| The research interest of this study was the analysis and description of organizational structure in higher education. With a need in higher education for a classification scheme which would describe and order institutions based on conceptually sound, empirically valid, and reliable measures of formal structure, the purposes of the study were: (1) to develop an empirically derived taxonomy of organizational structures in higher education, (2) to describe the clustering of institutions within the taxonomy structurally and conceptually, and (3) to evaluate the descriptive and classificatory properties of the taxonomy.; A nationwide survey of 200 colleges and universities was conducted to collect information on six primary dimensions of structure. These were institutional autonomy, centralization of decision-making, functional specialization, effective participation, formalization of procedures, and four measures of organizational configuration. In addition, data on 23 descriptive attributes which are typically used to characterize the diversity of institutional types were collected. These included such variables as age, control, affluence, faculty size, financial indices, and enrollment.; Conclusions drawn from the findings of the correlation matrices of the data centered in two areas. First, a general conclusion was drawn concerning two extreme types of structural arrangements evident in higher education; one influenced by autonomy and suggesting collegiality, the other influenced by centralization and suggesting bureaucracy. Second, more specific conclusions were drawn from sets or pairs of correlations. Examples included: (1) centralized institutions provide for more authority levels to participate in the decision-making process than autonomous institutions, and (2) the autonomy of an institution is influenced by the nature of its funding sources, with a reliance on state funds increasing centralization and a reliance on tuition and fees increasing autonomy.; A principal component analysis of the structural dimensions produced a four-factor solution. The four factors which were identified as accounting for and describing the variation in organizational structure in higher education were Decision-Making Authority, Functional Differentiation, Administrative Configuration, and Operational Procedures. Data analysis of the factor scores on these underlying components of structure produced 16 mutually exclusive taxonomic clusters representing 16 distinctive types of organizational structures in higher education. . . . (Author's abstract exceeds stipulated maximum length. Discontinued here with permission of author.) UMI... |
