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Five Crucial Innovations: A Method of Studying Evolutionary Change in Small Colleges
Author(s) -
MacVie Leah
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
systems research and behavioral science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.371
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1099-1743
pISSN - 1092-7026
DOI - 10.1002/sres.2481
Subject(s) - higher education , order (exchange) , context (archaeology) , disruptive innovation , work (physics) , sociology , engineering ethics , political science , economics , engineering , law , mechanical engineering , paleontology , finance , biology
Educational researchers studying institutions of higher education typically study issues without historical context or concern for small institutions. In 1969, Erich Jantsch published a paper about the disruptive forces affecting higher education and society. He predicted (hoped for) five crucial institutional innovations in order to transform disruptions into ‘cohesive forces’. This article argues that many of these disruptive forces are still present today and therefore, Jantsch's five crucial innovations provide an informative option for studying evolutionary change in small higher education institutions. Drawing examples from the literature on the history of higher education and the work of Erich Jantsch, this article introduces a method for utilizing Jantsch's five crucial innovations for studying to what degree small institutions of higher education are evolving. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.