Abstract
Purpose – Universities are making changes to fulfill their education, research and community service responsibilities. However, the effectiveness of change initiatives is always in questions because changes especially in developing nations are carried out under multidimensional pressures. Exacerbated by limited experience of systemic change management approaches, most change initiatives fail to address institutional problems. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to propose adaptive design as a promising approach to create adaptive changes in universities. Guided by pragmatic philosophical viewpoint, this research followed a practice theory to understand actions and decisions related to changes. Staffs and students were made to reflect their perception for the principles and tactics extracted from adaptive design and their implementation in the university. In addition, the study tried to identify major challenges to create adaptive changes. In doing so, the research used mixed method—sequential explanatory approach. Survey and interviews were made to gather relevant data. The finding of this research confirm that adaptive design is an excellent alternative approach to create adaptive changes in universities. This may prove the significance of the approach if accepted and scaled up as an alternative change management theory. However, in the target university, leaders and change agents rarely used a change management approach that resembles adaptive design, which in turn may be the reason for failing to bring adaptive changes (deep and pervasive). Consequently, it was reflected that business as usual do not suffice, and hence, universities have to continually update themselves with up-to-date change management approaches like adaptive design. Besides, it was outlined that institutions should revisit why and how they are introducing changes. Design/methodology/approach – The study followed mixed research–sequential explanatory approach. Multistage stratified random sampling was used to select respondents which included staffs and students. Questionnaire for 219 respondents and in-depth interviews with purposely selected six relevant interviewees were employed. One sample t-test, ANOVA and content analysis techniques were used to analyze data. Findings – The finding of this paper reflected that tenets of adaptive design, its principles and tactics are important tools to lead and institutionalize change initiatives. This may prove the significance of the approach if accepted and scaled up as an alternative change management theory. However, in the target university, leaders and change agents rarely used a change management approach that resembles adaptive design, which, in turn, may be the reason for failing to bring adaptive changes (deep and pervasive) in the institution. Consequently, it was reflected that business as usual does not suffice, and hence, universities have to continually update themselves with up-to-date change management approaches like adaptive design. Besides, it was outlined that institutions should revisit why and how they are introducing changes.
