The Research On The Changes Of Metrical Academic Organizations

Given the centralized administrative system of Chinese higher education, ouruniversities have been lacking of autonomy. Universities have gained some autonomysince the Decisions on Structural Reform of Education publicized by the Party CentralCommittee, however, these power stayed high at the level of university and theexecutive staff, which led to the situations of “president politics” and “directoradministration”. Metrical Academic Organizations (MAO) are the core units andfundamental cells of universities, carrying out teaching, researches and social servicesas the basic functions of universities. Therefore, MAOs are the footstones ofuniversities’ reforms and developments. And then, it is an emergent task for us toinvestigate the existing development situations and reform modes of MAO, with thetargets at: elevating the quality level of innovative talents, activating the heart ofacademics, optimizing the resources allocation, enhancing the cohesiveness andheighten the running effectiveness of universities.The research on the changes of MAO calls for in-depth analysis of the standardsand modes. This study argues that integration and autonomy are the basic standards formeasuring the fundamental targets of MAO. And we should analyze the reasons,impetus, contents, speed and routes of the changes if we intended to recognize themodes of change. After investigation of the features of our MAO and basic conditionsof foreign MAO, we found that: advanced scholarship is the supporter and technicalityis the essential attribute of universities and their MAOs, autonomy and integration ofMAO are the most important for the development of advanced scholarship andtechnicality. Thus, we could measure the developmental conditions of MAO by thestandard of autonomy and integration.This study took “integration-differentiation” and “autonomy-heteronomy” as basicview angles and historical analysis and ideal type as basic research methods. On thebasis of the study on the three main organization modes of MAO such as scholar guild,lectures and department diachronically, and the modes in some main countries such asFrance, Germany, Britain, Japan and the United States, we carried out our analysis andcomparison among these various modes or countries. After that, we came to the results that there have been five primary problems in Chinese MAOs through the case studymethod:1) deficiency of autonomy, and inefficiency of decision,2) disorder of theobligation and responsibility with the level of university,3) low conformability andsuccession,4) insufficiency of diversity and poor flexibility,5) lack of vitality.Using the theory of organizational change for reference, this study investigated thechanges of MAOs in some typical countries from three aspects. We assortedorganizational changes into induced and impose changes, radical and progressivechanges, superincumbent and bottom to up changes in view of the impetus and reason,the degree of thoroughness and initiator respectively. We came to our research resultsthat foreign MAO always reformed from bottom to up and form part to whole during along period according to the rules of disciplinary development and social demands.However, imposed changes often took place after violent political turbulence or socialchanges driven by the acts of policy from governments. Imposed change could producean immediate effect, but it is infrequent because its high costs. Being diverse from othercountries, Chinese MAO generally took imposed and superincumbent routes as theresults of strive for political survival with intense ideology and instrumentalism. Thesechanges are either the results of disciplinary development or social demands or thedirect response to existing problems or disadvantages but the products of politicaldemands, which is the root cause of our repeated failures in organizational changes ofChinese MAOs.In virtue of the present status of “heteronomy-differentiation” in Chinese MAOs,referencing the experiences from Oxford and Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT), this study came to our conclusion of suggestions as following. First, decentralizethe autonomy of human, academic, and financial affairs and strategic planning to MAOsto enhance the integration of resources, benefits, institutions, criterions and values.Second, our optimal choice is that promote progressive changes in MAOs from bottomto up, taking full advantage of disciplinary rules and social demands as induced factorswithout touching the basic system.