

Though federal and state-level policy initiatives may have value, research suggests that

significant improvement in associate degree completion rates is not likely to occur unless and until

community college leaders, managers and faculty think differently with respect to their mission and

vision, and how they must function in an increasingly complex environment (Alfred, Shults, Jaquette, &

Strickland, 2009; American Association of Community Colleges, 2012; Amey, 2005; Bailey, Jaggars, &

Jenkins, 2015; Eddy, 2010; Roueche, et al., 2008). Research from the business management literature

suggests the need for a revised dominant general management logic (or dominant logic) (Prahalad &

Bettis, 1986).

Initially proposed to help explain corporate diversification strategy, dominant general

management logic represents organizational “beliefs, theories, and propositions that have developed

http://www.collegescorecard.ed.gov/

3

over time based on the managers’ personal experiences” (Prahalad & Bettis, 1986, p. 489). Dominant

logics are shaped by the dominant coalition in the organization, which includes the senior executives

responsible for developing strategic priorities and direction. The dominant logic permits managers and

staff throughout the organization “to categorize an event, assess its consequences, and consider

appropriate action (including doing nothing), and to do so rapidly and often efficiently” (Prahalad &

Bettis, 1986, p. 490).

The dominant logic can be understood as the organization’s “data filter” (see figure 1). As data

come into the organization, the dominant general management logic determines what data are worth

review and potential action, and what data can be ignored. As the organization determines what data

are important and worth attention, the dominant logic then determines how those data are processed

in the organization, and how the organization will respond (Prahalad & Bettis, 1986). The concept of

dominant logic has been applied to higher education in the United Kingdom (Smith, Gidney, Barclay &

Rosenfeld, 2002), but does not appear to have been studied in relation to the American community

college system. Examining the implications of this concept in an American community college context

may be helpful in enhancing our understanding of the factors that need to be addressed if we are going

to improve degree completion rates at community colleges in the United States.

The dominant logic in place in most community colleges focuses on student access - making it as

easy as possible to begin a college program. Research suggests community colleges need to revise their

dominant logic from a focus on student access to a focus on student access and success (American

Association of Community Colleges, 2012; Bailey, Jaggars, & Jenkins, 2015). The dominant logic needs to

shift from a focus on beginning a degree program to a focus on beginning and completing the program.

It seems reasonable to conclude that significant improvement in degree completion rates will not occur

4

unless community colleges, including senior leadership, administration, faculty and staff embrace

degree completion as a primary focus and make the necessary changes so that greater numbers of

students earn a degree. Though addressing the funding models may be helpful, changing the dominant

logic in community colleges will require community colleges to embrace a new paradigm from within.

Doing so may require functioning more like a learning organization (Torres & Preskill, 2001) where

colleges are capable of “continually monitoring their performance, identifying problems, devising

strategies to resolve them, and evaluating how well those strategies work” (Jenkins, 2011; Kerrigan,

2010; as cited in Dougherty & Reddy, 2011, pp. 50-51).

If we are going to understand a community college’s dominant logic, it is important to

understand how senior administrators, faculty and staff in the college see the world, and make sense of

it for themselves and for others (Amey, 1992; Bolman & Deal, 2003; Eddy, 2003; Fairhurst & Sarr, 1996;

Kuhnert & Lewis, 1987; Smircich & Morgan, 1982; Weick, 1995). We need to understand the shared

mental models of the college’s leaders, faculty and staff (Porac, et. al., 1989). Bolman and Deal (1984,

5

2013) consolidated the key themes of organizational thought into four perspectives, which they labeled

“frames”. Their conception of frames was meant to include a range of concepts in the organizational

and psychological literature – “mental models, maps, mind-sets, schema, and cognitive lenses, to name

a few” (Bolman & Deal, 1984, p. 12). According to the authors, a frame is “a set of assumptions you

carry in your head” (p. 12); they can be “windows on the world of leadership and management” (p. 12).

Frames have both a cognitive element and a behavioral element. As Eddy (2003) suggests, community

college leaders first frame events for themselves, so they can then frame events for others.

Understanding the organizational frames of the members of a community college’s dominant coalition

and how those frames relate to each other may be important in understanding how a college’s

dominant logic is developed and maintained.

Purpose of the Study

Community colleges in the United States are faced with several challenges, one of which is

increasing the percentage of students that earn an associate degree. Research suggests that

community college administrators need to think, act, manage, and lead in ways not required or

expected in earlier generations (American Association of Community Colleges, 2012; Amey, 2005; Eddy,

2010; Roueche, 2008). Significantly increasing the percentage of community college students that earn

an associate degree may require a change in the dominant general management logics (Prahalad &

Bettis, 1986) of many American community colleges. In order to understand a community college’s

dominant logic, it is important to begin by understanding the group that shapes the dominant logic - the

dominant coalition. Prahalad and Bettis (1986) suggested that the dominant coalition included senior-

level executives. In a community college context, the dominant coalition may include faculty and/or

administrators who are not a part of the senior leadership group. This study described the shared

mental models of members of the dominant coalition at one community college, and the relationship

between those shared mental models and the college’s performance as measured by the percentage of

6

students who earn an associate degree. The research explored the relationships between the dominant

coalition’s shared mental models, the community college’s dominant logic, and the college’s focus on

associate degree completion.

The research questions guiding this research were:

1) Who are the members of the college’s dominant coalition working to improve the college’s

associate degree completion rate?

2) What are the shared mental models of the dominant coalition?

3) What is the relationship between the dominant logic of the dominant coalition and the college’s

performance with respect to associate degree completion?

Definition of Terms

Several terms are helpful in pursuing this research.

Dominant coalition.

A collection of individuals (top managers or senior administrators) who have significant influence on the

way the firm is managed. The dominant coalition determines the strategic direction and priorities of the

firm. In a diversified firm these would be the corporate-level senior executives, as opposed to the

business unit leaders (Prahalad & Bettis, 1986). The dominant coalition is the group that creates and

maintains the organization’s dominant general management logic.

Dominant General Management Logic.

The dominant general management logic (or dominant logic) is a shared mental model developed in an

organization that influences how the organization thinks about and makes sense of the environment in

which it operates; “it is stored as a shared cognitive map (or set of schemas) among the dominant

coalition” (Prahalad & Bettis, 1986, p. 491). The concept of dominant logic is grounded in Kuhn’s (1970)

work on scientific paradigms. Allison (1971) characterized a paradigm as a set of assumptions, concepts,

and propositions that constitute a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them.

7

Learning Communities.

Lenning, et. al., (2013) define a learning community (LC) as “an intentionally developed community that

exists to promote and maximize the shared learning of its members (p. 7). The authors propose three

types of learning communities in higher education:

1) Student Learning Communities (SLCs) are “small groups of student intentionally organized

(structurally and process-wise) for student-student, student-faculty, and student-curriculum

interactions” (p. 7).

2) Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) are “groups of faculty, staff, or both organized into

small study, planning and implementation groups for collaboration on developing and

implementing strategies for contributing to optimum student learning” (p. 7).

3) Learning Organizations (LOs) are “organizations in which the entire institution (or a primary

structural entity therein) succeeds in organizing itself – including the organization-wide culture,

leadership and a preponderance of its members throughout – in ways that authentically

transform the whole organization into an intentional LC organized to maximize all members’

learning in relation to one or more dimension of knowledge (p. 8).

Tags.

A concept in complexity theory that describes any structure or information which enables or speeds up

certain social behaviors. A tag can include a new technology, an idea, a symbol (such as a flag), a

symbolic act, a group myth or a belief. A tag can also be a leader. Leadership tags emerge out of, and

owe their existence to, interactive dynamics. That is, they rarely (possibly never) create an interactive

dynamic themselves; rather they are produced by the dynamic:

Martin Luther King did not create the civil rights movement, rather he catalyzed its

development. Churchill did not win the Battle over Great Britain, but he symbolized British

courage. Nonetheless tags are of significant importance in the development and nourishment

of emergent dynamics, and they demonstrate how leaders can be, and often are, involved in

autocatalysis. (Marion & Uhl-Bein, 2001, p. 398).

8

Chapter Two: Review of the Literature

The literature review includes four sections: Leadership; Organizational and Cognitive Frames;

Mental Models; and Dominant Logics. Research suggests that new conceptions of leadership will be

necessary if community colleges are going to significantly improve outcomes with fixed or reduced

resources (Bailey, Jaggars & Jenkins, 2015; Eddy, 2010). The most widely used leadership models today

are rooted in fairly hierarchical, bureaucratic models which are not well-suited for the current

environment (Eddy, 2010). Given the growing range of issues which community colleges are being

required to address, it is important that senior administrators understand how to be effective leaders in

increasingly complex environments (Eddy, 2010). Several authors (Bergquist & Pawlak, 2008; Eddy &

Lawrence, 2012) suggest that technological advancement and the internet have great potential to create

more relevant and rich learning environments for students, faculty and staff. These same factors,

however, add to the complexity in the higher education environment. Given this growing complexity,

community college senior administrators need to have the ability to frame strategic issues from multiple

perspectives to effectively engage faculty and staff in their work to positively influence degree

completion (Eddy, 2010). Senior administrators need to not only understand their own mental models,

they need to understand the mental models of their colleagues, as well as the mental models of those

groups or teams developed to address important issues, such as degree completion (Jones, Ross, Lynam,

Perez, & Leitch, 2011). These teams need to be able to think as a team, use data to appropriately inform

their recommendations, and then develop and implement strategies and tactics that will improve

organizational performance (Bensimon, 1991; Bensimon & Neumann, 1993). Research suggests that

community colleges need to focus on becoming learning organizations (Lenning, et. al., 2013; Senge,

1990; Torres & Preskill, 2001) if they hope to be successful in improving degree completion rates while

providing educational opportunity to an increasingly diverse student population. Understanding how a

community college’s dominant logic (Prahalad & Bettis, 1986) is developed and transformed may be

9

important for community college senior administrators working to improve the associate degree

completion rate at their institution.

Leadership

Twombly (1995) reviewed four distinct eras of community college leadership in the 20th century.

From around 1900 to 1930, community college presidents were seen as “the hero” – an independent

leader with a strong vision and the ability to inspire others to follow that vision. In the 1940s and 1950s,

community college leaders sought independence from secondary schools and began to create a more

distinct identity. The 1960s and 1970s were a period of significant growth in the community college

sector as the baby boomers entered higher education. This era was one in which strong, dominant

leaders were needed to give the community college movement a clear voice in the higher education

sector. In the last twenty years of the century, community college leaders began to seriously wrestle

with the challenges of limited resources and how those resources would be allocated between the

multiple missions of the colleges (Roueche, et al., 1989). In the 21st century, community colleges are

attempting to serve several distinct, and, at times, conflicting roles, including career training in grey

collar professions (allied health, law enforcement, technology, etc.), transfer education, developmental

education for students not prepared for college-level work, and life-long and continuing education. At

the same time, they are expected to fulfill these responsibilities with little or no additional resources.

Government funding is being tied to performance as opposed to enrollment as evidenced by the fact

that community colleges are increasingly funded based on their ability to achieve outcomes (Dougherty

& Reddy, 2011). Given these changes with respect to mission, performance, and funding, researchers

are suggesting that community colleges are best understood as complex organizations in a complex

environment (Amey, 2005; Eddy, 2010).

As environments become more complex, organizations need to adopt more shared or team-

based approaches to leadership (Allen & Cherrey, 2000; Amey, 2005; Bennis, 1989; Colvill, Brown & Pye,

10

2012; Eddy, 2010; Heifetz, 1994; Katz & Kahn, 1978 Rost, 1993; Schneider & Somers, 2006; Wheatley,

1999). Given that the dominant logic is a shared mental model among top managers, understanding

how senior administrators share information and work together is important. Several scholars (Allen &

Cherrey, 2000; Bennis, 1989; Colvill, Brown & Pye, 2012; Heifetz, 1994; Katz & Kahn, 1978 Rost, 1993;

Schneider & Somers, 2006; Uhl-Bein, Marion & McKelvey, 2007; Wheatley, 1999) noted that society has

shifted to a knowledge-based, networked world and new approaches to leading, learning and

influencing change are necessary. These scholars argue that organizations have many of the attributes

of complex systems and we can enhance our understanding of organizations and leadership if we view

them through the lens of complexity theory (Marion, 1999; Marion & Uhl-Bien, 2001; Schneider &

Somers, 2006). Given the growing number of issues that community college senior administrators need

to address (Amey, 2005; Eddy, 2010), understanding leadership from a complexity perspective may

provide some insight into the issues and challenges faced by community college senior administrators in

the second decade of the 21st century.

Complexity Leadership Theory (CLT) is based on four important ideas:

- Organizational systems and leadership are socially constructed;

- There is a distinction between leaders and leadership;

- A focus on adaptive leadership which occurs in emergent, informal dynamics throughout the

organization;

- Leadership in the Knowledge Era occurs in the face of adaptive challenges rather than

technical problems. (Uhl-Bien, Marion & McKelvey, 2007)

A key assumption of complexity theory is that some events are unknowable until the event

occurs (Eve, Horsfall, & Lee, 1997). From a complex systems perspective, organizational strategy is not,

fundamentally, the result of deliberate planning (Porter, 1985), but tends to emerge over time

(Mintzberg, 1991) as the organization and the environment interact. Leadership is seen as an indirect

11

process which influences organizational identity serving as a kind of “rudder” (Albert, Ashforth &

Dutton, 2000, p. 13). In this context leaders serve as tags and influence other persons and processes

(Holland, 1995; Marion, 1999, 2002; Marion & Uhl-Bien, 2001). Tags are associated with action and

outcomes, not necessarily with individuals or positions. Tags serve as change agents in a given context

or about a particular issue. These researchers, therefore, prefer to use the term “leadership” rather

than the term “leader” which often implies that organizational position determines who will lead

(Schneider & Somers, 2006). This is relevant for this study in that it suggests that the dominant coalition

in a complex organization may include members who are not senior administrators. It may be the case

that faculty and staff in the community college outside of the executive leadership team assume

leadership roles in creating a culture that is focused on improving degree completion rates. Given the

significance of tags (other key players and potential change agents) and their impact on organizational

adaptation, it may be important for community college presidents to understand how to identify and

leverage tags in their college if they hope to impact institutional performance related to degree

completion, or any other important outcome. Tags are not necessarily determined by the college’s

senior leadership team (Holland, 1995; Marion, 1999, 2002; Marion & Uhl-Bien, 2001), and they may not

be in positions of traditional authority in a given setting.

Marion and Uhl-Bein (2001, p. 395) have proposed three fundamental complexity propositions

and their general implications for leadership (see Table 1 below). In complex environments, leaders do

not exercise direct control over the actions and outcomes of the organization. Leadership has a more

indirect influence on organizational activity by facilitating the development of teams that have

internalized the organization’s mission and adjust their behaviors to realize that mission. If community

colleges are operating in an increasingly complex environment and are going to successfully pursue

multiple missions, then we would expect to see community college senior leaders facilitating the

development of teams of faculty and staff that are focused on student success and completion.

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Fundamental complexity proposition General Implications Practical Implications Specific Leader Behaviors

The behaviors of ensembles should be analyzed as products of the interactions of independent variables and of the interaction within and among ensembles

Effective leadership is learning to capitalize on interactive dynamics (correlation, randomness, interaction) among and with ensembles (i.e., individuals, departments, work groups, with common interrelationships)

Leaders cannot predict future behavior of ensembles, nor can they closely control futures with current interventions; leaders must foster interactive conditions that enable a productive future.

Complex leaders cultivate largely undirected interactions; focus on global interactions rather than controlling local events.

Correlation is the emergence of common understanding in interacting systems; it leads to a degree of dynamic stability.

With correlation comes a level of predictability and this provides statistical researchers with some measure of success in efforts to identity patterns in organizational behavior

Leaders can have a limited foreseeable and controllable impact on organizations because of correlation (this may be more so in some types of organizations than others).

Complex leaders foster interaction to enable correlation; enable people/work groups to work through conflicting constraints that inhibit their need preferences.

Unpredictability is a strong and pervasive element of interactive systems

Complex systems are subject to periodic surprises and their futures are ultimately unpredictable

Leaders cannot determine or control the ultimate futures of complex organizations

Complex leaders develop skills that enable productive surprises.

Table 1. Summary of fundamental complexity propositions and their general implications for leadership

In his seminal work on the importance of metaphors in understanding organizations, Morgan

proposes that complexity and chaos theorists see organizations as “flux and transformation” (Morgan,

2006). Managers and leaders are encouraged to reimagine what is meant by organization, especially the

nature of hierarchy and control (Morgan, 2006). More team-based, decentralized leadership models are

likely to be important to enhance the colleges’ ability to successfully accomplish a broader range of

outcomes.

Despite evidence from the business environment that teamwork leads to creative solutions and

high levels of commitment, colleges and universities lag behind in using a team approach to institutional

administration (Eddy & VanDerLinden, 2006; Frost & Gillespie, 1998, p.10). Though shared or team

leadership approaches seem to be an essential element of effective leadership in complex environments

and organizations, a 2006 study of community college leaders showed that only 1.9% of the

13

administrators surveyed talked about team leadership in their responses (Eddy & VanDerLinden, 2006).

This may suggest that community college senior administrators have not fully embraced the notion of

team leadership as integral to organizational performance and effectiveness.

One of the most cited studies of presidential teams was Bensimon and Neumann’s (1993)

research in which they studied presidential leadership teams at fifteen colleges and universities. One of

the significant findings of their research was that presidents who are effective team builders think in

complex ways about their leadership teams. Bensimon and Neumann (1993) identified three functions

of presidential teams: a utilitarian function, an expressive function, and a cognitive function. These

functions are summarized in table 2 (Bensimon & Neumann, 1993, p. 34).

Team Function Image Purpose Behavior Activities

Utilitarian Formal

Help president maintain a sense of rationality and maintain control over institutional functioning Task Related

Deliver information, coordinate and plan, make decisions

Expressive Social

Help reinforce a sense of groupness or connectedness among individual involved in a joint venture

Integrative, associative

Provide mutual support, provide counsel to the president

Cognitive Sensemaking

Enlarge span of intelligence of individual team members, enable the group to behave as a creative system, and also a corrective system

Intellective, dialogical

View problems from multiple perspectives; question, challenge, argue; act as a monitor and feedback system

Table 2. Three functions of presidential teams

Through this study, Bensimon and Neumann (1993) determined there were two basic types of

presidential leadership teams: real teams and illusory teams. They considered a leadership team to be

real if, when the president was describing the team, she or he indicated that the team performed at

least one activity in each of the functional domains. That is to say, presidents with real teams thought of

14

their teams in complex ways. Illusory teams, on the other hand, tended to focus their time and energy

on the utilitarian function; it was largely the case that illusory teams lacked both the expressive and

cognitive team functions. Of the three functions, the cognitive function is the most difficult for

presidents to understand and realize (Bensimon & Neumann, 1993). This would suggest that

community colleges that are improving student completion rates have leadership teams which exhibit

all three team functions. They would be particularly focused on and exhibit the cognitive team

function. Community college senior administrators need to understand not only how to create a “real”

team among the senior leaders, they need to also be able to create real teams among those faculty and

staff committed to addressing a strategic issue, such as degree completion.

With the new millennium, several scholars suggest a new era for community college leaders has

begun (Alfred, et al., 2009; Amey, 2005; Bailey, Jaggars, & Jenkins, 2015; Eddy, 2010; Hockaday &

Puyear, 2008; Roueche, et al., 2008): leaders as learners in a sector in transition. As the demands on

community colleges have increased, there is increased understanding that more team-focused models

of leadership are important. The ways in which individuals construct their own understanding of

leadership (Amey, 1992, 2005) have placed greater focus on leadership as learning. Amey (2005) argued

that community college leaders must be lifelong learners who must also facilitate learning among others

in the institution. They must also be able to think in complex ways and use multiple frames of reference

to understand a situation and aid others in understanding it (Bergquist & Pawlak, 2008; Eddy, 2003,

2010). From this perspective, leadership is a responsibility shared among senior administrators and with

managers and faculty throughout the institution.

The concept of shared leadership is distinct from team leadership. In an executive leadership

team, for example, team leadership implies that the president actively engages the other members of

the leadership team in all three leadership functions (Bensimon & Neumann, 1993). Shared leadership

is the process through which individuals in groups influence one another to achieve group or

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organizational goals or both (Gratton, 1993; Pearce & Conger, 2003). More than one person provides

significant leadership for the group. Various authors have used different names to describe shared

leadership - collective, collaborative, participatory, cooperative, democratic, fluid, inclusive, distributed,

relational and post-heroic - as noted in Allen and Cherry (2000). Though the terms highlight different

aspects of shared leadership, they share a common core concept – leadership can best be understood as

a group dynamic and process that focuses on the relationships between individuals as opposed to the

individuals themselves. For the purpose of this study, the essential relationships to understand are the

relationships among all those who are a part of the dominant coalition.

As both the mission of community colleges, and the environment in which they operate become

more complex, it is important to understand how managers, faculty and staff at community colleges

develop their abilities to make sense of all of the data that is available to them, and determine what

data will be attended to, and what data can be ignored or put aside. Constructive-developmental

leadership theory may be helpful in understanding how these stakeholder groups develop their abilities

to understand issues of student completion and success. Constructive-developmental theorists believe

that the systems by which people make meaning grow and change over time (downloaded from web,

October 12, 2015, http://www.shiftingthinking.org/?page_id=449; Kegan, 1994). Constructive

developmental theory differs from traditional leadership theories in that it focuses on the mindsets of

individuals and not specific traits or characteristics. Constructive developmental theory has its origins in

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, which focuses on the process of how individuals “come to

know” and the stages of mental growth individuals travel through acquiring this ability of “abstract

symbolic reasoning” (Hunter, Lewis, Ritter-Gooder, 2011, p. 1804). Constructive -developmental

theorists posit that “persons move through qualitatively different ways of knowing who they are, how

the world works, and how they know what they know” and that “leaders as individuals develop over

their life course and do so in predictable ways” (Hunter, Lewis, Ritter-Gooder, 2011, p. 1804).

http://www.shiftingthinking.org/?page_id=449

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From a constructive-developmental perspective, adult development occurs in two basic

dimensions – what we know (typically represented as horizontal growth), and how we know what we

know (visually represented as vertical growth). This vertical development involves transformations of

consciousness, seeing the world through new eyes, and changes in interpretations of experience and

view of reality (Baxter-Magolda, 1999; Hunter, Lewis, Ritter-Gooder, 2011, Kegan, 1994). Vertical

development is illustrated as an ever-widening evolutionary spiral of the stages of lived experience and

how the individual makes sense of those experiences. Vertical development moves from simple to

complex with an increase in autonomy, flexibility, tolerance for differences and ambiguity, and a

decrease in defenses (Baxter-Magolda, 1999; Hunter, Lewis, Ritter-Gooder, 2011, Kegan, 1994).

If community colleges are going to transition from an access-focused dominant logic to one

more directly focused on student completion, vertical development for faculty, staff, and leaders may be

essential. Most developmental psychologists agree that what differentiates leaders is not so much their

philosophy of leadership, their personality, or their style of management. Rather, it is their stage of

vertical development that impacts how they interpret their surroundings and react when their power or

safety is challenged (Kegan, 1994; Rooke & Torbert, 2005). Leaders in the highest constructive-

developmental stage are acutely aware of the complexity involved in meaning-making in the social

relationships in the organization and work to create personal and organizational transformations

(Hunter, Lewis, Ritter-Gooder, 2011).

Organizational and Cognitive Frames of Reference

If community college senior administrators are going to lead and manage differently, they will

need to think differently. How we think is, to a degree, a function of how and what we see (Weick,

1995). It is important, therefore, to review the literature related to how leaders and managers see the

world, and how they respond to what they see with a specific emphasis on organizational and cognitive

frames.

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Bolman and Deal (2003) consolidated the key themes of organizational thought into four

perspectives, which they labeled “frames”. Their conception of frames was meant to include a range of

concepts in the organizational and psychological literature – “mental models, maps, mind-sets, schema,

and cognitive lenses, to name a few” (p. 12). According to the authors, a frame is “a set of assumptions

you carry in your head”; they can be “windows on the world of leadership and management” (p. 12).

The authors note, however, that frames are “both windows on a territory and tools for navigation” (p.

13). That is to say, frames have both an interpretive dimension, influencing what an individual sees, and

a behavioral dimension, influencing how an individual chooses to communicate and act. Skillful leaders

are able to reframe situations and experiences to communicate their vision so others are able to see the

world from a new perspective (Eddy, 2003; Smircich & Morgan, 1982). Bolman and Deal (2003) and

others (Bensimon, et. al., 1989; Bergquist, 1993; Bergquist & Pawlak, 2008) also suggest that effective

leaders are able to see the world through multiple frames and “reframe” (Eddy, 2003; Fairhurst & Sarr,

1996; Smircich & Morgan, 1982) important issues and strategic challenges which confront the

organization in ways that result in positive outcomes. Eddy’s (2003) study of two community college

presidents concluded that one of the presidents used visionary framing, the other used operational

framing to facilitate organizational change on their campuses. The president who used visionary

framing, “sought to make connections between the future vision of the college and every day campus

life” (p. ii). The president who used operational framing presented challenges to the campus “as a series

of problems to solve using step-by-step procedures to aid campus members in obtaining short-term

goals. The focus was in the present moment” (p. ii). This would suggest that community college leaders

need to develop their skills in reframing if community colleges are going to improve outcomes related to

both access and success.

Birnbaum (1988, 1992) adapted Bolman and Deal’s (1984) model to better fit higher education,

and proposed four cognitive frames for higher education. Administrators who see their role through a

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bureaucratic frame tend to focus on the institution’s structure and organization. Bureaucratic

administration emphasizes setting priorities, making sound decisions, and communicating through

established lines of authority. Administrators who see their role through the collegial frame emphasize

goal attainment through collective action. These administrators attempt to develop consensus, develop

teams to solve problems, instill loyalty and commitment to the organization, and lead by example.

Administrators who use the political frame tend to focus on monitoring the internal and external

environments, and use influence to attract resources. These administrators make it a priority to build

relationships with important stakeholders, develop coalitions of support, negotiate compromises, and

communicate effectively. Administrators who use the symbolic frame focus on the management of

meaning through interpreting the institution’s history, maintaining its culture, and reinforcing its values.

Symbolic leaders use language, myths, stories and rituals to foster shared perceptions and beliefs

(Birnbaum, 1992, pg. 63-64). The ability to view the institution from multiple perspectives and interpret

events in a variety of ways is becoming increasingly important given the range of issues administrators

are attempting to address (Bergquist & Pawlak, 2008; Bolman & Deal, 1984, 2003). Community college

administrators have many roles, and those who can think, learn and act by using multiple frames are

more likely to be successful in revising the college’s dominant logic, should that be their intention

(Bergquist & Pawlak, 2008; Eddy, 2010).

Building on the work of Bolman and Deal (1984, 2003) and others (Fairhurst & Sarr, 1988;

Smircich & Morgan, 1982), Eddy (2003) studied two community colleges to better understand how

presidents used framing to facilitate change on a campus. Eddy’s notion of framing focused not on the

leader’s mental models, but on how the leader framed issues for others – framing as it relates to

interpersonal communication. Eddy found that one president used visionary framing to portray the

college as an outstanding college of technology while the other used operational framing which broke

the change initiative down into a series of problems to be solved. In both cases, leader cognition played

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a critical role in how change was presented to campus stakeholders. Eddy (2003) argues that leaders

cannot frame for others until they have first framed for themselves. It is essential that we understand a

leader’s mental model if we want to understand how that leader will frame a situation – either for her

or himself or for others.

Mental Models

There is a strong connection between how we see the world, what we decide to attend to as

important, and what we think (Weick, 1995). How we make sense of what we see is significantly

influenced by our mental models, which Senge (1990) defines as “deeply held internal images of how

the world works” (p. 174). In a complex, rapidly changing, networked environment, it is becoming a

core leadership requirement to be able to actively manage one’s mental models by testing, revising, and

refining one’s internal pictures of how the world works. Mental models affect what we do because they

affect what we see. “Although people do not (always) behave congruently with their espoused theories

(what they say), they do behave congruently with their theories-in-use (their mental models)” (Argyris &

Schön, 1978 as cited in Senge, 1990, p. 175). Though we can gain some insight into an individual’s

mental models through interviews, Argyris and Schön (1978) suggest it is more important to observe

what people do than to record what those people may say. It is likely the case that most community

college senior administrators will indicate, when asked, that degree completion rates are an important

institutional priority. Developing an understanding of what they are, in fact doing and have done to

improve degree completion is of greater importance if we want to understand their theories-in-use.

Research on mental models and cognitive maps comes from several disciplines, including

cognitive psychology, social psychology, organizational behavior, decision science, and communication.

Scottish psychologist Kenneth Craik’s The Nature of Explanation (1943) provides a conceptual

foundation for much of this writing and research:

If the organism carries a “small-scale model” of external reality and of its own possible actions

within its head, it is able to try out various alternatives, conclude which is the best of them,

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react to future situations before they arise, utilize the knowledge of past events in dealing with

the present and the future, and in every way to react in a much fuller, safer, and more

competent manner to the emergencies which face it. (Craik, 1943, Ch. 5. p. 61)

Though early research on mental models focused on the individual, it has been shown that

groups of individuals, and even groups of firms in an industry, can develop shared mental models that

significantly influence how the firms compete and collaborate. For example, in a study of the Scottish

knitwear industry, Porac, Thomas, and Baden-Fuller (1989), argue that “one important link between

group-level and firm-level competitive phenomena are the mental models used by key decision makers

to interpret the task environment of their organization” (p. 398). This research focused on the

similarities and differences in the organizational mental models of firms competing in the Scottish

knitwear industry. Porac, et al. (1989) suggest that human behavior can best be understood as a

process of subjective interpretation of objective events which over time, leads to a socially-reinforced

view of the world, or shared mental model. Among their conclusions the authors found that the shared

mental models among competitive firms had a stabilizing influence on the transactions between the

firms and their suppliers. Though they were not involved in overt collusion, each of the firms could

operate with a high level of confidence regarding the actions of other firms in their competitive space.

Porac, et al.’s (1989) findings suggest that the process through which industries exhibit the

characteristics of an oligarchy finds its roots in the shared mental models of managers in multiple firms

in the industry. If firms in a competitive industry such as Scottish knitwear develop shared mental

models, then it seems reasonable to believe that a less competitive, more cooperative sector such as

community colleges would be even more inclined to develop shared mental models. Though these

shared mental models may be useful in promoting efficient operations, they may be a significant barrier

when fundamentally changing those models, or “triple loop learning” (Argyris & Schön, 1978; Swieringa

& Wierdsma, 1992) is required.

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Argryis and Schön (1978) suggested that the depth of organizational learning can be understood

through learning loops. Single loop learning involves a revision of organizational rules and may not

normally require a change in dominant logic (though this relationship has not been studied). Double

and triple loop learning (Argyris & Schön, 1978; Swieringa & Wierdsma, 1992) involve changing more

fundamental organizational insights and principles, and would likely require a revision of the dominant

general management logic. It may be the case that the shift from a focus largely on student access to a

focus that balances access and completion is an example of triple loop learning and will require

community college administrators to lead with a clear intent to revise the college’s dominant logic for

this transformation to occur.

Learning Loop Learning Area Learning Level Learning Result

Single Rules Obligation and Permission

Improvement

Double Insights Knowledge and Understanding

Renewal

Triple Principles Courage and will Development

Table 3. Single, double, and triple-loop learning

When attempting to describe or understand the shared mental models of groups, it is important

to differentiate between team thinking and groupthink (Bensimon & Neumann, 1993; Janis, 1972).

Groupthink can occur when shared mental models are not clearly differentiated between members of

the team or group. With groupthink, the team members suppress or ignore their individual beliefs and

convictions so that a single group position is developed (Bensimon & Neumann, 1993; Janis, 1972).

Team thinking assumes that individuals have distinctive mental models, and process information

differently. Team members are required to develop their distinctive cognitive abilities and express their

beliefs and opinions to other team members openly and freely (Bensimon & Neumann, 1993; Cannon-

Bowers, Salas & Converse, 1993). Conversely, team members are required to listen to, and respect the

views and insights of other team members. Every team member must learn to not only listen, but truly

hear what other team members express, even if it is a perspective markedly different from their own

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(Bensimon & Neumann, 1993). It is reasonable to assume that community colleges with dominant

coalitions that exhibit team thinking (as opposed to groupthink) will be more effective at improving

associate degree completion rates if this objective is part of their shared mental model. This study is

informative in either supporting or refuting this assumption.

In an interdisciplinary synthesis of the literature related to mental models (Jones, Ross, Lynam,

Perez, & Leitch, 2011), the authors define mental models as representations of external reality which

are cognitive, dynamic, inaccurate and incomplete. They suggest that the differences between mental

models and cognitive schemata are that mental models are more dynamic (Rutherford & Wilson, 2004),

more flexible (Holland, et al., 1986, p. 13), and more specific (Brewer, 1987). Bolman and Deal (2003) do

not draw clear distinctions between organizational frames, cognitive schema and mental models, and

since this study relies on Bolman and Deal, I did not do so either but acknowledge that some authors

make more fine distinctions. This study focuses on the behaviors of the members of the dominant

coalition that positively influence degree completion. By understanding the behaviors of this coalition

(i.e., their theories-in-use), and how they talk about their actions with respect to degree completion, I

drew some useful inferences with respect to the shared mental models/cognitive frames of reference /

cognitive schemata of the dominant coalition.

Dominant Logic

The concept of dominant logic (also referred to as dominant general management logic) was

first proposed by Prahalad and Bettis in 1986. Dominant logic is a shared mental model developed in an

organization that influences how the organization thinks about and makes sense of the environment in

which it operates; “it is stored as a shared cognitive map (or set of schemas) among the dominant

coalition” (Prahalad & Bettis, 1986, p. 491). The concept of dominant logic is grounded in Kuhn’s (1970)

work on scientific paradigms. Allison (1971) characterized a paradigm as a set of assumptions, concepts,

and propositions that constitute a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them.

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Prahalad and Bettis (1986) were interested in understanding why some firms were able to

successfully diversify by acquiring other businesses, and other firms were not as successful. They found

that prevalent models of organizational performance related to firm diversification were able to explain

less than 40% of the variance in performance after the acquisition of a firm from a distinct business

segment (Prahalad & Bettis, 1986). They proposed that the organization’s “dominant logic” was an

important, and understudied, element in explaining firm performance after diversification had occurred.

They suggest that dominant logic is the organizational equivalent of a genetic factor; “Its influence is

pervasive. It permeates the organization, yet it is invisible. It predisposes the firm to certain kinds of

strategic problems and often interacts with organizational systems and structures in a complex way in

causing these problems” (Bettis & Prahalad, 1995, p. 8-9). It is important not to take the genetic code

analogy too far. A person’s genetic code cannot be changed. Though an organization’s dominant logic

does not typically change easily or quickly, it can be changed.

In an earlier study focusing on organizational outliers, Bettis, Hall and Prahalad (1978) concluded

that the quality of management was as important as any factor in explaining performance in a

diversified firm. Prahalad and Bettis (1986) suggested that managers process events through pre-

existing knowledge systems known as schemas (Norman & Shallice, 1980). Schemas, shared mental

models and cognitive frames represent “beliefs, theories, and propositions that have developed over

time based on the managers’ personal experiences” (Prahalad & Bettis, 1986, p. 489) permitting

managers “to categorize an event, assess its consequences, and consider appropriate action (including

doing nothing), and to do so rapidly and often efficiently” (Prahalad & Bettis, 1986, p.490). They can be

somewhat inaccurate simplifications of the world, and tend to reflect past experiences, and may not

accurately reflect current realities (Kiesler & Sproul, 1982). The concept of dominant logic has clear

implications beyond its ability to help explain the connection between firm diversity and performance.

The authors suggest that the concept of dominant logic is useful in understanding strategic change in

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complex organizations of all kinds (Bettis & Prahalad, 1995) and that as firms diversify, they become

increasingly complex. The senior leaders, therefore, need to learn how to successfully manage and lead

increasingly complex organizations if the diversification strategy will result in improved financial

performance over time. From a community college perspective, increased complexity may be the

consequence of the need to balance multiple missions and achieve multiple outcomes, including

improving the percentage of students who complete a degree, transfer successfully, or get a job in their

field. This study focuses on associate degree completion, while recognizing that community college

dominant logic also contributes to how other (and likely competing) priorities are understood.

Several authors (Argyris & Schön, 1978; Hedburg, 1981; Nystrom & Starbuck, 1984; Starbuck &

Hedburg, 1977) suggest that an organization cannot effectively modify organizational behavior and

improve organizational performance until the organization has developed the capacity to unlearn. The

importance of unlearning as a precondition for learning may help explain why new competitors often

displace experienced incumbents when major structural change occurs in an industry or sector (Bettis &

Prahalad, 1985): the new competitors do not have to unlearn before they are able to learn. Incumbents

that have experienced success doing things a certain way may have difficulty accepting that what

worked before is not necessarily relevant in a new environment. This appears to be the case with

American community colleges. Community colleges have provided access to higher education to a

significant percentage of the American working population since the middle of the 20th century.

Developing dominant logics that include a strong focus on degree completion in addition to providing

access requires community college senior administrators to think, manage, and lead in ways not

required of those who mentored them (Eddy, 2010). Community colleges may need to unlearn many of

the behaviors which were essential to their growth and success in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s.

Several authors (Arnould, 2007; Tokman & Beitelspacher, 2011; Vargo & Lusch, 2004) argue that

the dominant logic in the corporate sector has evolved from one focused on the exchange of goods to

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one that is grounded “in the exchange of intangibles, specialized skills and knowledge, and processes

(doing things for and with)” (Vargo & Lusch, 2004, pp. 1-2). This new dominant logic is referred to as the

Service-Dominant Logic (or S-D logic). The Service-Dominant logic views supply chains as value co-

creation networks (Tokman & Beitelspacher, 2011). A fundamental shift in this emerging dominant logic

is a focus on operant resources as opposed to operand resources. Operand resources are resources on

which an operation or act is performed to produce an effect; they are the material and processes

required to produce a product. Conversely, operant resources are resources that produce effects

(Constantin & Lusch, 1994); they are the stakeholders who will both produce and use the product. This

shift in focus began in the late twentieth century as “humans began to realize that skills and knowledge

were the most important types of resources” (Vargo & Lusch, 2004, p. 2). This shift from operand

resources to operant resources could be more simply described as a shift from a focus on production to

a focus on relationships and service. In the industrial age, the value of the product was largely

determined by the costs of the raw materials required and the costs to transform those materials into

finished products. In the knowledge economy, value is largely a function of the perception of quality

and utility as defined by the consumer. Day (1999, p. 70) argues for a focus on “self-reinforcing value

cycles” rather than value chains. A value chain is a set of activities that an organization carries out to

create value for its customers and the value chain model is based on the premise that value is added in

each step in the production process. The more value an organization creates, the more profitable it is

likely to be (Porter, 1985). The value cycles model is based on systems thinking (Forrester, 1968; Senge,

1990). The firm and customer are engaged in a relationship in which the product or service is

continually revised as the customer uses the product and provides feedback and input regarding her or

his experience. The value chain model places a heavy emphasis on the product being produced; the

value cycles model places greater emphasis on the values of the people involved in both making and

purchasing the product or service produced. The product’s value is less about the sum of the costs of

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production, and far more determined by the perceptions and values of the customer. As the global

economy transitioned from the Industrial Age of the 19th and 20th centuries to the Information Age of

the 21st century, organizational dominant logics adapted to this shift by transitioning from a production

focus to a focus on the needs and desires of the consumer. Haeckel (1999) explained this emerging

dominant logic as a shift from “make and sell” strategy to “sense and respond” strategy.

In higher education in the United States, the importance of focusing on outcomes (one of which

is degree completion) as opposed to inputs has been discussed for the last twenty years. In their

seminal article “From Teaching to Learning: A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education” (1995), Barr

and Tagg suggest that a paradigm shift has begun, and needs to continue, if the United States hopes to

keep pace with the emerging knowledge economy. They did not argue for a focus on degree

completion, per se; their focus was on student learning. I suggest that a focus on degree completion is

one element in developing a more outcomes-focused approach to higher education in general. From

Barr and Tagg’s (1995) perspective, a primary goal of a college or university is (or should be) producing

learning as an outcome. Though the quality and depth of a student’s learning is more difficult to assess

than the percentage of students who earn a degree, in both cases the focus is on the achievements of

the student – what they know, what they can do, and what they have successfully been able to

complete.

For institutions that embrace the learning paradigm as their dominant logic, the implications

transcend what is happening in the classroom. As Barr and Tagg propose, “the Learning Paradigm

envisions the institution itself as the learner – over time, it continuously learns how to produce more

learning with each graduating class, with each entering student” (Barr & Tagg, 1995, p. 14). In the

learning paradigm, continuous learning is occurring at all levels – for students, for faculty, in programs,

departments and colleges, and institutionally. For the institution to become learning-centered, senior

administrators must also commit to on-going learning – individually and collectively (Alfred, Shults,

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Jaquette, & Strickland, 2009; Amey, 2005; Bensimon & Neumann, 1993; Driscoll & Wood, 2007;

Sorcinelli, et al., 2006). It would be reasonable to conclude that a community college that has

successfully and significantly improved performance with respect to degree completion has a visible

commitment to the ongoing personal and professional development of faculty and staff throughout the

institution.

In “Community Colleges on the Horizon: Challenge, Choice, or Abundance” (Alfred, Shults,

Jacquette & Strickland, 2009), the authors propose three community college archetypes in the United

States. They labeled these three archetypes as “challenge”, “choice”, and “abundance”. These

archetypes are based on two conceptual pillars – leveraging and abundance. Leveraging refers to “the

achievement of superior performance through optimal use of resources” (p. xiii). The other pillar,

abundance, is “a state achieved by an organization when its resources are leveraged beyond a

reasonable state of expectation” (p. xiii). The authors believe that the immediate future of community

colleges will be a time of both turbulence and opportunity. The relationship between these three

community college archetypes and general management dominant logics may be significant in order to

understand and improve associate degree completion in community colleges in the United States. The

three archetypes identified by Alfred, et al., have some clear parallels with the three dominant logics

identified in Further Education Colleges in England (Smith, Gidney, Barclay & Rosenfeld) in 2002.

Further Education Colleges (or FE Colleges) are the British equivalent of a community college.

Similar to an American community college, students may attend an FE college for workforce training in a

broad range of skills, to begin a program that requires transferring to a university to complete the

degree, and for personal enrichment. Smith, et al. (2002) studied the dominant logics of strategy in

Further Education Colleges using interviews with principals, governors, and Senior Management Team

(SMT) members in 25 FE colleges. Their study addressed two questions: what are the dominant

strategic management logics of FE colleges and what implications do these have for the management of

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change in those colleges? Three sets of dominant logics became apparent from their data, which they

labeled stability optimizing, market optimizing and resource optimizing (Smith, et al., 2002).

The focus of the senior administrators at the stability optimizing colleges was operational

efficiency. Senior managers believed it was the role of the funders and stakeholders outside of the

college to develop strategic direction while the role of the senior managers was to operationalize that

direction as effectively as possible (Smith, et al., 2002). In short, the senior administrators saw

themselves fundamentally as managers, not leaders. The senior administrators at the market

optimizing colleges saw the college as a business that needed to do as much as possible to improve

financial performance. They focused on meeting the demands of the markets they served. These

managers were sometimes criticized for putting financial performance ahead of the needs of students

(Smith, et al., 2002). The resource-optimizing colleges had a supply-led orientation. The senior

administrators saw the college as a set of educational resources and capabilities. These colleges do not

ignore the markets, but are not fundamentally market-driven. They tend to embrace a participatory,

bottom- up management philosophy and have a culture that “is the embodiment of why many people

chose to move into education as a career many years ago” (Smith, et al., 2002, p. 54). The resource-

optimizing colleges tend to be more student and learning-focused than the stability and market-

optimizing colleges. The authors suggest that more than one logic tends to operate in most further

education colleges. There may be other logics that appear to dominate in some colleges, but these

three present themselves consistently, and other logics can normally be understood as a variation of

one of these three (Smith, et al., 2002).

A limitation of the Smith, et al., (2002) study was its focus on senior managers, principals and

governors of the F.E. colleges. I suggest that, to understand a community college’s dominant logic, it is

important to understand how faculty and mid-level managers process information and determine what

information is valued in the organization. Capturing the reflections and behaviors of the senior

29

managers will provide an understanding of the college’s espoused theories. To understand how

decisions are being made “on the ground”, it is important to interview faculty and staff who are not a

part of the senior leadership team. Organizational performance in a community college is largely

determined by the day-to-day operational decisions being made by faculty and staff in the classroom

and in the administrative departments and programs in the institution. It is therefore important to

understand if the responses of the senior leaders are aligned with the responses of mid-level managers,

supervisors, faculty and staff.

There is a growing understanding that the United States needs to increase the percentage of the

workforce with a college degree if this country is going to maintain a globally competitive workforce

(OECD, 2011). The dominant general management logic in American community colleges may be

focused more on institutional enrollment levels and access to education than on degree completion. If

significant improvement in community college degree completion rates is going to occur, we need to

develop our understanding of the shared mental models of those faculty and staff actively working to

shift the college’s dominant logic from a focus on issues around student access to a dual focus on issues

of access and completion. We need to understand how these faculty and staff work together in what

have become increasingly complex environments – both within their community colleges and nationally.

Understanding the shared mental model of the dominant coalition at one community college and the

influence of that shared mental model on the college’s degree completion rate may be of value as

community college leaders, managers and faculty attempt to address this issue on their campus.

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Chapter Three: Research Methodology

Selecting an appropriate methodological approach is critical to the success of a study. For this

particular study, both qualitative and quantitative approaches were considered in light of their ability to

contribute to the primary research questions. The decision to move ahead with a qualitative design was

driven by an intent to study, interpret and make sense of a complex phenomenon that plays out in a

particular context (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005). The environment in which community colleges must

function is increasingly complex (Eddy, 2010). The range of outcomes senior administrators are held

accountable to accomplish, coupled with the range of factors that may influence degree completion

suggest the use of a qualitative approach, in that it allows for a deeper, richer interpretation of the

phenomenon of dominant general management logic and its influence on completion rates than would

be possible with a quantitative study (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005).

Merriam (1988, pp. 11 – 12) identifies four characteristics that are essential in a qualitative case

study: 1) particularistic, meaning that the case study focuses on a particular situation, event, program or

phenomenon; 2) descriptive, meaning that the product of the case study is a “thick description” of the

phenomenon studied; 3) heuristic, meaning that the case study will enhance understanding of the

phenomenon under study; and 4) inductive, meaning that the case study relies on inductive reasoning.

This study focuses on the phenomenon of dominant general management logic in a community college

context and my design adheres to Merriam’s (1988) case study tenets as follows. Interviews with senior

administrators, faculty and staff identified as important stakeholders with respect to degree completion,

meeting observations, and review of relevant documentation (e.g., strategic planning information,

degree completion task force meeting notes, etc.), provided sufficient data to develop a thick

description of the phenomenon of dominant logics at the college being studied. The study is inductive

in that I draw conclusions from the data gathered which can, hopefully, be helpful in understanding

dominant logics in community colleges and the influences they may have on community college degree

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completion. I used a single site case study because the phenomenon of dominant logic in a community

college context is not well understood, nor is how the dominant coalition emerges at a community

college. Developing a deeper understanding of dominant coalition formation and dominant logic

transformation can best be accomplished by devoting as much time as is available at one site.

Selection of Case

Given that the focus of this study is associate degree completion, it was important to identify a

college that has made a sustained commitment to improving the college’s associate degree completion

rate. Great Lakes College (GLC; a pseudonym) has been a member of Achieving the Dream since 2007.

A primary goal of Achieving the Dream is improving community college associate degree completion

rates. In my initial discussion with the provost of Great Lakes College, she indicated that improving the

College’s associate degree completion rate has been a focus at the College for many years, pre-dating

her arrival in 2009. Faculty and staff confirmed that GLC has a long-standing commitment to improving

student success and degree completion. Several study participants indicated that student success

generally and degree completion specifically have been key strategic priorities at Great Lakes College for

at least a decade.

Data Collection

Once the appropriate research approvals were secured, I contacted the Provost at Great Lakes

College to confirm their willingness to participate in this study. I indicated to the Provost that I would

like to interview twelve to fifteen faculty and staff, including senior leaders, faculty, and mid-level

administrators. I requested that at least one faculty member who was a member of the Strategic

Planning Council be included. The Provost sent an email to fourteen faculty and staff members she

believed would be appropriate participants for this study. Based on the comments of some of those

interviewed, I scheduled two additional interviews – one with the lead faculty member for the First Year

Seminar, and one with the director of Institutional Research. The case study included interviews with

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fourteen senior leaders, faculty and staff at Great Lakes Community College. Twelve of the interviewees

were identified by the provost as key faculty and staff involved in degree completion. These twelve and

the relevant committees or councils they are on included:

- English faculty member: member of the Foundations Studies Committee

- Lead faculty for the Reading program: member of the Foundations Studies Committee

- Director of the Center for Student Success: member of the Foundations Studies Committee

- Business faculty member: Strategic Planning Council member

- Assistant Dean of Student Service