Transcript 47. Wicked Problems, Clumsy Institutions and Bricolage in FHE and HFE (MSPowerpoint 41KB)

WICKED PROBLEMS, CLUMSY
INSTITUTIONS AND
BRICOLAGE IN FHE and HFE
William Gourley
Suffolk
20 05 2008
FHE/HFE CHARACTERISED BY:• Multiple principal agent relations
• Ambiguous and sometimes conflicting
goals
• Systemic and structured tensions
• Complexity and non linear causality
• Reconfigurations of sectors and interfaces
• Hybridisation and hybrid organisational
forms
POLICY TRAJECTORIES NEED
TO BE UNDERSTOOD AT:• System Level
– Macro
• Field Level
– Meso
• Inter-organisational
transactions/exchanges
– Micro
TRAJECTORIES AND FAULT
LINES
• Structural contradictions and structural incoherence in
HFE
• Operating across levels (macro, meso and micro)
• Resolvable tensions or containable?
• Are they manageable?
• Institutions, forms and practices in HFE
– Shifting boundaries
– Disjunctures of practice
– Boundary crossing practices
• Complexity and diversity generating ‘wicked problems’
Wicked
•
•
•
•
•
Not analytical
Not Linear
Complex policy problems
Not easily solvable
Work across internal and external
boundaries
• Do we know what the problem is?
‘CLUMSY’ INSTITUTIONS
• Incorporate multiple voices, audiences and
rhetorics
• Contested (constructive conflict / synergies)
• Handle paradox, anomaly and contradiction
• Are loosely coupled
• Contradictory problem definitions and potential
compromises/settlements co-exist
POLICY DEFINITIONS AND
‘SOLUTIONS’ IN HFE
• HIERARCHISTS
– Rational planning (centralisation one model fits all?)
• INDIVIDUALISTS
– markets and competition (entrepreneurial orgs)
• ENCLAVES
– Egalitarians (Disciplinary cultures, COP’s, COI’s,
consultation?)
• FATALISTS
– Random or garbage can (passive FE advocacy in HE
dominated field)
CLUMSY INSTITUTIONS AND
POLICY
• Clumsy institutions incorporate structural
incoherence/inconsistency
• Admit possibility of tacit as well as explicit and
formal policy frames
• Four generic and modal forms of defining policy
and organising (adapted from Hood, 2000)
–
–
–
–
Hierarchy (Oversight)
Individualist (Competition and markets)
Enclaves (Mutuality and reputation)
Fatalism (Contrived randomness
CLUMSY INSTITUTIONS
• Accommodate diverse audiences, voices and
multiple interests
–
–
–
–
Hierarchy
Individualism
Enclaves
Fatalism
• Dual or Binary org forms as ‘solution’
• Managing tensions and contradictions
• Hybridisation
HFE: a wicked problem
• Tensions and contradictions not always
resolvable
• Structured tension and contradictions operate at:
– Macro, meso and micro levels
• Structural incoherence and coping strategies
• Problem definition based on implicit meanings
and cultures
• Tacit and unconscious
• Multi-causal and complex iterations
DEFINING BRICOLAGE
• Creating structure out of events and
materials at hand (contingent and ill
structured or ‘wicked problems’)
• HFE as a ‘wicked problem’
– Economic dimensions
– Political dimensions (anticipatory
subordination)
– Equity and fairness issues
– Plausibility of claims
BRICOLAGE
Originally developed from work of LeviStrauss
Ad hoc, situational and contextual
Associated with high policy uncertainty
and ambiguity
Response to rapid and inconsistent policy
shifts
An aspect of structural incoherence
BRICOLAGE AND ILL
STRUCTURED PROBLEMS
• “Wicked problems”:- no predetermined
solution
• Problems:– widening participation to non traditional
groups (but now they are traditional)
– Which organisational forms best achieve this
(Binary or duals or MEG’s reconfigured)
– Transitions and boundaries (students, sectors,
organisations, disciplinary cultures, interest
groups and coalitions/alliances)
BRICOLAGE
• Pre Incorporation 1987
– Clear binary divide between HE and FE
• Transition 1988-1992
– Incorporation
• ‘Low policy 1993 -1996
– Franchising
• Shift to ‘High Policy’ 1997 -2001
– Dearing and co-opetition
• Structured collaboration 2001 – date
– Reconfigured HFE field
BRICOLAGE AND BOUNDARY
CROSSING
• Bricolage and boundary crossing
• Needs organisational slack and degrees of
redundancy
• Switching institutional and organisational
logics (dual or plural authority structures
resource streams)
• Bricolage as context (Grid-group
transitions)
WICKED PROBLEMS
• Intended and uninteded consequences
• Anticipatory subordination (Brint and
Karabel, 1989)
• Plausible claims and sustainable practices
• Quality versus retention
• Autonomy versus dependence
• Governance and academic freedom
• Contradictory structural locations
WICKED PROBLEMS
•
•
•
•
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Effective and embedded boundary objects
Accountability and transaction costs
Contradictory colleges (Dougherty, 2001)
Diverted Dreams (Brint and Karabel, 1989)
No one solution or do we know what the
problem is? (Rittel and Webber, 1973)
CLUMSY INSTITUTIONS
• Binary or dual
• Hybridisation
• Diversity and differentiation (positional
goods)
• System interfaces and boundaries
(horizontal and vertical boundaries)
• Coping with structural incoherence
BRICOLAGE
•
•
•
•
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From bricolage to structured collaboration
Whatever happened to competition?
Co-opetition
New structures and management styles
Legitimacy
– HFE ‘moral entrepreneurs’
POSITIONING AND
RECONFIGURATION
• Monster barring (sectors, interfaces and
policy histories)
• Segregation and denial
• Integration and assimilation
• Colonisation (FE or FE model)
• Hybridisation or Creolisation
• Cores, margins or periphery
References
• Brint S and Karabel J (1989) The Diverted
Dream: Community Colleges and the Promise of
Educational Opportunity in America, 1900–1985.
• Dougherty K J (2001) The Contradictory
College. The Conflicting Origins, Impacts, and
Futures of the Community College.
• Hood C (2000) The Art of the State.
• Rittel H W J and Webber M M (1973) Dilemas in
a General Theory of Planning.