Resolving Liberal Art’s Needs for a Muslim Majority

Setting

Some Organizational Issues for Research.

Key Presentation Points

Current technical and business emphasis may displace liberal arts with scientism.

Concentration of information use and decision making at the top reduces flexibility in dynamic environments.

Education that promotes critical thinking necessitates alternative organizational design(s)

Questions Business is Asking

Why are GCC graduates still less competitive despite government efforts to provide world class facilities?

Will multi-billion dollar projects fail due to the lack of a well-trained local work force?

What are GCC universities and colleges not doing right?

source: Datamatrix Group Conference Agenda Dubai, March 2008 (conference not held)

The Question Not Asked

Do emerging GCC universities and colleges, especially in liberal arts, “fit” with their environments in terms of missions, goals, roles and structure?

The Stability-Change Dilemma

Models of western liberal arts are based on static assumptions, but are being implemented in GCC higher education systems that require innovation.

Some Premises

An organization is a system of purposeful action.

Effectiveness occurs when actions meet intended mission outcomes.

A liberal arts mission includes inculcation of critical thinking skills.

A liberal arts curriculum focuses on knowledge as a commodity.

I. Promoting Liberal Arts under Rentier state conditions

Meritocracy’s absence limits education’s role in a Rentier state. (Education is disconnected from society’s rewards.)

Rote learning found in traditional Islamic education is being reproduced in new guises.

Pressures to enter the global market are resulting in liberal curriculum displacing liberal art’s mission (critical thinking).

Mission Statements Of Two Liberal Arts Universities in Kuwait

Subscribe to the American model of education. Equip students with knowledge and skills. Provide new ideas and experiences. Promote diversity (The term isn’t defined.) Offer either liberal curriculum or liberal

education. (No distinction is made between curriculum and mission.)

Performance Concerns in a Private Kuwait University

Attrition. Course completion rate was estimated at 62% in a survey (n = 100).

Skills. Only 28% of students ( n = 283) in English classes had university level skills in another survey.

Critical thinking. Detectable plagiarism in excess of 25%, as measured by Turnitin.com, was found in 18% of the student papers by an instructor. Reports showed little analysis.

Estimated % Share of Majors In A Private University in Kuwait

English 9%

Other 16%

Business50%

InformatonSystems25%

II. Organizational knowledge: GCC universities must learn about their environment.

Organizational knowledge is communicable, and shared, even if not consensual.

Information about GCC students is sketchy and organizational information is out-dated.

Extent findings suggest that values and practices should be positively used in planned change (e.g. taming wasta).

Wasta Challenge to Liberal Arts

Student apathy is often associated with wasta: For job vacancies, only those with wasta (or

intercession), can obtain them, so why study. Anyone with wasta can pass any course, it is

more rational to cultivate wasta than to study. All one needs to obtain a university degree is

passing grades; this is obtained through good social relationships instead of studying hard.

Liberal Arts’ Possible Response in a Traditional Setting

The wasta intercessor becomes the guarantor of student performance outcomes early on.

Organizational learning must be fostered within a system of backward and forward linkages for quality assurance.

Liberal Arts Requires Double and Deutro-Loop Learning

Double loop learning leaves organizational objectives, norms and assumptions open to re-evaluation.

Deutero-learning involves “learning how to learn”, i.e. identifying learning styles, processes and structures required to promote learning.

Systemic Change Requires Deutro-loop Learning

An organization’s subsystems and design are each linked to different knowledge forms.

Knowledge needed for systemic change cannot be acted on if there is no fit between the organization and the environment.

Deutro-loop learning cannot be implemented if there is no fit between the organization’s subsystems and learning modes.

III. Organizational Design: Can GCC universities address the challenges?

Minnis (2000) Rentier state educational systems are not structured to produce graduates for industrialized economies.

Abdulbaqi Bustan (1980) Kuwait University needs to improve coordination with other institutions.

Mazawi (2005) Dual educational systems provide a means for perpetuating the dual systems of authority in Saudi Arabia.

Simple Goal, Developmental, Professional, Engineered Org. Goals Simple Complex Simple Complex

Information Need Low High Low High

Environment Non Non Segment. Segment Segment. Segment.

Environmental Change Static Dynamic Static Dynamic

Prescribed Functnl Functnl Decentral DecentralOrganizational (Bureaucratic) w/ Lateral w/ LateralDesign Relations Relations

Rationale for an Engineered Rational Organizational Design.

Goals are complex. Rational organization practices based on idealized meritocracy co-exist with traditional practices based on kinship and affiliation.

Information need is high. GCC countries seek to transform their Rentier state economies and citizens’skills to transition to information-based economies.

Environment is segmentable. Dual authority systems within Rentier states and entry into the global marketplace will increase the segments.

Environment is dynamic. Population growth in Middle East is nearly twice of East Asia and middle income nations. Growth is slightly more in the Gulf.

Concluding Remarks

Emergent GCC long term university missions risk being sacrificed for immediate shorter term performance measures.

A new university is less responsive to the environment under conditions of hierarchical information flow and use.

Centralized university structures are less effective where change dynamics generate higher information needs.

Limitations of Contingency Theory in examining Liberal Arts universities

Unwarranted assumption that actors preoccupy themselves with university mission.

Organizational consensus and unity is emphasized to exclusion of dissension.

Management defines problems. Bias is towards centralized decision-making,

task routinization and role formalization.