Organizational routines and teaching innovations: a case study

ABSTRACT

Adopting new teaching practices, like the ‘flipped classroom’, disrupts organizational routines within the university. This paper examines flipped classroom implementation from the perspective of four stakeholder groups students, instructors, administrators, and managers), using an organizational routines lens. Disrupting established routines created risk, decreases coordination and shared understanding, and increases time and cognitive load for stakeholders. We conclude that seemingly minor innovations in teaching delivery can have major and disruptive implications for the wider institution.

KEYWORDS:

• Organizational routines
• flipped classroom
• case study

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Mary Tate is a Research Fellow (DECRA) at Queensland University of Technology. Mary has an extensive background in IT practice prior to joining academia. She has more than 80 peer-reviewed publications in leading IS journals and conferences, including Information and Management, Journal of the Association for AIS, and the European Journal of Information Systems. Her work focuses on the implications of adopting new digital technologies for service delivery; and information systems theory and research methods.

Jennifer Campbell-Meier is a Senior Lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington. Jennifer has experience a solo librarian and an academic. Her main area of research is the management and evaluation of library and information services, especially those services involving organizational change.

Rory Sudfelt holds a masters degree from Victoria University of Wellington and works as a researcher and analyst at the Education Review Office in the Evaluation Services (ES) unit. The ES unit is responsible for the national evaluations of schools and early childhood services in New Zealand.

ORCID

Mary Tate http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4284-7467

Notes

1. We need look no further than the flurry of accusations and counter-accusations of ‘fake news’ in the United States to realize this is a pressing need.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council [grant number DE160100548].