Número de iniciativas implementadas para prevención y control

The researcher has adapted the framework of Oliver’s strategic response theory (Oliver 1991) to explore the strategic responses exhibited by HEIs in response to the policy goals envisaged in Ireland’s new HESPF. This section outlines how it has been adapted and sensitised to the Irish context to reflect the practice of stakeholder consultation processes and the partnership approach to policy development and implementation in the higher education arena in Ireland. The adapted framework (table 2.4) is considered sufficiently flexible to capture the typology of strategic responses from the range of participating higher education institutions, arising from the antecedent factors at play in each of the national priority goal domains.

As discussed in section 2.6.2, Oliver’s framework defines five strategic responses – acquiesce, compromise, avoid, defy, manipulate (table 2.3) - that can be undertaken by organisations in response to influences applied from an institution, state policy for higher education in this instance. For the purpose of the current study these five strategic responses are being reduced to three (comply, negotiate, resist), as depicted in table 2.4. These are deemed to more appropriately represent the level of strategic choice, and consultative and partnership approaches to policy development and implementation in the higher education sector in Ireland. Oliver describes ‘compliance’ as an active, conscious, and strategic approach for choosing to “comply with institutional pressures in anticipation of specific self-serving benefits that may range from social support to resources to predictability” (p.153), and this description is regarded as a good fit for this study. The strategic choice ‘compromise’ is being replaced by the term ‘negotiate’ to reflect the manner in which strategic contracts between individual HEIs and the HEA are brought about by discussion, and to reflect the stakeholder engagement processes within HEIs in Ireland. It also aligns with Oliver’s description of negotiation as, “bargaining tactics” in an effort to “exact some concessions from an external constituent in its demands or expectations” (p.154). The three levels of resistance that Oliver terms “avoid, defy, manipulate” are not considered appropriate for this study as they include tactics, such as, concealment, ignoring norms and values, attack, and dominating or co-opting constituents which have strong negative connotations (p.152). Instead, tactics such as “buffering (loosening institutional attachments), escape (changing goals), and influence (seeking to change rules and criteria)” (ibid, p.152), which Oliver also includes under the strategies “avoid, defy, manipulate”, are considered more reflective of the constructive engagements between HEIs and the HEA and are considered under the heading ‘resist’ in the adapted framework for this study.

Table 2.4 Institutional Antecedents and Predicted Strategic Responses (Adapted)

Predictive Factor Comply Negotiate Resist

Cause

Legitimacy High Low Low

Efficiency High Low Low

Constituents

Multiplicity Low High High

Dependence High High Moderate to Low

Content

Consistency High Moderate Low

Constraint Low Moderate High

Control

Coercion High Moderate Low

Diffusion High High Moderate to Low

Context

Uncertainty High High Low

Interconnectedness High High Moderate to Low

Strategic Responses

Source: Adapted from Oliver (1991, p.160)

Table 2.4 should be interpreted as follows. The first row of table 2.4 (i.e. factor 1 – ‘Cause’) indicates that organisations are more likely to comply where the level of legitimacy or efficiency attached to compliance are high, but are more likely to negotiate or resist the pressure or policy instrument (i.e. cause) where legitimacy or efficiency are regarded as low. Factor two (‘Constituents’) suggests that a greater degree of constituent multiplicity (i.e. varied stakeholder interests) lends itself to a higher level of resistance due to difficulties in reconciling conflicting stakeholder expectations. Likewise, a higher level of ‘dependency’ (e.g. for resources and other supports) on external constituents lends itself more towards compliance and negotiation rather than resistance. Factor three (‘Content’) predicts higher levels of compliance where institutional requirements are more ‘consistent’ with organisational goals and lower levels of compliance where there is a potential ‘constraint’ on substantial organisational decision making capability (e.g. staffing, resource allocation or determination of academic and research policy in HEIs). In terms of the ‘control’ factor, it is postulated that coercion through legal instruments or government directives lead to high levels of compliance as non-adherence may have severe repercussions. It is also predicted that compliance will be high where the policies being imposed on the organisation are already broadly ‘diffused’ in peer organisations and are regarded as having social legitimacy. The fifth factor in the framework relates to ‘context’, where high levels of uncertainty are predicted to result in high compliance rates as decision makers are considered to prefer “stability and predictability” (ibid, p.170) in their environment. Higher levels of ‘interconnectedness’ are

also considered to improve compliance through networks or associations that provide channels for greater levels of agreement around policy diffusion (particularly in unstable environments) that tends to lead towards “institutional isomorphism” (ibid, p.171). Negotiated responses are relevant in this context as well because “interdependence among organisations requires inter-organisational coordination and negotiation on the extent and conditions of exchange” (Oliver 1991, p.171). Environments that are disconnected are regarded as barriers to uniform policy absorption. The mapping of the research questions to this framework is presented in section 3.3.

2.7 Conclusion

This chapter has contextualised the study within the literature on NPM and performance management in HE and presented the theory underpinning the Strategic Response Framework and its relevance (including adaptation) for deployment in this study. Leveraging the intellectual capacity of HEIs to the benefit of states’ economies and the betterment of its citizens is now a firmly rooted phenomenon in the global HE landscape. Issues surrounding hierarchical stratification and horizontal differentiation in support of this high level goal were considered. Toolkits, including performance management frameworks and strategic contracts, that give effect to the related strategies were examined for both positive and negative implications arising from their deployment internationally. Finally, the impact of both the EU and Ireland’s policy contexts and their interrelationship on KPIs set by the Irish Government for HE were discussed alongside the challenges faced in the implementation of the new HESPF.

This research study represents a unique opportunity to explore the implementation of the new HESPF in a sample of the higher education institutions. It has the potential to add significantly to the literature in the field of performance management in higher education, a field in which there is a paucity of empirical studies in the Irish context. de Boer and Jongbloed (2014, p.3) highlight that information on what these “new instruments from Governments’ toolkits….look like and how they work out is fragmented and rather thin”. A recent study on performance-based funding and performance contracts across ten countries by de Boer et al. (2015, p.5) concluded that performance contracts are subject to change in successive generations and there is a gap in the “evidence on the effects of the systems and that our understanding of the proper design and implementation of performance agreements is still incomplete”. It also found that “the effects of PBF and PA’s inside the institutions is largely unknown” (ibid, p.162). This study provides an opportunity to add to this evidence base.