Record Details
Organizational Transformation and Social Construction : How Community College Faculty Make Meaning of the Completion Agenda
ScholarsArchive at Oregon State University
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Title | Organizational Transformation and Social Construction : How Community College Faculty Make Meaning of the Completion Agenda |
| Names |
Moore, Sally Widenmann
(creator) Johnson, Earl P. (advisor) |
| Date Issued | 2015-06-19 (iso8601) |
| Note | Graduation date: 2016 |
| Abstract | How do organizational members socially construct the shared meaning of a mandated change in the external environment? The opportunity to address this question presented itself when President Barack Obama set forth a goal for American community colleges to increase the number of students completing certificates and degrees by 5 million by the year 2020. As an external mandate, the explicit prioritization of completion is a relatively recent phenomena. This interpretive qualitative study explored the ways in which organizational members socially construct the shared meaning of a change in the external environment by examining how community college faculty, as organizational members, construct the concept of completion. Phenomenology was employed as a guiding theoretical and methodological framework. Using saturation sampling, the self-reported perceptions of community college faculty were collected via audio-recorded, semi-structured interviews. Interview transcript data was subjected to a six-step process of inductive, constant comparison analysis, which yielded ten categories, or subthemes. These categories were further subjected to constant comparison, which yielded four major themes: external dictate, legitimacy, ownership, and enactment. External dictate confirmed member cognizance of changes in the external environment, and indicated that members are aware of the potential impact of those changes. Legitimacy and ownership confirmed the process of meaning making and provided insight into how that meaning is constructed. Enactment confirmed, as posited by Living Systems Theory, that system members act upon meaning in self-sustaining ways. The interdependent functioning of the four themes suggests that shared vision is system-generated as members, not only socially construct changes in the environment, but also socially construct the vision that ultimately constitutes the organization's transformation. These findings serve to inform our understanding of the role of shared vision in advancing organizational transformation. Leaders must acknowledge that system members socially construct the meaning of change in the external environment. Furthermore, rather than attempt to establish a vision, astute leaders will socially construct the vision in consort with system members. |
| Genre | Thesis/Dissertation |
| Access Condition | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/ |
| Topic | community college |
| Identifier | http://hdl.handle.net/1957/56294 |
