Higher education institutions are plagued with a problem: how do they manage technological innovation effectively? Changes in student expectations, governmental pressures, and increased competition are driving higher education to innovate more than ever before. Managing innovation means having an understanding that innovation is a complex, human-driven process with different requirements for management than traditional processes. Complexities of managing innovation include evolutionary, relational, cultural, and temporal issues. Innovation within educational institutions can also be hindered by concerns from faculty, accreditation, or a perception of value. Additionally, successfully managed innovations create an environment that supports the innovator or team of innovators.
Effective management of innovation at these institutions benefits from an understanding of the unique aspects of higher education.
Educational institutions are typically slow to adopt changes and must be aware of the issues surrounding innovation in their unique organizations. When managing technological innovation, colleges and universities should review three distinct topics: handling the disruptiveness and complexity of innovation, considering the human factor of innovation, and recognizing the unique hurdles that are present in higher education.
Complexity and Disruptiveness of Innovation
Innovation is an inherently complex and disruptive process that can affect organizations of any size. This complex process can take multiple forms and can progress through a series of seemingly unrelated coincidental events before coming to a reasonable state. The complexity of innovation is due in part to the broad nature of innovation. Innovation can be considered a series of events: invention, development, and implementation. Because this process requires such a broad base of understanding, and a wide-ranging skillset, it can be a difficult process to manage.
Complexity of Innovation
Because relationships can influence the innovation process, it is important to take them into account when managing innovation.
Innovation has four different types of complexities: evolutionary, relational, social, and temporal. Each of these types of complexity requires a different approach and specific tactics to effectively handle.
Evolutionary complexity is the complexity of innovation that realizes the co-dependent nature of innovation on path dependencies that shape innovations. This evolutionary nature of innovation means that each incremental improvement builds on the previous and the random variations can often be the cause of these incremental improvements.
Relational complexity indicates that innovations often come from the relationship between social and material elements. Because relationships can influence the innovation process, it is important to take them into account when managing innovation. Breaking down political barriers, creating and fostering relationships, and acknowledging the relevance of spontaneous interactions would be positive influences on this relational complexity.
Innovative activities are often influenced by multiple time patterns and experiences, and not simply one single liner timeline. Innovations are often spurred on by “momentum”, while also bound to particular “time pacing” measures. Innovations can cause fluctuations in productivity over time as well, introducing spurts of productivity between periods of less productivity over a span of time.
Innovation management also acknowledges that different cultural contexts embrace unique norms that drive innovation in their own way. Individual cultures will harness and produce innovation in different ways. Cultural complexity also means acknowledging that certain innovations vary in their adoption across social groups, and must be tailored to those populations.
Disruptiveness of innovation
Innovation can often be disruptive to organizations. Because of the types of changes that can be required, even the most obviously beneficial innovations can face resistance. Existing perceptions and fears of losing influence due to the innovation can prevent innovations from ever taking place.
The Human Factor of Innovation
In addition to considering the complexity and disruptiveness of innovation, one important aspect of managing technological innovation in higher education is considering the human factor of innovation. Innovators are people – talented people with unique skills and abilities. These individuals’ distinct thought processes allow them to visualize revolutionary innovation and understand how it aligns with organizational needs. These innovators require “relatively unique, highly individualized, relational form of management”. Innovative people and teams must also be allowed to work in an environment where failure is acceptable and can be learned from.
In addition to the innovator side of managing innovation, the recipients of the innovation must be considered as well. Generally, people will be skeptical of changes that need new skills or that oppose existing conventions. A successful innovation will take into account the fact that organizations are made up of individuals, and thus reflect those individuals’ concerns.
Higher Education’s Unique Hurdles to Innovation
Higher education institutions have unique characteristics from traditional organizations, and thus have unique challenges when discussing innovation. Three such considerations are faculty presence and influence, accreditation as a process governed by similar institutions, and the intrinsically difficulty of measuring the value of educational outcomes. Each of these presents a challenge to managing innovation in higher education.
Faculty are central to the business model of an institution and can play a central role in management of a higher education institution. Because of their managerial role, they have the ability to influence the management of the processes of the organization. Since it is expected that managers will not engage in practices that risk deskilling themselves, faculty are unlikely to support sustaining change that broaches this risk. Thus, this creates an environment in which innovation is not easily accepted.
Faculty have created, over time, standard methods that are used to convey information and learning to their students. Mechanisms such as lectures and seminars, letter grades and final exams, along with terms and curricula are used to communicate information and progress to students. Because these methods are linked so strongly to the core business model of a higher education institution, any change in these processes and resources, even a small one, will be viewed with skepticism at the prospect of negatively impacting the institution.
The accreditation process can serve to stifle innovation by perpetuating the values of the co-members of the accrediting body. Since higher education institutions are bound by the standards of their accrediting bodies, and since accrediting bodies are made up of members from participating institutions, the very policies that guide and constrain institutions can also constrain innovation at these institutions.
Educational value influence
Education is a credence good. That is, the value of an education is not easily measured directly, but is largely composed of the perceived value of the outcome of the education (i.e. the degree). Since these measures of the value of an education are so intangible, it can be difficult to justify or measure the outcome of an innovation. Thus, perceived risks to this intangible value are difficult to overcome.
Managing innovation is relevant because of a changing environment. Now, more than ever, external influences are motivating the need to more innovation within higher education institutions. Being able to effectively manage that innovation will aid institutions with addressing these influences successfully.
As co-evolutionary products evolve, student expectations evolve as well. For example, students who can get videos from Netflix instantly on their phone may expect the same level of service from their online institution.
Similarly, as governmental pressures and constraints evolve and change, institutions will have to respond to that change. The effects of politics and power on higher education can stifle innovation in a way that is not favorable to positive change.
Finally, as online degree offerings increase, students’ access to alternative goods increases. This increased competition creates a need for more effective management of technological innovation in higher education.
In conclusion, research shows that there are many concerns and strategies when considering the management of technological innovation in higher education. There are general concerns with managing innovation, such as the complexities and disruption that correspond to any innovative activity. There are concerns with the human factor, as with any change initiative in an organization. Finally, there are also specific concerns within higher education institutions that are not present in traditional organizations. By acknowledging and accounting for the obstacles to innovation, colleges and universities can move toward effectively managing innovation.