The Leadership of Entrepreneurialism in Technical and Further Education Colleges
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Graduate School of Business The Leadership of Entrepreneurialism in Technical and Further Education Colleges Peter J Whitley This thesis is presented for the Degree of Doctor of Business Administration of Curtin University of Technology September 2004 Declaration This thesis contains no material, which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief this thesis contains no material previously published by any other person except where due acknowledgment has been made. Signature: …………………………………………………………….. Date: …………………………………. Acknowledgement Like many others before me I have found that undertaking extensive research to develop a major thesis requires considerable time and effort and the support of significant other persons. I would like to acknowledge and express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Dr Rick Ladyshewsky whose guidance, coaching and support enabled the development of this thesis. Rick’s endeavours ensured that a focus was maintained throughout the research and provided opportunities to discuss and debate characteristics and issues as the research progressed. Similarly my gratitude goes to Dr Colleen Liston, my co-supervisor, for her assistance through this process. In every endeavour of this nature family support is both essential and critical and I am extremely grateful for the patience, support and encouragement provided by Alison, Clint and Michael who as a result of demands on my time missed many family weekends during the progress of this work. Finally I am thankful to all my colleagues who work and operate within the TAFE system throughout Australia because it was through their commitment to openly discuss entrepreneurial changes and the processes by which they are achieved within the TAFE environment that culminated in this thesis. Abstract The provision of vocational education and training is largely provided by the Technical and Further Education (TAFE) colleges and institutes, which have been established throughout Australia. All of these colleges and institutes are the responsibility of the respective State governments and are generally considered by those governments as strategic instruments of government particularly in regard to the preparation of people for employment and addressing deficiencies within the workforce. As more emphasis has been placed upon government entities to be more entrepreneurial and corporate in their outlook, pressures for reform of the TAFE sector have also increased. These pressures have included changes to funding arrangements, increased compliance regimes and a freeing of the training delivery to encourage the establishment of private providers. This thesis explores how Chief Executive Officers and Middle Level Managers within the TAFE environment are responding to those challenges. Forty-seven senior TAFE managers are interviewed to ascertain their perspectives on the community and government expectations of TAFE and how they believe TAFE is reacting to these challenges. Resulting from the research has been the emergence of entrepreneurship in TAFE. The notion of entrepreneurship in TAFE seems to capture a sense of change, a sense of emerging vibrance, and is often used to describe innovation and risk taking within the TAFE environment. The word entrepreneurial, entrepreneurialism, entrepreneurship and other derivations of the word are loosely employed by TAFE personnel to describe particular phenomenon within TAFE. Within this thesis the treatment of entrepreneurship as a definitive concept is recognised as problematic and it is therefore treated in a way that aligns to the TAFE environment and not necessarily as defined by traditional entrepreneurial theory. The resulting research has found that TAFE leaders are working in an environment that has a multiplicity of expectations and demands that challenge the leadership of TAFE. The research finds that many of the TAFE leaders strive to act entrepreneurially whilst attempting to manage an environment that is constrained by its policy frameworks, industrial relations requirements, funding arrangements and national and state compliance frameworks. The research questions whether governments should provide TAFE with greater capacity to act entrepreneurially; governments might, as a result be rewarded through greater achievements from the TAFE sector. While the research points to a number of highly successful leaders and leadership practices in TAFE it has also found that many leaders seem to rely upon intuitiveness and past experience to lead within their environments. Finally the research posits a framework for leadership within TAFE where the leadership styles of emotional intelligence, path-goal and leader-member exchange (LMX) are merged and integrated to provide a comprehensive quality leadership framework that will achieve positive outcomes: A framework that seeks to provide a practical guide to future leadership training and development in TAFE. In addition to the leadership framework the research has identified a number of intrinsic transformational drivers and extrinsic transformational drivers, which contribute to the success of leadership in TAFE and similarly a number of impediments, which restrict TAFE leaders. Table of Contents TABLE OF CONTENTS...................................................................................1 LIST OF TABLES ..........................................................................................4 LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................5 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION – PURPOSE OF THE RESEARCH STUDY.......6 1.1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................... 6 1.2 TAFE IN CONTEXT ...................................................................................... 8 1.3 EXPECTATIONS OF TAFE ..............................................................................11 1.4 THE DILEMMAS OF LEADING IN TAFE ...............................................................14 1.5 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES................................................................................17 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................20 2.1 INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................20 2.2 TECHNICAL EDUCATION IN AUSTRALIA ..............................................................20 2.2.1 An Introduction to TAFE .................................................................20 2.2.2 A New Leadership Role in TAFE .......................................................27 2.2.3 Creating an Entrepreneurial TAFE College .........................................31 2.2.4 A Model for Effective Leadership ......................................................36 2.3 THE DEVELOPMENT OF LEADERSHIP THEORY: A BRIEF SNAPSHOT................................40 2.3.1 Contingency Theory: A Framework for Leadership..............................45 2.3.2 Fiedler's Contingency model of Leadership ........................................46 2.3.3 Hersey-Blanchard Situational Model of Leadership..............................47 2.3.4 Vroom-Yetton Model of Leadership...................................................49 2.3.5 Path-Goal Model of Leadership ........................................................50 2.3.6 Emotional Intelligence as a Model of Leadership ................................54 2.4 MOTIVATION: A KEY ASPECT OF LEADERSHIP IN TAFE ..........................................63 2.4.1 The Motivation of Subordinates and Followers ...................................63 2.4.2 The Motivation of Leaders...............................................................70 2.5 ENTREPRENEURIALISM AND TAFE....................................................................76 2.5.1 TAFE and the De-regulation of the VET Market Place ..........................76 2.5.2 The TAFE Leader as an Entrepreneur................................................79 CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY..............................................................89 3.1 INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................89 3.2 THE SEARCH FOR A RESEARCH APPROACH ...........................................................91 3.3 ONTOLOGY ..............................................................................................96 3.4 EPISTEMOLOGICAL PARADIGM ........................................................................98 3.5 RESEARCH DESIGN ....................................................................................99 3.5.1 Framework for Qualitative Research.................................................99 3.5.2 Formative understanding of TAFE .................................................. 100 3.5.2 Recruitment of Research Participants ............................................. 103 3.5.6 Participant Interviews and Data Collection ...................................... 105 3.5.7 The Search for Fit........................................................................ 110 3.6 METHODOLOGICAL LIMITATIONS ................................................................... 118 CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ........................................119 4.1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 119 4.2 ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND TAFE .................................................................... 121 4.2.1 CEO’s