The ‘Higher-ness’ of ‘Further-ness’ in HFE:
Organising at the HFE Interface
Higher Education in Further Education in
England (HFE) is claimed to be:
Under theorised
Under researched
Under Valued
The limitation of dichotomies, dualisms and
continuums for understanding HFE
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Static
Emphasising differences
Lacking in context
Prone to Reification
Simplistic
Lacking holism and relationality
An Alternative analytical model
 Based upon neo-institutionalist theory:
institutions matter
 Incorporating context and situational
factors and arguing that institutions
matter
 Arguing for relationality and positionality
within an HFE organisational field
 Incorporating Holism and Path
Dependency
Defining Institutions
 “the rules of the game in a society, or more formally,
..the humanly devised constraints that shape human
interaction.” North (1990, p 3)
 “(i)nstitutions consist of cognitive, normative, and
regulative structures and activities that provide
stability and meaning to social behavior. Institutions
are transported by various carriers—cultures,
structures, and routines—and they operate at multiple
levels of jurisdiction” (Scott, 1995 p 33)
Legitimacy and Institutions
 Organisations seek legitimacy in their
operating environment as a means of
accessing resources
 Coercive isomorphism
 Normative isomorphism
 Mimetic isomorphism
Isomorphism HFE
 Coercive isomorphism
 QAAHE
 HEFCE
Isomorphism in HFE
 Normative isomorphism
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Peer review
Communities of practice
Research networks
Disciplinary cultures
Isomorphism in HFE
 Mimetic isomorphism
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Reputation
Status
Brand
Often a function of uncertainty
Organisational fields
 “those organizations that, in aggregate,
constitute a recognized area of
institutional life: key suppliers,
resources and product consumers,
regulatory agencies, and other
organizations that produce similar
services or products” (DiMaggio and
Powell 1983, p148)
Organisational field
 ‘fields are defined in terms of shared
cognitive or normative framework or a
common regulative system. The notion
of field connotes the existence of a
community of organizations that
partakes of a common meaning system
and whose participants interact more
frequently and more fatefully with one
and another than with actors outside of
the field’. Scott (1995:56)
Emergence of an Organisational
Field
 Increased interaction between groups
and organisations in field
 Common meaning system evolves
 Increase of information load that
organisations in field are subject to
 Coalitions and alliances form over
common interests
THE HFE Organisational Field
Pre 1988: – HFE mainly public sector
HFE (dominated by polys and colleges)
1988 – 1992: Incorporation and
abolition of the binary divide
1992 – 1997: era of low policy
1997 – date: era of high policy post
Dearing
Structuration of HFE
Organisational Field
 By ethos of HFE
 By vocational emphasis and closeness to
world of work
 By different organisational forms
 By different traditions and cultures
 Through dual structures of funding and
quality assurance
 By scale and scope
 By power asymmetries at the interface
Mapping the Institutional Context
 Use of a heuristic as context to map
socio- structural spaces in HFE
organisational field
 Helps to identify the process of
embedding in context
 Captures organisational dispositions
(habitus) and organisational positioning
 Institutionalising the HFE organisational
field
 A contested terrain
 The legitimation or legitimacy of HFE
THE HFE Organisational Field
 A positional construct (Positioning and
positionality in a field)
 Embedded at the Meso level:
intersection of macro and micro
 An analytical construct
 The outcome of a process of
institutionalisation and constant change
at the boundaries
Organisational Dispositions
 Preference formation as an aspect of
institutional context: institutionalising
organisational dispositions
 Institutionalised classifications and
categories in HFE (conventions and
administrative conveniences: a historical
legacy)
 Positioning and repositioning HFE in an
organisational field as a dynamic and
iterative process of constant organising
at the boundaries of HFE
Douglas’ grid group heuristic
(sometimes called cultural theory)
 A comparative device
 Links preferences and dispositions of agents
to patterns of organising
 Assumes an iterative, dialectical interplay
between the two dimensions (grid and group)
but not a deterministic one
 Asks where do preferences come from?
The Grid-Group Heuristic
 GRID
 the degree to which HFE organisations
are subject to externally imposed
rules and regulations and associated
role prescriptions
 Roles, rules, categories and
classifications of regulation that
impinge on HFE providers as
organisations.
The Grid-Group Heuristic
 GROUP
 Patterns of group interaction, identity
and boundary maintenance embedded
in an organisational field
 Organisational forms and patterns of
structured inter organisational
collaboration across HFE interface
Grid-Group
Fatalism
Hierarchy
(isolated atomism)
(bureaucracy)
Apathy
Ritualism
Isolation
Peripheral
Risk as random
Rule following
Standardisation
Status orders (Positionality)
Centralisation
Risk averse
Individualism
Egalitarianism
(negotiation/bargaining)
(sects/community of practices)
Markets
Entrepreneurship
Discovery processes
Bridging Structural Holes
Risk as opportunity
Mutuality
Networks
Clans
Enclaves
Risk pooled
The Grid Group Quadrants
 Hierarchy strong grid strong group
(Bureaucracy)
 Individualism weak grid weak group
(Market)
 Egalitarianism (Enclaves) strong group
weak grid
 Fatalism Strong grid weak group
(isolated atomism)
Boundary work boundary crossings
and boundary objects
 Structured collaboration across the HFE
interface
 Mediated through Boundary Objects
 Boundary Objects located at inter
section of the grid group quadrants
Boundary Objects
 “objects which both inhabit several intersecting social
worlds and satisfy the informational requirements of
each of them. Boundary objects are objects which as
plastic enough to adapt to local needs and the
constraints of the several parties employing them, yet
robust enough to maintain a common identity across
sites. They are weakly structured in common use, and
become strongly structured in individual use. These
objects may be abstract or concrete. They have different
meanings in different social worlds but their structure is
common enough to more than one world to make them
recognizable, a means of translation. The creation and
management of boundary objects is a key process in
developing and maintaining coherence across
intersecting social worlds.” (Start and Griesmer, 1989, p
393)
Boundary Objects (Carlile,2002)
 Difference
 Dependency
 Novelty
 Boundary Properties
 Syntactic
 Semantic
 pragmatic
Hybridisation
 Through boundary objects
 Through common funding and quality
assurance agencies for HE and HFE
 Through structured collaboration
 Through boundary work
 Through common policy focus:
 Widening participation
 Access
 Organisational diversity
Context of Structured
Collaboration
 Facilitate understanding through grid
group-heuristic
 Maps socio structural space, institutional
trajectories and relational spaces within
an organisational field
 locates boundary objects in inter
organisational ‘communities of practice’
across the HFE interface
 Contextualises boundaries and the HFE
interface
 Incorporates dynamic processual view of
modal forms of organising in HFE
Boundary Objects and transactions at
the HFE Interface
 Hierarchy - Individualism (targets /
Performance indicators / Quasimarkets etc.,)
 Egalitarian - Hierarchy (Peer review /
Status order: reputation)
 Individualism - Hierarchy (League
Tables; market forces)
Policy Lessons
 Perverse incentives
 Transaction Costs
 Intended and unintended consequences
of policy change
 Boundary Objects and Boundary Objects
in use (embedded)
 Contesting Legitimacy in HFE
Policy Lessons
 Which Boundary Objects are most likely
to be effective?
 How to manage tensions at the HFE
interface?
 Dual or binary systems and structures?
 Strengths and Weaknesses of different
modes of organising
 Arguing from different premises (grid
and group)