Organizational structure and the performance of contract training operations in American community colleges

• Main Author: Johnson, Steven Lee
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01-01-1995
• Subjects: Community college education; Community colleges; Educational administration; Higher Education Administration; Management; School administration
• ISBN: 9798209519287

This study analyzed the relationship of organizational structure to the performance of contract training operations in community colleges. Contract training is typically custom training developed by colleges and sold to businesses and larger employers. The magnitude of contract training has increased over the past several years, and numerous issues surrounding the management of contract training have made it a topic for scholarly study. This study was an extension of the body of research on contract training. The theoretic framework of this study was structural contingency theory. This theory proposes that effective organizations have organizational structures that are appropriate for the particular product or service being produced and that not all organizational structures are equally appropriate. This study was conducted in two stages. In the first stage, quantitative data were collected via a national survey of community colleges (n = 480) and the analyzed using data envelopment analysis. In the second stage, qualitative data were collected and analyzed from interviews with contract training administrators within purposely selected community colleges (n = 50). Several themes emerged from the analysis of interview data. When these themes are viewed in light of the results of the statistical analysis, a strong meta-theme emerges as a synthesis. This meta-theme is as follows: High performing contract training operations utilize policies, staff, structures, procedures, and operating philosophies that are different from the traditional college organization. Contract training operations must be able to operate in a way that is congruent with the needs of business and industry. If those ways of operating differ from the traditional operating core of the college (and they typically do differ in this way), then special efforts must be made to allow the contract training unit to function in this different mode. Effective colleges have differed slightly in their approaches to supporting contract training, but the basics are the same: Contract training (a) is well supported by the president, (b) is structurally separated from the traditional instructional units, (c) employs staff with relatively unique skills that are appropriate for producing services for business, and (d) utilizes operating procedures that are separate relative to traditional instructional college operating procedures.