Resultados de las entrevistas realizadas a directivos y personal

Arimoto (2004) identifies one of these external forces driving university change, a force he refers to as a new modernization trend. This trend encompasses the many facets of the economy and translates into a process that is remolding the economy, redefining work and changing the face of labour (Arimoto 2004; Drucker 2002; Perkin 1991). Arimoto (2004) illustrates, as shown in Figure 6, that the process of modernization is further driving changes that are redefining the university’s missions. Not only is the modernization trend redefining the relationship between the state and the university but also redefining the functions and objectives of advanced knowledge in society.

Arimoto illustrates that the function of knowledge has shifted from the knowledge function it served in the Knowledge-based Society 1 (KBS1), the industrial society; to the function it serves in the Knowledge-based Society 2 (KBS2), the Information or “Next Society” (Arimoto 2004; Drucker 2002; Evan 2000).

Knowledge-based society 1 university After Control society society Nation state Industrial society Govern- ance Manage- ment Strategic reconstruction university knowledge research service teaching research knowledge

Modern HE system 21st Century HE system

Knowledge, society, and university

Before Control Globalization Knowledge society Teaching Service government Knowledge-based society 2 government

Figure 6. Arimoto 2004, p. 4: Knowledge, society, and university

The knowledge function that the university served in the modern industrial society took form with the invention of the steam engine in the late 1800s which ushered in the modern industrial society. Mechanized manufacturing created the factory work and worker and subsequently shifted the locus of economic activity from the family unit to the nation state (Drucker 2002). In this KBS1 dominated by the industrial- mechanical model of production, the university in its professional service orientation played a central role in knowledge production (Arimoto 2004). Under conditions of corporate autonomy and academic freedom and security of tenure, the state or

government intervention of university work and practices was barred and yet the state was responsible for securing a flow of resources to the organization (Perkin 1991).

This model of relationship between the state and university became the model which informed the relationship between UPNG, the first university in PNG, and the state of PNG. From its establishment in 1965, the university in PNG assumed the central role in knowledge production, on which state development was dependent. Today, more universities, including DWU, are contributing to national development in increasing access to higher education by Papua New Guineans.

The Nature of Work and Patterns of Organizing Work in KBS2

A second revolutionary invention propelled the modernization trend further forward and contributed to redefining knowledge and the place of the university in society. This had significant implications for the culture of the organization. The invention was the computer in the 1940s nearly 200 years after the invention of the steam engine which first transformed society and set off the modernization trend (Drucker 2002). The computer triggered the information revolution that not only further transformed society; it also further redefined the purpose of advance knowledge and the place and purpose of the university in society.

The transformation of society was evident in different spheres of activity. At the social structure level, the computer affected a societal transition from the modern industrial society, KBS1, to the post-industrial society, KBS2, also variously referred to as the Information/Knowledge Society, or “Next Society” (Arimoto 2004; Drucker 2002). The shift was further evident in the expansion of the basic locus of economic and social life from the modern nation-state to either multi-national regional

groupings or even to the extent of a global supra-structure (Djelic & Quack 2003; Giddens 1998).

In the economic arena, as society and the workplace have become more knowledge- dependent thereby embedding knowledge in society at large, knowledge has become the new driver of the economy, its “true capital and the premier wealth-producing resource” (Arimoto 2004; Drucker 1989, p. 232;2002). The embedding of knowledge within the broader society has implications for the university. It contests the status of the university as the sole provider of advance education and in so doing challenges the control the university exercises over knowledge production and application in the KBS1 (Arimoto 2004). Kogan, Moses and El-Khawas (1994) and McInnis (1998) go so far as to suggest that, in light of these changes, a new higher education mandate and boundaries ought to be re-negotiated.

In the context of work, the routinization of processes made possible by computer information and digital technologies not onlyredefined the nature of work, it also changed the face of labour (Arimoto 2004; Drucker 1989). Arimoto (2004)

characterizes the new work setting as one where complex machine power had replaced muscle power and one that was governed by the micro-chip, robotics and automatic self-regulating machines. As the work became more knowledge dependent, it demanded a more knowledgeable worker, a worker with specialized literacy,

mathematical and technical competencies as well as generic transferable skills (Burkart 1991; Kogan, Moses & El-Khawas 1994).

In terms of the organization of work and the management of people within the work organization, as the worker has become more knowledgeable, the model of organizing work and the management of people in the workplace has witnessed a subsequent shift. It has moved away from one where a small group of professional managers would control and coordinate a workforce constituted by a large numbers of blue- collar workers with little or no education to one tailored to meet the needs of a workforce that was predominately knowledge-based (Arimoto 2004; Drucker 1989). The factory-floor workplace model of industrial society was replaced by what Torres and Schugurensky (2002, p. 432) describe as a workplace characterized by increased segmentation with “ a small cadre of supervisory, system-oriented, managerial

personal with flexible skills and comprehensive knowledge, and a large pool of lower level workers with narrowly specialized job skills predisposed to what Castell (cited in Webster 2000, p. 314) terms as “self-programmability” that is, the ability to adapt to changing knowledge and new competencies. Such a work context exhibits greater tolerance of mistakes, and allows for risk-taking and experimentation (Dunkin 2003).

As the university responds to the changing purpose of knowledge in society in the context of changing work organization practices, university change literature notes an ironic trend within the university field. The irony observed in the organization of work within the university, the organization of highest qualified knowledge workers (Etzioni 1964; Slaughter & Leslie 1997) is observed to be adopting models tailored to serve the less knowledgeable workers of the industrial society.

In the context of these global changes impacting on the university, countries such as PNG are at once located within the globalized world and yet they remain

disconnected and on the periphery and unable to effectively make the transition into KBS2. Universities such as DWU which are located in contexts such as PNG, remain

at the center of knowledge production serving the primary function of nation building. Yet, in terms of organizing work, universities in PNG confront changes that parallel changes experienced by the universities in the west (Office of Higher Education 2000a; Puton 2004).