Six Change Perspectives in Higher Education

See more Change Theories »Summary written by Tessa Andrews, University of Georgia, tandrews@uga.edu

Summary

Kezar (2018) organized and synthesized change theories into six categories to support policy makers, change agents, and scholars. Though these perspectives can be used independently, Kezar ultimately called on change efforts to rely on multiple change perspectives (Kezar, 2018). These perspectives differ in their conceptualizations and assumptions about why change occurs, how it occurs, the outcomes of change, the focal context of change, and their limitations (see especially Table 2.1, pgs 24-25, Kezar, 2018). This summary briefly summarizes each of the six change perspectives:

• A scientific management perspective on change sees change as primarily top-down, occurring when organizational leaders see a need for change, develop and communicate goals, and provide incentives and rewards for meeting goals (Kezar, 2018). Change is assumed to be purposeful and driven internally by formal leaders. The target of change is the organization and context is not salient (Kezar, 2018).
• An evolutionary change perspective centers the role of the external context influencing organizational change (Kezar, 2018). Change is viewed as unplanned and non-intentional, resulting from a complex system adapting to changing environments and external pressures.
• A social cognition change perspective emphasizes the need to shift the thought processes of individuals in order to achieve change (Kezar, 2018). In this view, change can only be achieved if individuals have opportunities to learn about the desired change (i.e., termed "sensemaking") and foster new ways of thinking. This may involve attaching new meaning to familiar concepts, developing new language, and shifting mental models. The focus is on individuals without much attention to context. 
• A cultural change perspective takes the view that organizational culture is always changing in response to changes in the environment (Kezar, 2018). Cultural change is slow and non-linear, involving shifts in underlying assumptions and values that influence an organization's functioning both formally and informally. Underlying assumptions and values tend to be implicit, rarely challenged, and hard for members to articulate (Kezar, 2018), and therefore shifting the culture may require intentional intervention highly tailored to context.
• A political perspective on change focuses on the identity and ideology of organizations and views change as a natural outcome of conflict and negotiation (Kezar, 2018). This view posits that organizations include individuals with opposing belief systems that will eventually clash, resulting in change. Change agents build coalitions with individuals in positions of power, help set agendas, and negotiate to create change. 
• An institutional change perspective considers the particular context of change in higher education, which differs in important ways from other types of organizations (Kezar, 2018). This perspective centers the impact on change of both internal organizational conditions and external conditions. Institutions are viewed as highly impacted by the larger context, such as state governments, but also as subject to strong normative internal pressures that resist change. 

Example of Use

We used several of these change perspectives in an institutional transformation project at the University of Georgia. This project, called Departmental and Leadership Teams for Action (DeLTA) pursued multi-level change to support evidence-based teaching, including working with faculty to develop their instructional practices, department chairs to develop new teaching evaluation practices, and the university as a whole to enact new supportive policies (Andrews et al. 2021). Two change perspectives were especially foundational to our work: the social cognition and cultural perspectives. We drew on a social cognition perspective as a lens to design a long-term intervention for department chairs aimed at developing new ways of thinking about teaching evaluation. We drew on a cultural perspective as a lens to create learning opportunities for faculty and department chairs to recognize and critically reflect on their underlying values and beliefs. Scientific management and political perspectives also guided our efforts. Recognizing that top-down policy has a role to play, we volunteered to draft and shepherd new policies related to evaluating and recognizing effective teaching. Navigating this process required considering a political perspective on change, which helped us to anticipate opposition, respond directly and respectfully, and negotiate to arrive at new policies. (Read more details in Andrews et al. 2021).

Limitations

The six change perspectives described by Kezar (2018) provide a highly valuable overview and resource for change agents and scholars, but alone may be insufficient to guide a project. The six change perspectives do not prescribe specific actions to achieve change. Additionally, only some of the perspectives can be directly linked to specific change theories, whereas others encompass broad scholarship with shared conceptualizations. Therefore, change agents and researchers will generally need to identify change theories to inform their work. The six perspectives, and the resource that describes them, How Colleges Change, may be best used as a call to change agents to recognize the need for multiple perspectives of change and a foundational resource for appreciating and navigating the complexity of change in higher education.

Original Publication of Theory

Kezar, A. (2018). How colleges change: Understanding, leading, and enacting change. Routledge.

Other References

Andrews, T. C., Brickman, P., Dolan, E. L., & Lemons, P. P. (2021). Every Tool in the Toolbox: Pursuing Multilevel Institutional Change in the DeLTA Project. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 53(2), 25-32.

Corbo, J. C., Reinholz, D. L., Dancy, M. H., Deetz, S., & Finkelstein, N. (2016). Framework for transforming departmental culture to support educational innovation. Physical Review Physics Education Research, 12(1), 010113.

Eckel, P. D., & Kezar, A. (2003). Key strategies for making new institutional sense: Ingredients to higher education transformation. Higher Education Policy, 16(1), 39-53.