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2 mars 2014

Agility: a crucial capability for universities in times of disruptive change and innovation

The latest issue of Australian Universities' Review, vol. 56, no. 1, is now available online. eBook: http://issuu.com/nteu/docs/aur_56-01.
By Sheila Mukerjee, La Trobe University. Agility: a crucial capability for universities in times of disruptive change and innovation (Australian Universities' Review, vol. 56, no. 1, pp. 56-60)
Government funding cuts have provided a new impetus to Australian universities to re-examine their value proposition and corporate focus. While the sector has gone through waves of change in recent times, institutions are now scrambling for their place in a highly competitive market. Institutions explore new revenue opportunities and digital transformation to achieve cost savings and efficiencies. The digital world is driving innovation and continuous change at such a rapid and random rate that universities are struggling to keep up with demand.
Introduction
The film, music, newspaper and retail industries – among many others – have already experienced the impact of the digital revolution and experienced the need to adapt or perish in the face of such unprecedented change and swing in consumer preferences. White (2013), a former journalist who experienced this impact on the print media first hand, warns of seeing the same warning signs of technology’s impact on the higher education sector and the consequences of ignoring them. Universities have been warned to overhaul or perish (Hare, 2012).
Given the growing take up of online education, views are being expressed about the longevity and viability of higher education institutions (Coy, 2013). It is becoming increasingly clear that business models and corporate focus need to be reframed and renewed to ensure that they are relevant to current and future markets and more importantly, will stand the test of time and still exist to meet the ongoing demand and challenges of the times. Over the years, the higher education sector has faced a barrage of disruptions and reforms as a result of government reform, market demand and volatility, economic pressures and technological innovation. Recent innovations to open up education, including Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), blended learning, collaborative models and free education with elite universities, have changed the landscape of the education sector (Marques, 2013; Valiathan, 2002; Associated Press, 2013). These innovations have placed the sector on high alert to the disruptive force of the digital revolution.
In Australia, recent government announcements about funding cuts and proposed reforms to the university funding model (Matchett, 2013; Hurst & Tovey, 2013) have compounded the situation. Now, more than ever, business models are needed that have strategic foresight capability underpinned by corporate and business agility to respond and adapt to change with minimum latency. Agility is an increasingly crucial factor for survival in this new throwaway paradigm of innovation upon innovation.
What is meant by agility in an organisational and operational sense? Agility encompasses the ability to respond and adapt to change in a timely manner so that change quickly becomes the norm for the organisation. Sambamurthy et al. (2003, p. 238) define agility in the context of business success as ‘the ability to detect and seize market opportunities with speed and surprise’. An agile organisation has this sense of opportunistic sensitivity and adaptability embedded in its strategic and operational DNA.
Many facets of agility as an organisational capability have been researched and reported. Doz and Kosonen (2010) provide a framework for strategic agility and corresponding leadership actions that accelerate the process of business transformation and renewal. Goodhue et al. (2009) published their findings of the effectiveness of enterprise systems in addressing business agility. Systems and hardware agility are significant players in today’s technology-driven businesses. Sambamurthy et al. (2003) discuss the strategic role of IT investments and capabilities in shaping agility in organisations. They also present an argument that agility comprises the three interrelated capabilities of customer agility, partnering agility and operational agility. Cultural agility, espoused by Caligiuri (2013), is another interesting perspective of agility that relates to the professional working in cross-cultural environments. Being culturally agile in a globalised market is a definite advantage in successfully negotiating, operating and delivering outcomes under foreign domains. The sections that follow describe these facets of agility in greater detail and relate these capabilities to the university sector as it seeks to re-imagine, transform and innovate. More...

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