Individuals in action: bringing about innovation in higher education

ABSTRACT

This article addresses academics who innovate in higher education and their characteristics. We undertake a qualitative case study of six individuals who implemented disruptive and transformative pedagogical approaches and curricular practices in their departments and/or at their institutions. Our findings point to six common characteristics – motivation to change institutionalized practices, interest in change, experience in the field, multi-embeddedness, authority to act, and the strategic use of social networks – which seem to play a role at individual levels in driving these disruptive and transformative approaches. While acknowledging studies in higher education that address innovation as a response to exogenous influences, this study highlights the role of individuals with certain characteristics in driving innovation and processes of endogenous change in higher education institutions. These findings are also relevant for higher education practitioners in their desire to foster innovative initiatives in institutional settings.

KEYWORDS:

• Curricular innovation
• institutional entrepreneurs
• social networks
• individual characteristics
• institutionalized fields

Acknowledgments

We are also very grateful to two anonymous reviewers for their informative and helpful insights that have improved the reasoning and presentation of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Sandra Hasanefendic is a double doctoral degree student from the Vrije University Amsterdam and ISCTE IUL in Portugal. She studies organizational behaviour in higher education. Her focus lies on non university higher education and responses to policy pressures regarding research and innovation in education and training. Sandra also teaches, consults and advises policymakers on issues relevant to advancement of higher education in Portugal and the Netherlands.

Julie M. Birkholz is a postdoctoral researcher at CHEGG. Her research focuses on networks in higher education. She takes a social network approach in investigating networks considering inter-organizational alliances, scientific collaboration and governance arrangements. The focus is on quantitative social network analysis to systematically compare contexts, structures and outcomes through the use of big(ger) digital and Web data sources. In addition, she does research on altmetrics and the use and effects of social media by both higher education institutions and researchers. She holds a doctorate in Organization Sciences from the VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Hugo Horta is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Education of the University of Hong Kong. He authored and co-authored publications on higher education diversity, science policy, research productivity and networking, doctoral career trajectories, internationalization of higher education, and academic mobility in international peer-reviewed journals, such as Higher Education, Research in Higher Education, Management Science, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Science and Public Policy, Scientometrics, and Higher Education Policy among others. He is currently Coordinating-editor of Higher Education, a leading journal of higher education studies, and sits in the editorial boards of several journals.

Peter van der Sijde is professor of Organization, Entrepreneurship & Technology in the Faculties of Science and Social Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands. His research interest are on academic entrepreneurship, the role of higher education in the eco-innovation systems, and commercialization of (academic) research.

ORCID

Hugo Horta http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6814-1393

Sandra Hasanefendic http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2246-7325

Notes

1. Universities of applied sciences, also known as polytechnics in Portugal, hogescholen in the Netherlands, fachhochule in Germany, and Cegeps in Canada and the U.S., are professional tertiary educational institutions which function as part of binary (or dual) higher education systems alongside universities. They provide practical, hands-on learning about the profession and in close interaction with the professional field, mostly at the undergraduate level (see Hasanefendic, Heitor, and Horta 2016).

2. The 30 interviews were conducted with the Deans of Schools of Technology and Digital Media and Creative Industries, Teachers and Teacher/Researchers and Managers from two Dutch universities of applied sciences, the President, Vice Presidents, and Teachers from two Portuguese universities of applied sciences, and a professor and teacher from a German university of applied sciences. This study resulted in a recent publication where the methodology is broadly explained (see Hasanefendic, Heitor, and Horta 2016).

3. The innovations led by the interviewees in Hong Kong and Macau were researched and led to published articles: (see Horta and Martins 2014; Cheng 2002).

Additional information

Funding

The first author wishes to acknowledge the Portuguese science funding foundation FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia – for supporting this research, with [grant number SFRH/BD/87424/2012]. The second author acknowledges funding from the Flanders (FWO) Research Foundation, [grant number G.OC42].