This research project is a study of organisational decision-making in higher education. It attempted to address three main topics. The first, and the major concern, was a multiple case study of how two English polytechnics dealt during 1982 and 1983 with the first national planning exercise of the National Advisory Body for Local Authority Higher Education. This exercise was intended to determine the overall numbers of students in the local authority sector in 1984-85 and their distribution between institutions, programme areas, levels of study and modes of attendance. The study assessed the applicability of models in the description and explanation of the colleges' decision making processes. It also examined the ways in which the eventual policy outturn was implemented. It was therefore a study of organisational decision-making and policy implementation in the context of a new, national policy initiative which placed the colleges under stress. The second topic was an analysis of the context of the organisational study and provided a description and interpretation of the 1984-85 planning exercise. This assumed that the policy development could only be studied from subjective ideological perspectives on the distribution of power in society and the role of education within those perspectives. The third topic, which it was only possible to touch upon, was to explore the link between the analysis of organisational decision-making and theories of societal power distribution. The main conclusion was that there was no single model of organisational decision-making which provided a satisfactory explanation of the decision-making processes. Rather, a number of models are appropriate to describe different stages of a complex process. The research identified the political model of organisational decision-making and the pluralist model of power distribution as having particular relevance for these case studies.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:630739 |
| Date | January 1989 |
| Creators | McVicar, Malcolm |
| Publisher | University College London (University of London) |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10019720/ |
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