Thesis 2002

DOLLARS AND SENSE: AN EXPLORATION OF

DISCOURSAL AND CLIMATE ISSUES IN INTERNATIONAL

ELT MANAGEMENT

by

Greg Keaney

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the

degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

University of Sydney

2002

DOLLARS AND SENSE: AN EXPLORATION OF DISCOURSAL AND

CLIMATE ISSUES IN INTERNATIONAL ELT MANAGEMENT

By Greg Keaney

ABSTRACT

The worldviews of the entrepreneur and the ELT educator are underpinned by differing values that have many points of conflict. These points of conflict may negatively impact on organizational performance and effectiveness. Despite the range of conflicting notions, however, it may also be possible to find areas of shared values between the two discourses. These commonalities are likely to provide a basis for reconciliation strategies between entrepreneurial and educational imperatives that can assist the ELT manager.

The need for, and the development of, such strategies are examined in this study. Literature review, analysis of ELT educator and entrepreneur discourses and examination of several international ELT colleges demonstrate the nature and range of these value clashes. Action research at one international ELT college suggests that management approaches based on an awareness of all the dimensions of an organization’s climate, emphasising integration, collaboration and a focus on client service, may offer a management model that assists in the functional resolution of some of these value clashes.

The study uses ethnographic methods to gain a fuller insight into management at a small number of international ELT colleges and examines some of the managerial factors that enhance or interfere with their educational and organizational goals. It suggests that integration of all organizational activities from finance to marketing to education should be a core value that has appeal to both

entrepreneurs and ELT educators. Collaboration is another factor that is capable of appealing to, and sharing meanings across, the two discourses. A third commonality may be a strong focus on client service, as notions of student centred learning have been important in ELT for many years, while entrepreneurial thinking has long valued a focus on client and customer care as a primary business advantage.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract...................................................................................iTable of Contents....................................................................iList of Figures.........................................................................vAcknowledgments..................................................................viGlossary................................................................................viiChapter 1................................................................................1Introduction............................................................................11.1. Aims of the Study............................................................11.2. Rationale.........................................................................21.3. Background to the study..................................................41.4. Professional and Academic Background of the Researcher.............................................................................71.5. A Note on Usage..............................................................9Chapter 2..............................................................................12Methodology.........................................................................122.1. Introduction...................................................................122.2. Approach.......................................................................132.3. Data Collection..............................................................152.4. Analysis.........................................................................322.5. Report of Findings.........................................................382.6. Conclusion.....................................................................39Chapter 3..............................................................................40Management and Organizations...........................................403.1. Introduction...................................................................403.2. Defining Organizations..................................................403.3. Perspectives of Organizations.......................................443.4. Management and Organizational Effectiveness.............523.5. The Description of International ELT Organizations.....543.6. Conclusion.....................................................................59Chapter 4..............................................................................61The International ELT College Environment........................614.1. Introduction...................................................................614.2. English as an International Language...........................624.3.The Growth of the International ELT Industry in Australia.............................................................................................644.4. The Regulation of the International ELT Industry in Australia...............................................................................68

4.5. The Products and Services of International ELT Colleges.............................................................................................744.6. Conclusion.....................................................................78Chapter 5..............................................................................79Discourses and Discourse Analysis.......................................795.1. Introduction...................................................................795.2. Discourse.......................................................................805.3. Discourse Analysis and Description...............................845.4. Ideological-Discursive Formations.................................885.5. Conclusion.....................................................................89Chapter 6..............................................................................90The Discourses of the Educator and the Entrepreneur: Descriptions..........................................................................906.1. Introduction...................................................................906.2. The Discourse of the Entrepreneur...............................906.3 The Discourse of the ELT Educator..............................1016.4. Conclusion...................................................................109Chapter 7............................................................................110The Discourses of the Educator and the Entrepreneur: Contestations......................................................................1107.1. Introduction.................................................................1107.2. View of Organizations..................................................1117.3. Commodification of Education.....................................1187.4. Transaction Costs........................................................1207.5. Process vs People........................................................1217.6. Commonalities.............................................................1227.7. Conclusion...................................................................126Chapter 8............................................................................127The Discourses of the Educator and the Entrepreneur: Institutionalisation..............................................................1278.1. Introduction.................................................................1278.2. Institutions and IDFs...................................................1288.3. Course Selection and Development.............................1308.4. The Management of Staff and the Allocation of Resources...........................................................................1338.5. The Recruitment, Placement and Certification of Students.............................................................................1398.6. Conclusion...................................................................142Chapter 9............................................................................144The Structure of Work Organizations.................................1449.1. Introduction.................................................................144

ii

9.2. Organizational Structure.............................................1449.3. Power distribution.......................................................1489.4. Describing Organizational Structures.........................1539.5. The Relationship between Structure and Organizational Climate...............................................................................1569.6. Conclusion...................................................................158Chapter 10..........................................................................160The Structure of International ELT Colleges......................16010.1. Introduction...............................................................16010.2. The Bureaucratic Structure in ELT Colleges.............16010.3. The Managerialist Structure in ELT Colleges............16310.4. The Management of Structure in ELT Colleges.........16610.5. Action Research at College E: Structure...................16910.6. Conclusion.................................................................174Chapter 11..........................................................................176The Milieu of International ELT Colleges...........................17611.1. Introduction...............................................................17611.2. The Relationship between Milieu and Organizational Climate...............................................................................17611.3. The ELT Teacher Milieu............................................17811.4. The ELT Administration, Marketing and Counselling Staff Milieu.........................................................................18411.5. The ELT Agent Milieu................................................18611.6. The ELT Student Milieu.............................................19111.7. Action Research at College E: Milieu........................19511.8. Conclusion.................................................................205Chapter 12..........................................................................206The Ecology of International ELT Colleges.........................20612.1. Introduction...............................................................20612.2. The Relationship between Ecology and Organizational Climate...............................................................................20612.3. Ecology and International ELT Colleges....................20812.4. Ecology and Communication.....................................21212.5. Ecological Change.....................................................21912.6. Action Research at College E: Ecology......................22212.7. Conclusion.................................................................225Chapter 13..........................................................................227The Culture of Work Organizations....................................22713.1. Introduction...............................................................22713.2. The Concept of Culture..............................................22713.3. Organizational Culture..............................................230

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13.4. Describing Organizational Cultures...........................23413.5. Organizational Culture and Organizational Effectiveness......................................................................23613.6. The Relationship between Organizational Culture and Climate...............................................................................24013.7. Conclusion.................................................................242Chapter 14..........................................................................244The Culture of International ELT Colleges.........................24414.1. Introduction...............................................................24414.2. Integration.................................................................24514.3. Collaboration.............................................................25114.4. The Development of a Client Service Culture............25514.5. Action Research at College E: Culture.......................26214.6. Conclusion.................................................................269Chapter 15..........................................................................271The ELT Manager...............................................................27115.1. Introduction...............................................................27115.2. ELT Managers...........................................................27115.3. Teacher Perceptions of ELT Managers......................27815.4. Vision and Values......................................................27915.5. Climate and the ELT Manager...................................28415.6. Conclusion.................................................................287Chapter 16..........................................................................289Conclusion..........................................................................28916.1. Introduction...............................................................28916.2. Environment..............................................................29116.3. Discourse Resolution.................................................29116.4. Climate......................................................................29316.5. Action Research.........................................................29616.6. Simply the Best..........................................................297Bibliography.......................................................................300Appendix A.........................................................................320Interview and Observation Guide.......................................320Appendix B.........................................................................322Sample Interview Sheet and Analysis.................................322Appendix C.........................................................................327Profile of Informants...........................................................327

iv

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure/Table PageFigure 2.1 Data Collection 17Figure 2.2 Action Research Process (adapted from Kemmis,

1988, p.11) 26Table 2.2 Action Research Initiatives at College E 37Figure 3.1. Organizational Climate 59Figure 5.1. Transactions between Writers and Readers 86Figure 7.1 ELT educator values and entrepreneurial values

125Figure 9.1. The Power Configuration 149Figure 9.2. The Role Configuration 150Figure 9.3. The Task Configuration 151Figure 9.4. The Person Configuration 152Figure 9.5 The ELT Structure Matrix 154Figure 15.1 The relationship between quality and profit. 283Table 15.1 Summary of Action Research Initiatives at College

E 285Figure 16.1 Reconciliation of ELT educator and

entrepreneurial values 295

v

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my Supervisor, Phillip Jones, and the

staff of the University of Sydney for their assistance with this

project.

I would also like to thank my wonderful family and many

friends and colleagues in Australia, Brunei, Japan, Malaysia,

Thailand, Indonesia, the United States, the United Kingdom,

Ireland and a few other of the ‘round earth’s imagined

corners’ for a host of insights and many years of enjoyment

on the road and in ELT.

vi

GLOSSARY

AARE Australian Association for Research in Education

ACPET The Australian Council for Private Education and Training

AEI Australian Education International

AIEF Australian International Education Foundation

Cert TEFLA Certificate in Teaching English as a Foreign Language to Adults

CRICOS Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students

DEET Department of Employment, Education and Training

DEETYA Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs

DEST Department of Education, Science and Training

DFAT Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

DILGEA Department of Immigration, Local government and Ethnic Affairs

DIMA Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs

DOS Director of Studies

EA English Australia (formerly the ELICOS Association)

ELICOS English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students

ELT English Language Teaching

vii

ESOS Act Education Services for Overseas Students (Registration of Providers and Financial Regulations Act

1991)

IATEFL International Association of Teaching English as a Foreign Language

IELTS International English Language Testing Service

IDF ideological-discursive formation

NEAS National ELICOS Accreditation Scheme

OSHC Overseas Student Health Cover

RSA Royal Society of the Arts (See UCLES)

TEFL Teaching English as a Foreign Language

TESL Teaching English as a Second Language

TOEFL Test of English as a Foreign Language

UCLES University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate

VET Vocational Education and Training

VETAB Vocational Education and Training Accreditation Board

viii

C h a p t e r 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1. Aims of the Study

The worldview of the entrepreneur and the ELT educator,

their Weltanschauung, seem to have a degree of tension, if

not opposition, in many international ELT colleges. The

respective worldviews are underpinned by differing values

that have many points of conflict. These points of conflict may

negatively impact on organizational performance and

effectiveness. Despite this range of conflicting notions,

however, it may be possible to find areas of shared values

between the two discourses. These commonalities are likely

to provide a basis for reconciliation strategies between

entrepreneurial and educational imperatives that can assist

in international ELT college management.

The Australian education sector, like its counterparts in other

English-speaking countries, is internationalising at a rapid

pace. Traditional institutions have expanded their operations

to meet this growing need, while more than 200 new

institutions commenced operations to service the area in

1999 (DETYA, 2000). Growth in research, however, has not

yet parallelled this rapid expansion. ELT colleges and their

managers have yet to be subject to much detailed research,

1

even though the industry has become an important segment

of growth in the educational sector in Australia. The

fundamental aim of this research project, therefore, is to

contribute to understanding of management practices in

international ELT colleges in Australia, especially in those

that are privately owned and operated.

In order to achieve this primary aim, the study examines

some of the underlying constructs and competing values in

discoursal areas that affect ELT management. It looks at

texts that are indicative of the discourses of the entrepreneur

and the educator, and compares and contrasts the value

systems they represent. It explores areas of shared values

between the two discourses suggesting that these are fruitful

avenues towards reconciliation and functional resolution of

discoursal tensions. The study also examines the

organizational climate of a number of ELT colleges in Sydney,

Australia with data gained by ethnographic means and

discusses some of their effective and ineffective ELT

management practices.

As a result of the discourse analysis and the examination of

organizational climate, an action research project at one

international ELT college suggests that management

approaches based on an awareness of all the dimensions of

an organization’s climate, emphasising integration,

collaboration and a focus on client service, may offer a

management model that assists in the functional resolution of

some of these discoursal tensions. It suggests that integration

2

of all organizational activities from finance to marketing to

education should be a core value that has appeal to both

entrepreneurs and ELT educators. Collaboration is proposed

as another factor that is capable of appealing to, and sharing

meanings across, the two discourses. A third commonality

may be a strong focus on client service, as notions of student

centred learning have been important in ELT for many years,

while entrepreneurial thinking has long valued a focus on

client and customer care as a primary business advantage.

1.2. Rationale

Considering the rapid growth in the ELT industry worldwide

and in Australia outlined in Chapter 4 The International ELT

College Environment, there has been little research work in

the area of management in ELT and virtually none in the

context of the Australian industry. The internationalisation of

the Australian education sector, and the rapid change in the

commercial and legislative environment for ELT colleges over

the last decade, have made research into ELT management

and its capacity to improve educational and organizational

outcomes for all stakeholders, a significant area of concern.

Jack Richards, one of the most influential applied linguists in

the area of ELT over the last two decades recently noted that:

Language teaching has often been discussed from a relatively narrow perspective, with a focus on teaching methods and techniques. Improvement in language teaching has been linked to the use of better methods of teaching, hence the extensive literature on teaching methods and the preoccupation with the

3

search for the best teaching methods that has characterized the history of language teaching for much of the last 100 years. …In recent years it has been acknowledged that since language teaching normally takes place within an institution of some sort, some of the principles of effective institutional management identified in other settings can also be applied to language teaching…

Richards, 2001, p.410

Perhaps because of a lean towards the educational aspects of

ELT in academic research, the linkages between ELT in the

classroom and the entrepreneurial and organizational

concerns of ELT institutions have been less carefully

examined. It should be an important concern of those

working to improve ELT, however, to obtain data on how the

institutions where language teaching and learning occurs are

managed, as well as on the beliefs and performance of those

who manage such institutions.

The need for ELT managers to understand and develop

strategies to reconcile value clashes between the

entrepreneurial and educational facets of their organizations

is a challenge that most who work in ELT management

accept as a workaday fact. Detailed analysis of the clashes

and possible strategies for their functional resolution are

currently lacking in the research literature.

This study expands on the author’s previous research

(Keaney, 1994) which suggested that ELT managers at

various levels favoured notions developed from their teaching

backgrounds and, in general, preferred the culture and

4

discourse norms of teachers rather than those of managers or

entrepreneurs. It also found that there were role confusions

and value conflicts in many aspects of their work.

As the first study to focus specifically on managers in the

Australian ELT industry the previous research report

suggested some possible areas for further investigation into

management in the ELT sector. It indicated a demand for

research that goes beyond the analysis of classroom

interaction and sought a better understanding of the

‘profane’ details of the way international ELT Colleges are

managed, operated and supervised.

The current study, therefore, attempts to expand on the

earlier work, and to examine some of the underlying

constructs and competing values in discoursal areas that

affect ELT management, as well as to explore areas of shared

values between them as possible pathways towards

reconciliation of discoursal tensions. It also aims to further

explore the ELT environment and aspects of organizational

climate such as structure and culture and then use this

understanding to examine a number of ELT colleges in

Sydney, Australia and explore possible solutions through an

action research project.

1.3. Background to the study

1n 1993-1994 this researcher undertook a quantitative

research study into ELT managers focusing on people in

5

managerial positions at ELT colleges in Australia. This study

investigated the relationship between ELT managers'

perceptions of the organizational effectiveness of their ELT

colleges and their perceptions of their own work

performance. After a review of management models,

organizational theory, educational administration, previous

work in ELT management and an outline of the Australian

ELT industry, the research presented the results of a survey

that was sent to ELT managers at 53 ELT colleges. The study

examined whether there was a statistically significant

correlation between ELT managers’ ratings of the

organizational effectiveness of their colleges and their ratings

of their own work performance. It is almost axiomatic in

management literature that managerial work performance

and organizational effectiveness should strongly and

positively correlate. There should, therefore, have been a

strong relationship between the two variables, as leadership

and good management have been shown to be important

ingredients of effective industrial and educational

organizations.

The study gave a basic descriptive profile of ELT managers

by job title, gender, age, qualifications, teaching experience,

ELT management experience, period in current position,

decision-making beliefs and decision-making practices. The

study combined exploratory interviews with a survey

instrument. The survey instrument consisted of 20 Likert

style items that sought data on ELT manager perceptions of

6

the organizational effectiveness of their colleges and their

own work performance as managers. The study was designed

to test the proposition that there should be a strong positive

correlation between beliefs about organizational

effectiveness and manager work performance. The central

question of the study was: Is there a statistically significant

relationship between ELT manager perception of their work

performance and of their perception of the overall

organizational effectiveness of their ELT college?

Factor analysis on the survey data revealed that there were

five areas of survey data, two clearly related to organizational

effectiveness and one clearly related to the work

performance of ELT managers. When correlations between

these factors were presented it seemed obvious that there

was only a weak and statistically insignificant correlation

between the ELT manager work performance indicator and

the two organizational effectiveness factors, despite an

expectation based on traditional management literature of a

very strong positive correlation. The study concluded that

ELT managers see indicators of the effectiveness of their

organizations as less than relevant to the way they judge

their work performance. It was clear that the issue required

further examination and research.

The study suggested possible factors that may account for

the lack of correlation between perceptions of ELT manager

work performance and organizational effectiveness. The most

7

plausible explanation seemed to be a combination of the

following four factors. These were:

Firstly, Environment. Many ELT managers may feel that

they have little control over the environments they

operate in. Change in the Australian and international

economy has been extremely rapid in the last two

decades and change in the legislative environment for

ELT colleges has reflected this. The upheavals in the

ELT industry after visa laws were changed in the early

1990s without serious industry consultation forced

several major colleges to close.

Secondly, Structure. It is possible that old-fashioned

management models and metaphors still dominate the

profession and only those at the top with actual equity

or financial control have any power to influence events.

In follow up interviews with ELT managers it was clear

that a number still felt that position in a hierarchy is

vital. If colleges only allow those at the top to have

power then ELT managers 'lower down' may feel

powerless. Several surveys indicated a deep-seated

antagonism between owners 'squeezing an ELT college

dry' and ELT managers struggling to provide high

standards of service. It is possible that a large number

of ELT managers simply felt that the health of their

college more closely related to the whims of owners

and equity holders rather than to the ELT managers'

work performance.

8

Thirdly, Culture. It is possible that the organizational

cultures at most ELT colleges do not emphasise client

service but are focused on assigned tasks and roles.

ELT managers may be predominantly judging

themselves by how well they are doing what their job

description says rather than ensuring that an

integrated college with a collaborative work culture

places client satisfaction at the core of all the college’s

work activities.

Fourthly, Unresolved Competing Discourses. It may be

that because most ELT managers come into the

position from teaching backgrounds and many play

both teaching and managerial roles concurrently, they

are judging themselves more by the criteria of 'good

teacher' than by that of 'good manager'.

The limited nature of the study did not allow a considered

examination of these factors and the reasons for the lack of

correlation between manager work performance and

organizational effectiveness. As noted in Section 1.2.

Rationale the current study expands on the earlier work and

investigates some underlying constructs and competing

values in the discourses of the entrepreneur and the ELT

educator. It proposes some areas of shared values that can

assist in the functional resolution of discoursal tensions. It

also looks at the organizational climate of a small number of

international ELT colleges, including their structure, milieu,

ecology and culture, and then proposes some possible

9

solutions to management dilemmas tested by means of an

action research project.

1.4. Professional and Academic Background of the

Researcher

The role of the researcher’s cultural background and

assumptions can be too easily ignored in ethnographic

research. The self-awareness necessary to negate this

influence is probably impossible to attain so the final

research reporting needs to outline the researcher’s cultural

background and beliefs so that readers may see how these

may have influenced the data gathering and interpreting

process. This section outlines my own professional and

academic background, therefore, to assist in the explication

of some of the values and beliefs that come through in

relevant sections of the work.

I have been involved with international ELT education for

most of my professional life. In 1984 I worked as an English

instructor in Bandung Indonesia preparing Indonesian

students who were about to go to Australia or the US to

study. From 1985 to 1987 I worked at one of Japan's largest

English language colleges and was responsible for designing

course programs for use by more than 6000 students. From

1990 - 1992 I was the Assistant Director of the English

Department at a US University branch campus in Japan. The

university experienced dramatic growth during this period

and drew my interest to issues in the management of

10

international education projects that develop from

entrepreneurial imperatives.

From 1995 – 1996 I worked for an Australian higher

education project in Malaysia as the Head of the Academic

English Department. This was a Malaysian funded -

Australian university accredited and supervised program in

association with 11 Australian universities. Again the

experience of working there at a senior administrative level

revealed a range of managerial and logistical issues that arise

in the management of an effective international ELT

program.

It is my positions in management and administration at

privately owned English language colleges in Australia that

cater to international students, however, that bear most

relevance to the study. In 1988 I was the Director of Studies

at a small ELT College in Cairns. From 1989 – 1990 I held the

position of Senior Teacher at a large ELT college in Sydney.

From late 1992 to mid 1994 I worked as an ELT teacher at a

different ELT college in Sydney before becoming the Director

of Studies at a new ELT college. After returning from

Malaysia I did consulting work for a number of ELT colleges

that were gaining provisional and full accreditations for their

operations.

For most of the period of the doctoral research I was the

Principal of a new and rapidly expanding ELT college that has

formed the basis for the action research data in this study. I

11

have recently departed Australia once again and now work

for the Centre for British Teachers in Brunei Darussalam in

ELT and information technology.

Prior to commencing this doctoral research project I

completed a Masters Degree in Applied Linguistics with

courses in ELT management, curriculum development and

other issues related to the theory and practice of language

teaching and learning. I presented a dissertation for the

Masters degree titled Organizational Effectiveness and

Manager Work Performance at ELT Institutions in Australia.

This is referenced throughout the current work as Keaney,

1994.

1.5. A Note on Usage

The writing style in this report is based on the language

norms for an educated Australian user. Having been involved

in ELT for many years, and with a range of publications in the

popular press, I have tried to satisfy the twin aims of

academic accuracy and readability. This is a much more

difficult task than I had imagined at the commencement of

my doctoral studies!

There are a small number of lexico-grammatical points that

may require clarification:

In order to avoid the ‘he/she, s/he, he or she’

awkwardness, throughout the study they and related

12

pronouns are used for the neutral third person. Where

possible this has been combined with a plural verb but in

certain statements where it is important to retain the

singular, they has been combined with a singular third

person verb.

In this paper data is used in its conventional singular non-

count noun usage rather than in its Latinate plural form.

Most respected commentators agree that it is now a non-

count noun in English analogous in syntax to words such

as information.

No contortions have been made to avoid split infinitives.

This grammatical injunction is based on a false analogy

with traditional Latin grammar. As Fowler notes in his

famous Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926)

The English speaking world may be divided into (1) those who neither know nor care what a split infinitive is; (2) those who do not know but care very much; (3) those who know and condemn; (4) those who know and approve; and (5) those who know and distinguish…. Those who neither know nor care are the vast majority, and are a happy folk, to be envied by most of the minority classes.

The words organize and organization have for the sake of

consistency been spelled with a z throughout the

report. Many of the management texts in the literature

review are originally published in the United States and it

was felt that avoiding multiple spellings of the same word

would aid readability. By analogy other words that can be

13

spelled with either an –ise or –ize have been standardized

to the –ize usage.

Program has been spelled in this form rather than its –

mme variant.

The words sector and industry are used interchangeably

in this report based on their common usage. The

technical definition of a sector, though, is a grouping of

transactors by institutional type of transactor and that of

an industry as a grouping of establishments according to

the type of economic activity engaged in by the

establishment (Jackson, 1989; p.205).

In the end, all works of writing are flawed. Any writer of a

long document feels as did Gustave Flaubert that:

language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.

14

C h a p t e r 2

METHODOLOGY

2.1. Introduction

This chapter outlines the methodology of this study. It

discusses some methodological dilemmas and the way that

they have been resolved. It looks at the general approach to

the research, then discusses the methods of data collection,

the means of data analysis and the techniques used in the

report of findings.

The chapter justifies the use in this study of a combination of

four common techniques in education and management

research - a critical literature review leading to a text and

discourse analysis, followed by on-site interviews and

ethnographic observation at a number of related

organizations and, finally, a detailed action research project

in one target organization. This combination of techniques

provides a multi-dimensional way of understanding the

relevant aspects of management at international ELT colleges

in Australia.

Within the social sciences there are several major schools of

thought regarding social organizations. As discussed in the

following chapter, each school has its own view of

organizations, as well as a set of concepts and assumptions

15

that define the preferred approaches to researching them.

This variety of perspectives means that each particular

research method or technique has its own strengths and

weaknesses, and it is impossible to find a single research

methodology that is universally accepted as beyond reproach.

As indicated in Section 1.1 Aims of the Study, the aim of this

research project is to inform the work of myself and other

managers in international ELT colleges especially those that

are privately owned and operated. The research methodology

for the study therefore must be capable of achieving this aim.

Decisions about methodology, perspective and interpretation

of findings, therefore, have been filtered through the

following two questions:

1. Will this methodology/perspective/interpretation be able to deliver findings that may be useful and significant for myself and for other international ELT college managers in a similar situation?

2. Will this methodology/perspective/interpretation be able to deliver findings that may be valuable, unusual or significant enough to be of interest to the broader field of educational research?

2.2. Approach

It is possible to identify two broad types of enquiry that can

illuminate problems in areas of interest to social and

organizational researchers. These two broad types of

research can be labelled as the variance approach and the

process approach. The variance approach typically requires

the surveying of a representative sample of a population

using quantitative data in order to draw conclusions using

16

statistical inferencing. In organizational research this means

investigating a large number of organizations in, say, a

particular industry category and then attempting to draw

generalised conclusions about the relationship between a

number of variables or factors. The process approach, on the

other hand, usually means investigating a small section of a

population close at hand, extracting qualitative data to try to

get ‘underneath’ the issues of interest. In organizational

research it might mean studying one or a few similar

organizations in detail in order to understand exactly how

people do things and how things get done.

While it is possible to have large-scale qualitative research

that attempts to examine variance or small-scale case study

research that focuses solely on quantitative measures,

commonly quantitative data is employed in the variance

approach while qualitative data is associated with the process

approach. Until the mid-1970s, studies of organizations were

dominated by researchers who followed the paradigms of the

traditional methods of laboratory science based on logical

positivism (Owens, 1995, pp. 297 - 299). The variance

approach, using quantitative data measurement and

experimental methods, was seen as the more prestigious

research technique. Variance type survey research into

organizational management and change in industry focused

on the content of changes in a large number of organizations

and the implications of these changes for the structural

configurations and profitability of organizations.

17

Since that time, however, the process approach using

qualitative methods has come to be more readily accepted

and valued. The realisation has grown that qualitative

research can shed light on important aspects of

organizational life that may not be revealed by laboratory

style experimental research. Many commentators would now

agree that the full complexity of human behaviour cannot be

confined simply to statistical categories, and that

ethnographic accounts of the details of organizational life are

immensely important in understanding organizations as

complex social systems.

The process approach to research attempts to represent

reality as a flow of events - a narrative. It is essentially

description with interpretive ‘attitude’. Process-theoretic

approaches suit situations where the variables of particular

contexts tend to outweigh the variables under study. In such

situations it is difficult to unambiguously isolate and identify

pieces worthy of investigation separate from their whole.

Research into educational institutions has in recent years

come to look more favourably on process-theoretic

approaches. As Mohr (1982, p.215) wrote nearly two decades

ago:

...the kind of description that would seem to have the greatest potential in social science is description of processes - how things are done by people and groups. To the extent that the pursuit of description increases in prevalence as a research goal, social science will take on an increasingly process-theoretic flavour at the expense of variance theory.

18

The variance approach is underscored by a belief in an

objective reality that can be identified and described through

well-constructed research. The process approach, on the

other hand, adopts what may be termed a qualitative

phenomenological view, seeing reality as constructed with no

real objective ‘existence’ independent of the subjective

perceptions of researchers and their subjects.

The four phases of the research in this study follow a process-

theoretic approach. It has seemed that ethnographic research

techniques are well suited to this type of research. Some

discussion of the applicability of the findings has been made

primarily through the development of tentative management

models that may, with appropriate modification, be of use in

similar contexts and situations.

2.3. Data Collection

Research, like politics, is the art of the possible. The

difficulties that face researchers in educational management

are varied. The most important issues in data collection for

this study follow on from the basic approach. Thus it was

necessary to decide whether to adopt ethnographic or

experimental techniques or a mixture of the two, and to judge

to what extent the data would accurately represent the 'real

views' of informants. Other issues included problems of

access, status of the researcher and comparability across

cases.

19

In order to avoid the dangers of single sources of data and

improve the external validity of the data it was decided to

break the research up into four phases and use different

methods of data collection for each phase. Phase I involved

exploratory interviews with peers involved in the

management of similar international ELT colleges and a log

of my own experiences as a teacher and manager in ten

different international education organizations. It also drew

on findings of a previous research report by the author into

the management of ELT colleges in Australia (Keaney, 1994).

Phase II involved a critical review and discourse analysis of

the relevant management and education literature. Phase III

consisted of multiple case studies involving semi-structured

and open interviews, text and document analysis and

observations in a range of international colleges in Sydney,

Australia. Phase IV involved an action research program in a

new college that opened during the study. This college was

similar in scope to the colleges investigated in Phase III and

involved the writer in a central participatory role as the

Principal of the college.

Data collection proceeded as shown in Figure 2.1:

20

Phase Research Activity

I

Survey of ELT Managers, Initial reading and recollections and exploratory interviews with peers involved in the management of similar international education institutions as well as a recollections log of author’s experiences as a teacher and manager in ten different international education organizations

II

Background research, literature review and discourse analysis - a critical review and discourse analysis of the relevant management and education literature

III

Multiple case studies involving semi-structured and open interviews, text and document analysis and observations in a range of international ELT colleges

IV

Action research project in a new college that opened during the study. This college was similar in scope to the colleges investigated in Phase III and involved the writer in a central participatory role as the Principal of the college

Figure 2.1 Data Collection

Phase I: Survey, Recollections and Exploratory

Interviews

The first phase of the research was to undertake a number of

exploratory open-ended interviews and to systematically note

21

down my own work recollections. The interviews were with

five present or former ELT managers. In this phase I

interviewed two Owner/Directors of ELT colleges, a Director

of Studies, a former Director of Studies, a Principal and a

Financial Controller. I also discussed the directions of the

research with several teachers and education academics and

a number of current and former ELT students. These

exploratory interviews were used to help understand the

ways that discourse and climate issues manifested

themselves in different colleges, and the ways that these

were related to ELT management.

In this phase of the research I also wrote in a journal all of

my own memories of working in ten different international

educational institutions in Australia and other countries. I

tried to systematically recall issues that had most affected me

especially those regarding the ‘feeling’ or climate of each

particular organization. I tried to structure these

recollections as a kind of self-interview. I also reviewed data

originally gathered for a Masters Degree dissertation in

Applied Linguistics on the links between manager work

performance and organizational effectiveness at ELT colleges

in Australia.

Phase II Review and analyse the relevant literature.

The literature review, which is incorporated into this report,

was a significant component of this research. ELT

management has not yet had much research attention but the

22

related fields of educational administration and

organizational and management research in industry

provided a deep background to the issues of interest that

were likely to arise in the latter phases of the study. The

literature review also enabled the development of an

interview and observation guide and the creation of

frameworks to organize the data and categorise it in ways

that enabled useful comment and comparison.

The literature review quickly made it apparent that the

supposition of competing discoursal pressures was valid. The

management of ELT organizations relies on knowledge, skills

and understanding that derive from two distinct, and at times

opposing, discourses. The cultures of ELT colleges, their

management and the process of growth and change within

them, all reflect at some levels these discoursal tensions. It

came to be clear that an improved understanding of

international ELT organizations and their management

required a deeper awareness of the basis for these tensions

and conflicts. This has led to a brief analysis of the two

discourses as suggested by indicative texts in the published

literature.

The discourse and text analysis in Chapters 5 – 8 broadly

follows a question framework developed by Kemmis (1988,

pp.57 - 85) that divides such an analysis into the three areas

of language use, contestation and institutionalisation. Usage

involves a description of the history and contemporary usage

of the key ideas in the discourse. Contestation involves points

23

where there is contestation over language within and

between discourses. Institutionalisation indicates how the

relevant discourses have been institutionalised in particular

work situations.

The discourse analysis is intended to be illustrative and

suggestive, as a comprehensive analysis is far beyond the

scope of this study. The purpose of the analysis is not to

provide a thorough and complete overview of the discourses

and all of the areas of contestation or resultant

institutionalisation, but simply to indicate a ‘feeling’ for the

language use, contestation and institutionalisation as an aid

to discussing the data in other areas of the study. It also

enables the development of three key cultural notions that

may provide a basis for some reconciliation between the two

discourses.

Phase III Multiple Case Studies

(Interviews, Observation and Text Analysis)

Phase III was a multiple case study which examined four

colleges that have been founded since 1990. All these

colleges have come into existence as a result of the growth in

international education in Australia since that time. The

colleges have reasonably similar student profiles and

educational goals with a range of ownership profiles. They all

consisted mainly of international students and were run on

profit-making lines. The annual turnover at each college was

less than $5 million as organizations with turnover in excess

24

of that amount probably have very different systemic and

managerial concerns (DETYA, 2001).

Phases III and IV of the research adopted ethnographic

techniques. According to David Nunan, one of the most

significant researches into ELT teaching methods and

classroom practice over the past two decades:

Ethnography involves the study of the culture/characteristics of a group in real-world rather than laboratory settings. The researcher makes no attempt to isolate or manipulate the phenomena under investigation, and insights and generalisations emerge from close contact with the data rather than from a theory....

(Nunan, 1992, p.55)

Nunan sees ethnographic research as having the following

characteristics:

1. It is contextual being carried out in the context where the inhabitants normally live and work.

2. It is unobtrusive in that the researcher avoids manipulating the phenomenon under investigation.

3. It is longitudinal in that the research is relatively long term. 4. It is collaborative in that the researcher involves the participation of other

stakeholders. 5. It is interpretive in that the researcher carries out interpretive analysis of the

data 6. It is organic in the sense that there is interaction between questions/hypotheses

and data collection/interpretation.

Phase III utilised interviews, observation, informants’ reports

of unobtrusive measures such as number of enrolments and

staff turnover and text analysis techniques. Interviews and

observation proceeded by a series of 'guides' and

standardised formatted observation sheets.

25

Data was collected using an open-ended interview instrument

that consisted of questions in the four areas of climate. Each

area was divided into sub-topics and the interview proceeded

using these sub-topics to ‘guide’ the interview. Frequently the

answers would not proceed in a linear fashion, as an

informant would cover several points in one answer or take

several questions to provide data for one sub-topic. For each

item I asked as many probes as were thought necessary to

elicit full responses, where a sub-topic appeared irrelevant

for that particular informant the question was still asked but

with a phrasing such as: "I don't suppose you know anything

about...” The interview instrument is included in Appendix A.

Analysis generally proceeded by using a key concept

approach discussed more fully in Section 2.4 Analysis.

In most instances it proved much more difficult getting

interviewees to stop talking than to start, itself a useful

insight into the fact that many who work in education and

management have too little time to reflect upon what it is

they actually do, and how it is that they create value for their

organization and the community. Many interviewees

explicitly commented that they enjoyed being interviewed

and discussing their work, suggesting perhaps that an avenue

for reflection on work is an important, if frequently

overlooked, organizational activity.

The colleges used in the Multiple Case Study phase of the

research were:

26

1. College A This Sydney-based college is owned and operated by an Australian management team. The college was originally a business college that has expanded from this base into the teaching of English language courses. I have been involved with this college as a Director of Studies, as an educational consultant and as an IT instructor.

2. College B This Sydney based college was part-owned by a large private Japanese educational organization but has since become fully Australian owned. The college was required to raise the prestige of the organization in Japan and give it an international profile as well as its profit making function. I have been involved with this college as a part-time ELT instructor and as an educational consultant.

3. College C This college also offers vocational courses in business and information technology in addition to its English language courses. This college has had several changes of ownership, premises and leading educational managers during the course of the study. I have been involved with this college as an educational and marketing consultant.

4. College D This institute was initially designed to assist students to prepare for studies in Christian ministry. The institute started to accept international students after detecting an interest in ELT courses as preparation for its other courses from overseas students. It subsequently changed premises and ownership structure and in late 1999 was subject to an ownership dispute that led to the closure of the college and the transfer of its students. I was an educational consultant to the institute in the initial process of accrediting its ELT program.

Interviews

Interviews were conducted with a range of people in each

college. At each college the Principal or person responsible

27

for the overall strategies of the college was interviewed, as

well as the Director of Studies (DOS) of ELT and any senior

teachers. Principals or Directors of Studies in each college

were asked to nominate teachers who would be willing to be

interviewed with the nominated teachers being broadly

representative of the staff as a whole. Students were

interviewed on both a nominated and ad hoc basis (i.e. some

were nominated by the college others just happened to be

around when I was around). A total of four Principals, five

Directors of Studies (one college had a change of DOS during

this phase), 25 teachers, 19 administrative workers and 27

students were interviewed for this study.

The times of the interviews varied widely, although the

average figure for the Principal and DOS interviews was 90

minutes and for the teacher interviews 20 - 40 minutes. The

student and admin workers generally took from 10 - 30 mins.

The multiple case study data was gathered in two series. The

first series was from August 1996 to January 1997, the

second was from August 1999 to January 2000. In both series

of data collection I followed the same procedure of asking

informants for and/or observing recollections, actual

(current) information and projections of the future. The

purpose of having two series of data collection was partly

based on an original plan to include a large component on

organizational change into this report that has subsequently

been withdrawn for space reasons. The multiple series of

data collection did assist in stabilising data, however, and

28

provided opportunity to examine changes in environment,

ecology, milieu, structure and culture as well as changes in

perceptions, projections and recollections among

organizational members.

In attempting to elicit data I tried to maintain an ‘active

listening’ stance and phrase questions in a non-directive,

‘open’ way as opposed to the directive, closed questions of a

formal interview.

Observation

The observation involved both an inspection of premises,

facilities and equipment as well as observations of office and

staff room interactions, some classroom interactions and

occasional recreational interactions at activities such as

parties and holiday celebrations. As noted in Chapters 13 and

14 on Organizational Culture and the Culture of ELT

organizations, the selection of which holidays and occasions

to celebrate is in itself one indication of rituals, which can be

an important indication of an organization's culture.

Textual analysis

Ethnomethodological techniques can also make use of other

resources besides the oral and written information provided

by participants. When investigating organizations, documents

can be important as resources not only as a basis for

gathering statistics but for information they reveal about an

organization. Brochures and enrolment forms, for example,

can indicate what is regarded as useful and not useful to the

29

organization. Public information, such as marketing material,

student handbooks, accreditation and curriculum documents,

workplace notices and signs, have also proven to be

informative pieces of data.

At each college I acquired all of the public documents that

were available. I also obtained copies of accreditation

documents, which outlined in a fairly detailed way most

aspects of the organization’s activities and aims. Other

documents that were gathered included orientation

handbooks and a few other miscellaneous pieces of

information. I also noted down various signs and notices

affixed to walls at each college as these 'public broadcast'

texts make important statements about the day to day reality

of an institution and its concepts of boundaries,

insiders/outsiders and other relevant factors.

Much research in the social sciences depends upon eliciting

talk in some form such as interviews, surveys, attitude scales

or participant observation. While this talk is a data resource

it is important to remember that the gathering of the data or

the interview sessions are sociological ‘events’ and

assumptions of the stability of attitudes, personality and

beliefs based on survey and interview data collection

methods may not be as real as sociological researchers have

come to believe (for a full discussion in this area see Benson

& Hughes, 1983).

30

I felt this 'staging' of the sociological event keenly throughout

this phase of the research project. Formal interview sessions

had a declared starting and ending. Often I would be chatting

with the interviewee in a public area of the college then say,

“Well how about we do the interview, now?”. Always people

indicated that they preferred to do it in a private place where

other staff members of the college could not overhear them.

A discourse analysis of the twin aspects of colleges – their

educational and entrepreneurial selves was investigated by

means of an overall discourse analysis of the ideological

discursive formations of these two areas. There is a fuller

discussion of the discourse analysis in Chapter 5 Discourses

and Discourse Analysis.

Phase IV: Action Research

Research in areas involving human behaviour undoubtedly

affects its subjects. Stanford (1965, 1956), for example,

showed that research into college students at Vassar made a

deep impression on the subjects who later saw taking part in

the research as one of the most significant events of their

college years. Stanford’s findings also had an important

effect on the culture of the college. In this research study,

too, it seemed important to include a phase that, as Emery

(1976, p.25) suggests, would itself be the action rather than

merely testing or observing other action.

According to Clark (1976, p.1) action research sets out to

combine theoretical discoveries with the solution of practical

31

problems. While the proportion of discovery and practical

solution may vary with the project, Clark suggests that action

research should strive to find an optimum combination of the

two. In action research the manipulation or action is not

introduced by the experimenter ‘in secret’ but in

collaboration with the subjects. It therefore provides the

opportunity to study a system as it reacts to certain ‘in

consciousness’ manipulations.

Action research links the ideas of traditional research, which

tends to envisage a passive approach, to the ‘action’ of trying

out ideas as a means of improvement and of increasing

knowledge. As Kemmis (1988, p. 6) suggests:

Action research provides a way of working which links theory and practice into the one whole: ideas in action.”

Action research had its origins in the work of Lewin (1946) in

a series of community experiments such as housing projects,

equal opportunity of employment, children’s prejudice, youth

leadership and street gangs. According to Lewin the central

tenets of the approach were group decision and commitment

to improvement. In Australia, action research has played a

significant role in educational research and in school

improvement since the late 1970s. It has been used in school-

based curriculum reviews and in the growing area of

professional awareness among teachers seeking ways of

informing and understanding their work (Kemmis, 1988: p.7).

32

Action research can be seen as proceeding in an ongoing

series of spirals or stages as indicated in Figure 2.2.

PLAN

ETC ACT / OBSERVE

REVISED PLAN REFLECT

REFLECT REVISED PLAN

ACT / OBSERVE

Figure 2.2 Action Research Process (adapted from Kemmis, 1988, p.11)

Action research recognises that all social action is somewhat

unpredictable and therefore involves an element of risk. The

initial research plan has to be flexible in order to adapt to

unforeseen events and circumstances and deal with

unforeseen obstacles and constraints. It should help

practitioners realise a new potential for action. It is vital in

action research that the action that occurs is observed and

33

reflected upon. This reflected-upon-action then becomes the

basis for the development of further action.

This study utilised ongoing action research in one

international ELT college in order to assist in assessing the

practical value of the research in the day-to-day management

of the college. Observations were recorded in a log by the

researcher and through a series of meetings and interviews

with other representative members of the college including

the owners, the other ELT managers, teachers/instructors,

administrative workers and students.

The college involved in the action research phase was:

College E

This college opened to students in April 1997. The owners

had previously owned similar colleges in Sydney and had

some recruitment contacts for students. I was originally

involved with this college as an educational consultant and

from its opening until the end of 2000 was the Principal of

the college.

There were six action research phases. Each action research

cycle lasted approximately six months. The cycles were:

Cycle 1: July – December 1997

Cycle 2: January – June 1998



34



As well as feedback generated within the normal operating of

the college such as student evaluations of the college and

teacher evaluations of courses, there was oral feedback every

four-week term. More specific feedback was obtained close to

the end of each action research cycle and following the

conclusion of the action research project. I left the college in

December 2000 to work in Brunei Darussalam. Some follow

up comments relating to the action research and the college

since my departure have also been included in the study.

Action research in existing institutions is usually connected

with the notion of change in aspects of individual and group

behaviour, such as changes in the way people use language,

changes in activities and practices or changes in social

relationships and organizational configurations. In the

current study, because the action research was conducted in

a new organization, the focus was on creating an

organizational climate and culture that was ‘in consciousness’

as opposed to allowing one to develop by 'default'. There was

also a strong effort to reduce the tensions between the

entrepreneur and educator worldviews and to try to ensure

that all members of the organization understood the

possibilities of such tensions.

The action research in this study was partly collaborative. In

this it differs from the position put forward by Kemmis and

35

McTaggart (1988) or Cohen and Manion (1994) who argue

that the research must be fully collaborative. As the project

does not have matching outcomes for all stakeholders it was

difficult to find full partners for the action research, although

most staff members enjoyed participating in the project and

happily provided feedback.

The action research was also supplemented by other research

projects into the college. One research project related to an

MBA program was an analysis of the marketing strategies of

the college. Another was a case study of the institution and

an analysis of the internationalisation of its operations. These

comprehensive reports also provided written feedback on the

operation of the institution from an

entrepreneurial/managerialist perspective.

Access

One of the core problems of any social research is the

problem of access and the notion of what can and can’t be

observed - the ‘profane’ versus the ‘sacred/taboo’ (Barbera-

Stein: 1979: 15 cited in Hammersley & Atkinson, 1983: p.54).

It is possible to view these problems as a research resource

and outline some of the issues that arise in gaining research.

This can help to reveal the bordering of the organization

indicating those parts that are relatively ‘public’ and those

that are ‘private’.

Hammersley and Atkinson (1983, p.54) go on to suggest that

one of the most effective ways to gain access is through the

36

mobilisation of existing social networks, based on

acquaintanceship, kinship or occupational membership.

Hoffman (1980) showed how her interviews with hospital

board members were difficult to obtain and very guarded

until she activated her family member’s friendship with one

prominent hospital director. Once she activated this

connection the type of data she received changed

dramatically.

Access was also a crucial factor in the selection of research

sites in this study. Before commencing this research project I

had already had a relationship with each of the colleges as a

consultant, adviser, administrator or teacher. While it would

have been possible to broaden the number of cases it was felt

that there was little of value in doing so, especially as an

‘outsider’ might not receive sufficiently honest accounts to

make the expansion of cases worthwhile.

Status of researcher

Manning (1979) suggests that there is a range of

relationships that the researcher can adopt with the

organization being observed. It is possible to be a complete

participant operating in the organization, subject to the same

conditions as other members of the organization. It is also

possible to be a participant yet remain in the role of an

observer. Manning suggests that these two roles both provide

for comparative involvement, some subjectivity and empathy

for the subjects. On the other hand it is possible to be clearly

37

an observer but have some minor involvement as a

participant or even to be a completely detached observer.

These two roles provide for comparative detachment,

objectivity and sympathy with the subjects. The complete

observer avoids the danger of ‘going native’ but can also

misunderstand the perspective of the participants. Manning

suggests that there is real value in obtaining multiple

perspectives where possible.

In the third phase of this research project the perspectives of

the observer as participant was adopted. As I have had some

professional involvement with all of the colleges that were

researched it was possible to be treated as an ‘insider’ with

regard to commentary on many issues although the extent of

'insiderdom' varied with each organization. The different role

and status of a ‘researcher’ investigating a phenomenon

combined with the face validity of formal interviews and

other research techniques tended to also provide a more

detached observer as participant role. In the fourth action

research stage of this project I was a complete participant.

Credibility

Owens (1995, pp. 267-268) notes six procedures to enhance

the credibility of naturalistic research into the organizational

behaviour of educational institutions. These are to leave an

audit trail, to allow sufficient time to gather data, to use

triangulation (using multiple sources to gather information

and data), to cross-check important information with other

38

members of an organization, to maintain a comprehensive

materials file, to regularly consult with peers on the progress

of the work and to use thick description in the final research

report.

In this study an audit trail was left by filing notes and edited

summaries of interviews, raw notes and summaries of

observations, all documents used as data sources (edited

copies of confidential documents), interview and observation

guidelines, an action research journal and drafted copies of

the research proposal and report. Material used in the

research report has been assembled electronically on a

database.

Nearly four years has been allowed to gather data and this

data gathering built on data that had been previously

acquired for a research project in a related area. Multiple

sources were used both by investigating multiple colleges

and by interviewing and surveying various members within

each college. Important information that was revealed in

interviews was, as far as possible, cross-checked with other

members of the college in later interviews. All materials

gathered for the research including notices, photos and

marketing materials from each college were kept in a

designated materials file.

The research report has been written in a traditional

commentary style. Throughout the writing there has been

regular consultation with a doctoral supervisor and with

39

peers involved in other research in the fields of education,

applied linguistics and management.

Ethics

Ethical considerations in this research are based on those

outlined in AARE (1993). Each organization being researched

was informed about the aims of the project and the types of

issues being researched before I obtained the cooperation of

the senior educational manager at each organization (either

the Principal or the Director of Studies). The writing style of

the dissertation is intended to allow participating

organizations and informants to remain anonymous. The use

of commercially sensitive information has been avoided

unless completely relevant. Pseudonyms have been used for

informants and colleges. All undertakings, both formal and

informal, made to informant organizations and individuals

were met before the research project was submitted.

Language competence and cultural background played a

significant role in various parts of this research. Interviews

with students, for example, were obviously moderated by

their developing English abilities, where interpretation of

answers has seemed important I tried to confirm responses

as explicitly as possible.

2.4. Analysis

Phase I

The data collected in the first phase of the study was

reviewed in order to consider the primary issues that arose

40

and their possible significance in the research. In this

exploratory phase there was a need to identify avenues of

exploration. The structure of the research project and its

emphasis on the contestations between entrepreneur and

educator discourses were developed in this phase.

Phase II

In Phase II much more detailed investigation of the issues in

the 1st phase allowed a refinement of constructs and led to a

clarification of methods and structure of the research project.

The importance of including some form of discourse analysis

was also an outcome of this phase of the research.

Phase III

In order to arrange the data and record it in a coherent and

systematic way frameworks were used. Initially one

framework was developed from the literature to correspond

to each dimension of the research. The development and

modifications of these frameworks are discussed in detail in

the relevant chapters. The framework used to organize and

assemble data related to organizational climate is discussed

in Chapter 3, Management and Organizations while

additional information in the dimension of organizational

culture is discussed in Chapter 13, The Culture of Work

Organizations.

Hammersley and Atkinson (1983, p.2) note that

the ethnographer participates, overtly or covertly in people’s daily lives for an extended period of time, watching what happens, listening to what is said, asking

41

questions, in fact collecting whatever data are available to throw light on issues with which he or she is concerned.

In many ways ethnography is the most basic form of social

research, as it is the research technique that most closely

resembles the way in which humans make sense of the world

in everyday life. But this means that one of the most

important aspects of the ethnographic method is the analysis

of what is said. Ethnography involves many judgements about

who to talk to, where to talk to them, when to talk to them,

when to observe, what to observe, what to record and how to

record it. The ethnographic process involves making

judgements about relevance and, while applied linguistic

research has shown many problems with this judgement

process and the possibility of researcher bias distorting data,

some selections must be made.

It would seem that the main defence against such distortion

is to make as explicit and systematic as possible the criteria

used for determining relevance and irrelevance. Data has to

be collected in some forms, and the best defence against the

misinterpretation of data is a system of data collection from

multiple informants and a variety of sources, as well as

clarification on the part of the researcher of the linguistic

issues that are raised in the analysis and interpretation of the

data.

The analysis of data in the third phase of the study proceeded

along several lines. Interviews were noted down on

standardised sheets. Responses that were felt at the time to

42

be important were paraphrased and rechecked with

informants. A key issue that came out early in this method

was that some interviewees have a better way with words

than others and it is difficult not to give their point of view

higher weight.

The interviews were gathered together by institution and

were then analysed using a key concept and theme approach.

Key concepts tended to follow groupings within the questions

themselves. A sample interview notes sheet and its analysis is

included in Appendix B.

Analysis of texts proceeded in tandem with the analysis of the

interviews and observations operated as a confirmation of the

interview data. Those items in the texts that illuminated or

underscored points made in the interviews were regarded as

significant. Usually the textual data was illustrative of a

particular college, policy or facet of organizational life and

was used for this purpose.

Phase IV

The action research phase attempted to implement most of

the significant notions that emerge from the body of data in

Phases I, II and III. It was around these notions that the

initiatives in the action research phase were developed. The

action research phase made a realistic effort at implementing

the findings of the first three phases and attempted to

observe their outcomes. The main themes of the action

research were to implement strategies that encouraged

43

integration of all college work tasks, activities and functions,

helped develop a collaborative work culture and that had a

strong client service focus. Some of the areas of improvement

and issues that organizational members tried to implement

through the action research are listed below. The theoretical

underpinnings of each notion within this study are listed in

brackets:

1. That ELT staff be aware of the tension between

entrepreneur and educator worldviews. (Chapters 5

– 8 on Discourse)

2. That as far as possible ELT educators at the college

understand the financial and administrative aspects

of college life and owners and administrators be

aware of its educational aspects. (Chapters 5 – 8 on

Discourse, Chapters 13- 14 on Organizational

Culture)

3. That all staff be strongly aware of their marketing

role and the private and profit driven nature of the

college as well as the importance of client service.

(Chapters 5 – 8 on Discourse, Chapters 13-14 on

Organizational Culture)

4. That the college organizational structure be

perceived as a fronted organigram with those in

client contact including administration and teaching

staff being seen as the most crucial in the

organization with those ‘behind’ playing support

roles to ensure the effectiveness of those ‘in front’.

44

(Chapters 9 - 10 on Organizational Structure,

Chapters 13-14 on Organizational Culture)

5. That the mixture of exogenous and endogenous

factors that ELT educators used to determine

educational and institutional quality for the

international ELT college would reflect rather than

conflict with organizational goals avoiding the

perception common among ELT educators, (and

other professional groups in education, medicine,

law, architecture) based primarily on endogenous

factors determined by providers/suppliers rather

than exogenous factors determined by the

consumers favoured by an entrepreneurial view.

(Chapters 9 and 10 on Structure)

6. That all college staff try to ‘walk in the students’

shoes’ and perceive interactions from the client

point of view. (Chapter 11 on Organizational Milieu,

Chapters 13 – 14 on Organizational Culture)

7. That the college encourage awareness among all

staff of the cultural and linguistic factors that affect

the provision of ELT to international students in

Australia. (Chapter 11 on Milieu)

8. That the ecology of the college works with its

limitations to support the development of the

organization’s structure, culture and milieu.

(Chapter 12 on Ecology)

45

9. That its members see the ecology of the college as a

positive feature of the organization and a reflection

of its structure, culture and milieu. (Chapter 12 on

Ecology)

10. That the culture of the college encourages diversity

of views but unity of operation. (Chapters 5 – 8 on

Discourse, Chapters 13 and 14 on Culture)

11. That ELT staff feel enabled to satisfy clients and not

feel constrained by any notion that ‘pleasing the

boss’ and pleasing the client’ would ever conflict.

(Chapters 13 - 14 on Culture)

12. That the college encourage an in awareness

development of the organizational culture especially

on factors that are typically ‘out of awareness.

(Chapters 13 and 14 on Culture)

The actual action research initiatives are listed in the

following table:

46

Table 2.2Action Research Initiatives at College E

Initiative Cycle(s)Structure Initiative 1 (S1): That the college organizational structure be a fronted organigram with those in client contact including administration and teaching staff being seen as the most crucial in the organization with those ‘behind’ playing support roles to ensure the effectiveness of those ‘in front’. As well that the mixture of exogenous and endogenous factors that ELT educators used to determine educational and institutional quality for the international ELT college reflect with organizational goals focusing primarily on client satisfaction

1-3

Structure Initiative 2 (S2): The organization will try to have as few barriers as possible between staff. Teachers were to be encouraged to teach across both vocational and English subjects. Teachers were to be encouraged to do marketing and/or administration work. Administration and marketing staff were to be assisted in upgrading their qualifications both internally and externally.

3-4

Structure Initiative 3 (S3): Management decisions on structure were to be explicit and communicated to all employees. As far as possible staff should also have the opportunity to witness managers in action and to be able to question them about their activities and decisions.

3-4

Milieu Initiative 1 (M1): An enforced program to ensure student diversity, particularly of national groups over the whole college and in individual classes. Such a program to include the development of positive incentives such as scholarships, differential pricing and budget support for the development of new markets. The program also to include the ‘negative’ reinforcement of the imposition of a quota system over such that no one nationality could exceed 25% of the student body. Aim to build a milieu that supports the development and maintenance of a student culture at College E that was upbeat, active and enhancing from the student perspective

1-2

Milieu Initiative 2 (M2): At point of hiring ensure that selection of staff includes those likely to positively affect the staff milieu. Ensure that future development has an equal weight with past qualifications and experience in selection of staff and make newly hired staff feel that their special qualities ensured selection. Over time, work with teaching staff individually to ensure that professional development is targeted to each teacher’s personal and professional interests.

1-6

Ecology Initiative 1 (E1): Management not be physically separated from staff

1-2

Ecology Initiative 2 (E2): Workspaces were to be mixed and an ‘open classroom’ policy was to be implemented

1-2

Culture Initiative 1 (C1): That the culture of the college encourage integration and unity of operation while recognising the diversity of views and work tasks and that the college encourage an in-awareness development of organizational culture.

1-6

Culture Initiative 2 (C2): That the college develop a collaborative work culture both within areas such as teaching and administration and between functional areas.

1-6

Culture Initiative 3 (C3): That the organization have a core commitment to clients and client service. This commitment had to apply both to front-line staff who are in constant contact with students, as well as to management in their dealings with both students and staff.

1-6

47

2.5. Report of Findings

Hammersley and Atkinson (1983, p14) note that “there is no

way we can escape the social world in order to study it”

despite the research tradition that the social world is an

independently perceivable phenomenon that observers

“delineate, describe and make coherent” (Manning, 1979:

p.660). It is important for the researcher, however, not to

confuse language systems used to explain the world with the

objects of study. Simply reconstructing the language of the

data into modes of scientific or analytic discourse and then

mistaking this reconstruction for ‘real’ relationships among

objects inhabiting a posited semantic domain can be a flawed

process. Reification for its own sake is not the same as theory

although it is difficult to completely avoid this trap.

A continual tension in the writing of this report is that

between being true to life or true to testability, finding a

position between structuralism and post-structuralism; from

the structuralist notion that the truth is 'within' the text to

the post-structuralist notion that the interaction of writer and

reader is an ongoing production making reading performance

rather than consumption. Ultimately an ethnographer is

engaged in telling a story, writing a product that has its roots

in the narrative tradition and that uses a ‘pattern model of

understanding’. Part of the reflexive awareness of

ethnographic writing must, of course, take into account the

potential audience of the product. The primary audience of

this research report are readers who are conversant with the

48

discoursal conventions of academic and educational writing

and as such these are followed. The truth-value of what is

written can be judged by its resonation with those who have

had similar experiences to the ones outlined herein.

The role of the researcher’s cultural background and

assumptions need to be taken into account in ethnographic

research. The self-awareness necessary to negate this

influence is probably impossible to attain, so the final

research reporting has to explicate ways that the

researcher’s cultural background and beliefs may have

influenced the data gathering and interpreting process. I

have outlined my own work experience in ELT in Section 1.4

Professional and Academic Background of the Researcher.

2.6. Conclusion

The present research builds on a previous study by the

author. The intention has been to investigate the underlying

discoursal tensions in ELT management and then examine

features of organizational climate at some international ELT

colleges in Australia and provide some comment on their

management practices. There is a particular interest in the

influences of competing discoursal values on ELT managers

and, in turn, the ELT manager influence on the structure,

milieu, ecology and culture of the colleges.

Hypotheses are fluid and have been developed and refined

from the data over the course of the research. In this sense

49

the research has favoured exploration over hypothesis

testing. This process tends to parallel decision making

practices in ELT management, where decisions usually have

to be made without possession of complete information and

then have to be constantly retested and reworked in order to

be made more suitable to an unfolding reality.

The methodological issues in this chapter were grouped into

four areas: general approach to research, data collection,

data analysis and report of findings. The chapter argued that

the use in this study of a combination of common techniques

in education and management research - interviews and

ethnographic observation, discourse analysis and critical

literature review, and action research in different phases of

the research was an effective multi-dimensional way of

understanding the aspects of organizational climate and its

management in the institutional settings under investigation.

50

C h a p t e r 3

MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATIONS

3.1. Introduction

Research into organizations and their management has

become a significant area of late 20th century interest due to

the increasing dominance of formal organizations in

industrialised countries. How organizations come into

existence, how they grow and change, and how they succeed

or fail have, therefore, become vital questions in

contemporary social science research. As a result, there is

now a vast range of literature on organizations and it is

impossible to entirely reconcile all the differing approaches

and perspectives it contains. The underlying tension or

dynamic in most organizational research, however, revolves

around the interactions of the organization’s members, its

culture, its organizational structure and its surrounding

environment and the relative importance of each in

determining the organization’s behaviour and distinctive

characteristics.

This chapter briefly defines organizations for the purposes of

this study and outlines four of the broad perspectives on

organizations and their management that have been

developed in the literature. It argues that each perspective

51

tends to illuminate different facets of an organization and

that a useful descriptive framework needs to attend to all

four perspectives to provide a useful understanding of an

organization.

3.2. Defining Organizations

Despite the importance of organizations and the high level of

research interest in them, a precise definition of

organizations, as opposed to other social entities, remains

problematic. Weber (1947, p.151) suggests that an

organization can be seen as a social entity that is "a system of

continuous purposive activity of a specified kind". In effect, a

social entity that is designed to do something. Weber

distinguishes corporate groups from other forms of social

organization, defining a corporate group as a social

relationship that is either closed or limits the admission of

outsiders by rules. In Weber's view, organizations involve

social relationships that proscribe individuals' interactions

with the organization in a non-random way. Because

organizations include some parts of the population and

exclude others on the basis of non-random criteria, they have

boundaries that can be defined and investigated. Weber's

notion that organizations are social entities with boundary

conditions that have been designed to do something has been

a dominant idea in traditional organizational analysis.

While organizations are undoubtedly social systems, they are

composed of individual members. Even though organizations

52

can transcend the life of their members, they are shaped and

influenced by their participants. Barnard (1937, p.73) in

contrast to Weber, stresses the role of the individual,

especially the executive, in organizations. While Weber’s view

concentrates on the system, Barnard’s focuses on the

individual. In Barnard’s view an organization is a system of

consciously coordinated activities or forces of two or more

persons with an emphasis on the role of those in executive or

commanding roles.

The combination of Weber’s and Barnard’s views form the

basis of the classic body of theory and thinking about

organizations which has defined an organization as "a social

device for efficiently accomplishing through group means

some stated purpose" (Katz and Kahn, 1978: p.19).

Investigations of organizations must illuminate the ways in

which the characteristics of an organizational entity affect its

population, as well as the ways the individual members of the

organization shape its identity and outcomes along with their

own.

Katz and Kahn (1978) have pointed out that one difficulty

with the classical definition is that organizations

characteristically include both more and less than is

indicated by the purposes of their leaders or founders. They

suggest that organizations are better seen as entities in

which repeated, relatively enduring, patterned activities

occur that are bounded in space and time, and where the

energy for the initiation of a renewed cycle of activities arises

53

from the output or outcomes of the previous cycle. In Katz

and Kahn's view, a defining feature of organizations is their

ability to temporarily reverse the entropic process, resisting

the natural law in which all forms of organization tend to

move toward disorganization or randomness.

Katz and Kahn also suggest that organizations can be

classified according to their primary or first order functions.

Under this classification, productive or economic

organizations are distinct from social maintenance

organizations such as schools and churches. Other distinct

functional types are those that are adaptive, such as research

bodies, and those that play a political or managerial role such

as pressure groups or unions. Katz and Kahn suggest that

organizations that attempt more than one first order function

have special problems integrating their tasks. They use the

example of universities to highlight the functional tension

between their social maintenance (teaching) and their

adaptive (research) roles (Katz & Kahn, 1978, p.147). The

functional tension between the educational and

entrepreneurial roles of profit-based international ELT

colleges, in effect its multifunction integration, is a feature of

international ELT providers in Australia. The data in this

research suggests an ongoing tension between the

productive, profit-making function and the social

maintenance educational function in privately owned and

operated colleges in Australia. It is likely that, at least from

the ELT manager’s perspective, the ultimate management

54

task is the effective resolution of the maintenance and

productive functions of the college.

Due to the explosion in research into management and

organization theory it is no longer possible to use purely

quantitative means to investigate organizations. While

contingency theory analyses remain largely positivistic and

techno-economic, much of the literature in the field has

moved to deconstruct the classical model of organizations

and replace it with a much more complex and fragmented

view. There has been a notable shift in writings for managers

from those that regarded organizations as 'organized' to ones

that regard them as somewhat anarchic and less integrated,

goal focused and ordered than was once imagined. Many

theorists now describe organizations as systems of mutually

reinforcing contracts of structured games, or as contexts of

action where different strategies meet and are adjusted

through negotiation and power. Friedberg (1993) sees many

of these rules of action as being similar to the rules of a

game. In order to achieve power you have to increase your

own unpredictability in your behaviours that are important to

others while increasing the predictability of their behaviours

that are important to you – a sort of macro version of game

theory and the prisoner’s dilemma.

For the purposes of this research project though, the

traditional view of organizations based upon Weber's

definition of organizations, supplemented by Barnard’s notion

of the importance of the key individual as well as the system,

55

is used. Katz and Kahn's notion, of recurring cycles of

patterned activities and the importance of adequate

outcomes to ensure sufficient input for renewal, influences

the descriptions of tasks and processes within the

organizations under review. It is recognised that the stated,

'official' purpose of an organization may represent only one of

its many purposes. It is also acknowledged that the boundary

conditions for these organizations may be fluid and difficult

to precisely define with shifting 'edges' and increasing

organizational 'fuzziness'. This organizational fuzziness and

its relationship to the postmodernist perspectives in general

can only be briefly explored in this work, although it does

provide a useful insight for ELT managers. Indeed, this

boundary fluidity may be one of the distinguishing features of

many international ELT colleges compared to more

traditional educational organizations.

While this research project adopts a largely 'management

perspective' on organizational issues, the criticisms by the

organizational existentialists about the limitations of the

paradigms used to investigate and think about organizational

matters need to be noted. Pauchant (1995) for example,

argues the need for the further development of the field of

organizational existentialism, leading to a better

understanding of people in organizations. Organizations must

find ways of addressing the loss of personal meaning and

other afflictions of the human condition in modern life, and

research needs to look more closely at people's lives, deaths,

56

responsibilities, ambitions, loves, lonelinesses, anxieties and

spirituality in organizations, as such items are rarely

discussed in workplace organizations or in the research on

them. Pauchant (1995: p. 2) notes that while talk of career

planning and marketable innovations, success and financial

incentives, status and power are all readily apparent in the

world of work the "...quest to embrace life fully seems to have

vanished from many organizations". I hope that some of the

feedback presented in the action research phase of this study

will reveal some small efforts to make “the quest to embrace

life fully” a more than peripheral concern.

3.3. Perspectives of Organizations

Organizational theorists can be broadly divided into those

that have focused on the rational elements of organizations

as systems and those that have focused on the non-rational

elements. Four varying organizational perspectives are

referred to in this research. Three of these perspectives view

organizational behaviour as primarily rational, at least

according to the interests and desires of the members of the

organization. The first perspective, which could be labelled

structuralist or configurationist, focuses on organizational

structure and the formal shape of the organization. The

second perspective views human resources as the central

feature of organizational life and looks to the nature of

human resource usage for explanations of organizational

success and failure. The third perspective, which may be

57

labelled the political perspective, advocates the use of

political theories as the primary tool in understanding

organizations. The pre-dominant non-rational perspective of

organizations examines organizations from a symbolic view

and sees symbolism and the manipulation of symbols as the

most significant aspects of organizational analysis.

Examining organizations from a structural perspective

emphasises and highlights their goals, roles and technology.

Structural analysis of organizations focuses most closely on

the structure and the ecology of the organization and the

ways that these can be manipulated and managed to improve

organizational outcomes. It investigates the structural

variables of an organization, and seeks to make

improvements in organizational configuration so that it best

fits the purposes of the organization and the demands of its

environment. A structural perspective emphasises the

importance of formal roles and relationships between

members of an organization such as those usually depicted

on organizational charts or organigrams.

The structural perspective developed from early work in the

field that is often referred to as classical management. It

combines Taylor's (1911) work on the scientific management

of individual jobs, with the 'universal' management principles

of Fayol (1949), and Mooney and Urwick's (1931) work on the

design of organizations. Scientific management focused on

the techniques and mechanics of production and included the

58

now notorious concept of the time and motion study (Barnes,

1949). Fayol, Mooney, Urwick and others focused more

closely on management and came to see managerial and

administrative behaviour as consisting of planning,

organizing, commanding, coordinating and controlling.

The underlying metaphorical conception of classical

management is mechanistic. By concentrating on

organizational structure and placing all jobs within a

hierarchy, classical management theorists have helped create

and describe the formal structure of many of our

organizations. However the classical management emphasis

on organizations as rational, technical entities can mean that

aspects of the milieu and cultural dimensions of organizations

are overlooked.

In practice an overly mechanistic approach to the description

of job responsibilities may encourage the "it's not my job to

worry about that," attitude in organizations. It has been

suggested that defining work responsibilities in a clear-cut

manner may thwart initiative and flexibility; as everyone

knows what is expected of them but also what is not expected

of them (Morgan, 1986). Another limitation of viewing

organizations solely from this perspective is that managers

who are used to viewing organizations solely from a

structural perspective, with responsibility at the top, a

superordinate-subordinate chain of command and an under-

utilisation of people in the lower levels of the hierarchy, may

59

find their organizations particularly vulnerable to

organizational inertia when their environment changes.

Nevertheless, many of the classical management concepts

have become so firmly embedded in our culture that they are

now a part of our conventional wisdom. The notions of the

manager as a professional, of the manager as a separate

entity from the 'doer', of the exception principle where the

manager deals with the problems and the unusual

circumstances and the notions of standardization and

specialization of work owe much to this area of management

study. Even the fact that managers are a distinct entity

originates in the work of the classical management tradition.

The structural perspective can illuminate many important

aspects of an organization and it is still the most 'popular'

perspective on organizations. It can help reveal problems

with contemporary organizations such as the tendency to

organize 'upwards' to please the boss rather than

'downwards' (or as this study suggests with its notion of the

fronted organigram ‘outwards’) to please the client.

The Human Relations perspective on organizations derives

from the writings of Mary Parker Follett (1941) and the

famous series of studies done at the Hawthorne plant of the

Western Electric Company in Chicago by Mayo and

Roethlisberger (1947). This approach emphasises employee

motivation and satisfaction and group morale as important

issues in management study and organizational theory. The

Human Relations approach focuses attention on

60

psychological factors and has had a powerful influence over

many areas of 'people' management (see, for example, Kaplan

& Tausky, 1977). The concept of the manager as staff

motivator and communicator of organizational goals or the

recent exhortations for managers to act as 'coaches', for

example, are drawn from the human resource perspective.

Human resource theorists emphasise the relationship

between people and their organization. They focus on ways

that people within an organization can be better able to be

fitted to the formal roles and relationships required of them

in their organization. This perspective sees organizational

problems as arising chiefly from the lack of fulfilment of the

human needs of individual members of the organization.

The human resource perspective attends most closely to

matters of organizational milieu and organizational culture

and the ways that motivation, job satisfaction and morale can

be managed. This perspective draws on similar research

paradigms to those that have influenced thought on

education in industrialised countries in the latter half of the

twentieth century. This may be responsible for a view among

educators that the human resource perspective is the

'sensible' view of organizations, because their paradigms of

organizational and educational issues may be very similar.

While this human resource perspective can illuminate certain

aspects of an organization it can also disguise others, and due

to economic and other constraints can frequently lead to high

motivation, job satisfaction and morale for the privileged few

61

'insider' stakeholders with exploitation and demoralization for

the many 'outsider' ones.

The third broad perspective adopted in management and

organizational analysis is the political perspective. It

acknowledges the social-relational and formal-structure

perspectives of the first two approaches, but focuses more

closely on the distribution and use of power in the

organization. Political theorists see power, conflict and the

allotment of scarce resources as the dominant issues in

organizational analysis. The role of management, in this view,

is its ability to manage power and conflict and reconcile

differing coalitions to organizational purposes. This political

framing of organizational problems sees difficulties arising

because power is unevenly distributed, or is too widely

dispersed, to achieve positive outcomes. Managerial

solutions, according to political theorists, need to focus on

political skill and the ability to organize and reconcile

opposing coalitions.

Proponents of this approach have outlined a comprehensive

theory of cooperative behaviour in formal organizations and

have argued that organizations need to be seen as dynamic

as well as structural entities. From the political perspective it

is possible to perceive two ends of the organizational

continuum from conflict to cooperation. The aim of an

effective manager would be to move the organization from a

conflict system into a cooperative system. A key feature of

this perspective is that it illuminates the tremendously high

62

failure rate of organizations. This high failure rate is not

intuitively apparent, as failures disappear while successful

organizations continue to exist, thus exaggerating the

apparent proportion of the successes (Levitt & March, 1990).

The political perspective has helped reveal problems with the

classical assumption that superordinate-subordinate linkages

are uniform on all matters and that all decisions or 'orders'

are treated consistently. This assumption does not allow for

the fact that initiatory power in many professional contexts

varies by topic and that in educational organizations, for

example, there is frequently a lack of uniformity of control

with managers being susceptible to peer and subordinate

social influence. This susceptibility to peer and subordinate

influence and the blurring of a 'line system' of authority was

noted by Lortie, who observed in elementary schools that

matters of compliance with record-keeping fell into the

principal's zone of influence, while in-class affairs fell within

the teacher's territory. Conflicts arose in the many areas

where hegemony was unclear (Lortie, 1969). This study finds

this type of organizational 'fuzziness' in the colleges

examined, with similar findings recorded elsewhere (Parrot,

1990: p.7). Pfeffer and Salancik's (1980) demonstrations, that

supervisory behaviour is often a characteristic of the social

situation, rather than of the supervisor in professional and

semi-professional contexts, also show the important insights

that can be gleaned from a political perspective.

63

The essential question for managers from this political

perspective becomes just how much organizing and control is

needed for the most desirable outcomes. At the theoretical

level arguments in this area have swung from those who see

efficiency as springing from coordination and control to those

who see such coordination and control as self-defeating,

creating barriers to efficiency and harming an organization's

long term performance. The suggestion within this study of

the suitability of a collaborative work culture in ELT colleges

grows from a political perspective.

The fourth broad perspective on organizations is the symbolic

perspective. It is primarily non-rational and sees

organizations as being held together more by shared values

and inculcated beliefs than by goals and policies. From this

perspective problems arise when symbols are inappropriate

or ceremonies and rituals have lost their potency. Symbolic

theorists argue that managers need to rely on imagery,

values and beliefs in order to create common purposes in

organizations.

Bolman and Deal (1987) throughout their work argue that the

symbolic perspective is not based on a rational worldview,

and that therefore this perspective is most illuminating and

applicable in organizations with unclear goals and uncertain

technologies. In such organizations, ambiguity is everywhere

and it is uncertain where power lies, how success is defined,

whether or not a decision has been made and even what the

goals are. A symbolic perspective sees organizational

64

movements as fluid rather than linear and centres on the

concepts of meaning, belief and faith. Bolman and Deal argue

that the symbolic frame forms a conceptual umbrella for

ideas from disciplines such as: organizational theory and

sociology; (e.g. Weick, 1976), political science (e.g. Dittmer,

1977); Freudian and Jungian psychology, where paradigms

rely on symbolic concepts to understand human behaviour;

semiotics and linguistics with the notion of the arbitrary

signifier and the socially constructed signified; and, of

course, anthropology, where symbols and their place in the

culture and the lives of people are a central concern. For

many who have tried to manage or survive in organizations,

especially in the service sectors, the symbolic perspective

closely mirrors the reality they have experienced.

The symbolic perspective can be a powerful "lens for viewing

life in collective settings" and it allows for rich description of

organizational experience on the part of organizational

members. It can help reveal aspects of organizations that the

more rational perspectives can ignore. Bolman and Deal

(1987: pp.149-150) note that from a symbolic perspective

several research and information gathering assumptions need

to be foregrounded. These are:

"1. What is most important about any event in an organization is not what happened but the meaning of what happened.2. The meaning of an event is determined not simply by what happened but by the ways that humans interpret what happened.3. Many of the most significant events and processes in organizations are substantially ambiguous or uncertain - it is

65

often difficult or impossible to know what happened, why it happened, or what will happen next.4. Ambiguity and uncertainty undermine rational approaches to analysis problem solving and decision-making.5. When faced with uncertainty and ambiguity humans create symbols to reduce the ambiguity, resolve confusion, increase predictability and provide direction. Events themselves may remain illogical, random, fluid and meaningless, but human symbols make them seem otherwise."

The description and analysis of organizational culture in this

study is framed from a symbolic perspective seeing

organizational practices as being derived from symbols,

heroes, rituals and values the organization comes to project

over time.

All the various models and approaches to organizational

theory emphasise different aspects of management activity.

No model can possibly map all the relevant phenomena and

each of the various conceptualizations can illuminate

different aspects of an organization. There are thus a wide

variety of views on managerial style flowing from differing

conceptions of what organizations are and what they do.

Purely rational assumptions can fit well in some

organizations. Building electronic devices, for example, can

be reduced to a somewhat linear process with a well-

understood sequence of steps, clear goals and defined

technologies with visible end products. There are a variety of

concrete indicators such as sales and profitability that can be

evaluated in order to provide clear measures of success or

failure. Rational assumptions can also be important in some

parts of organizations even though they have limited use in

66

describing the overall organization. Thus in educational

organizations it is much more difficult to prove that students

are being well taught, or that complex behavioural outcomes

are being successfully achieved than it is to show that a

college cafeteria is cost effective or that the college's

accounting and billing systems are precise and clear-cut.

The different research perspectives can be used to illuminate

different facets of an organization and a full picture of an

organization depends, like a cubist work of art, on a

combination of perspectives. Descriptions of organizations in

this research project, therefore, attempt to combine aspects

of each perspective to arrived at a more complex and multi-

dimensional view of international ELT colleges than would be

possible using only one perspective. The rational perspectives

pre-dominate in the descriptions of organizational structure

and ecology. The human resource perspective and the

political perspective are emphasised in the chapters on milieu

and in discussions of collaborative work cultures. The

symbolic perspective emerges in the chapters on

organizational culture and in the descriptions of facets of

organizational life in international ELT colleges. This helps to

provide a fuller flavour of these organizations and their

management.

3.4. Management and Organizational Effectiveness

Interest in the activities and the behaviour of the class of

people who organize and administer organizations has led to

67

the notion or construct of a distinct organizational sub-group,

referred to as 'managers', that can be easily distinguished

from the 'doers'. Like the definition of an organization

though, precisely defining what a manager is, or even exactly

what a manager does, is problematic, despite a large array of

research and interest in the topic. The exact function and role

of managers is somewhat arbitrary and relates closely to the

perspective on organizations that is adopted.

This study argues that the primary role of managers is to

improve the effectiveness of their organization and it is this

core task that charges the manager with the responsibility to

view the organization from a holistic perspective. Comment

on organizational effectiveness, however, is itself problematic

because it is both the most important and the least delineated

of organizational constructs.

There is a large body of research into the organizational

effectiveness of schools and educational institutions but this

vast array of studies has failed to produce an unambiguous

definition of organizational effectiveness. Organizational

effectiveness is a central theme of analysis used in 'practical

life' and all the various stakeholders in international ELT

colleges use effectiveness indicators in practice. On the basis

of real or imagined information students choose particular

institutions, change from one to another and decide to drop

out or to continue studying. Teachers and managers transfer

'horizontally' between institutions believing that certain ones

are 'better' than others. International ELT colleges in

68

Australia that wish to be able to provide eligibility for

overseas students to obtain visas to study in Australia have to

meet the accreditation requirements of bodies such as the

National English Accreditation Scheme to be eligible for the

Commonwealth Register of Intensive Courses for Overseas

Students (CRICOS) which are, in effect, minimum

effectiveness indicators.

How organizational effectiveness is defined, who determines

the criteria, how short or long term a view should be adopted

and what criteria are used, can lead to the generalisation that

effectiveness cannot be defined or measured and there is no

doubt that from a theoretical perspective notions of

organizational effectiveness can be controversial.

In this study comments on effectiveness are linked to those

outlined in previous research into ELT management in

Australia (see Keaney, 1994: pp.22 – 26). This sees

organizational effectiveness as linked to attainment of

organizational goals and to acquisition of system resources.

Attainment of goals is fundamentally linked to the

educational values of the college while acquisition of system

resources is a more clearly entrepreneurial aim. A successful

ELT college, it is argued, is one that has constantly improving

educational quality as well as increasing financial success

and profitability.

69

3.5. The Description of International ELT Organizations

The ELT organizations discussed in this report are viewed as

entities that are an interrelationship of systems, individual

members and cycles of recurring, purposive activities (even if

the purpose of the activities differs from those of the leaders

or founders). When a new member enters the organization

they are confronted with a social structure that embraces

interaction patterns and organizational expectations. These

patterns and expectations are systematic and the new

member must respond to them in some fashion.

Organizational considerations influence the behaviour of the

members of the organization and account for part of the

behaviour of these individual members, whose behaviour in

turn shapes and influences the nature of the organization.

Interested observers can always detect a ‘feel’ to a particular

organization. When one walks into an educational institution

for the first time, an array of impressions combine to give the

observer a notion of the ‘atmosphere’ of the place. These

impressions consist of a combination of physical aspects such

as the location, furnishings, style of classrooms, type of

equipment and teaching resources, human aspects and

environmental aspects.

In order to describe international ELT colleges, and give a

sense of the differences and similarities between them, a

standard framework is needed. The various perspectives on

organizations outlined above indicate the need to have a

70

framework that examines as wide a range of organizational

features as possible. This range of features needs to include a

number of dimensions. The physical dimension which

includes such features as buildings and teaching resources,

the human dimension incorporating such factors as staff and

their beliefs and the ways they work (or don’t work!)

together, the types of students being educated and the

external environment such as the regulatory controls and the

state of the economy, all obviously affect the character of an

international ELT college.

International ELT colleges tend to have higher staff turnover

than traditional education institutions for a number of

reasons (Griffiths, 1992; p14; Waites, 1999 pp.392 - 459).

This obviously means that staff involved in the delivery of

ELT tend to work in a number of different institutions over

the course of their careers. It is likely that such staff have a

stronger awareness of this institutional ‘feel’ than those who

remain with one or two work organizations throughout their

working lives. Comparisons between particular colleges,

between types of institutions and between different countries

are a common topic of discussion among staff in ELT

colleges. Students in ELT colleges in Australia are also more

likely to compare and discuss colleges than is the case for

students in most educational institutions. A major reason is

that domestic students tend to mix with peers at the same

college or institution, whereas international ELT students are

more likely to mix with students from their own ethnic or

71

language groups, who attend a range of institutions in

Australia.

These informal discussions and comparisons, however, do not

provide a systematic basis for description and comparison. In

order to provide an ordered basis for the gathering and

reporting of data a model of organizational climate has been

used in this study. The framework is based on Tagiuri's

(1968) framework modified by Owens (1995, p.79) that is

used to describe the distinctive characteristics of

organizations. Tagiuri defines organizational climate as the

characteristics of the total organization manifested in the

four dynamically related dimensions of ecology, milieu, social

system [relabelled as organizational structure by Owens

(1995, p.79) which is the terminology used here] and culture.

The ecology of an organization is all of its physical and

material aspects such as its location, the size and condition of

its buildings, the nature of the technology used by its people

and all of the items that are necessary to carry out the

activities of the organization. More particularly, it refers to

all of the equipment and technology used by the members of

the organization such as the desks and chairs, the tables in

the staff room, the whiteboards and overhead projectors

(OHPs), the computers, the tea and coffee facilities, indeed

everything ‘physical’ that is used to carry out organizational

activities. Ecology is the most tangible dimension of

organizational climate and frequently plays a symbolic role in

representations of organizational culture and structure.

72

The layout and arrangement of premises, furnishings and

equipment is a significant ecological variable between

international ELT colleges. Most educators are familiar with

the importance of matching classroom layout to learning

activity and yet ELT managers frequently pay insufficient

attention to the significance of staff room layout, location of

senior management and arrangement of resources that can

have profound effects on organizational climate.

The milieu of an organization, on the other hand, is its social

dimension. Milieu reflects the characteristics of the staff and

clients of the organization describing such features as age,

gender, ethnicity, salary levels, socio-economic backgrounds,

level of job satisfaction, morale and motivation, behaviour

towards other organizational members and a range of other

personal attributes and characteristics. Many of the issues

raised by human resource theorists arise in discussions of

organizational milieu. Theorists who view organizations and

their members from a political perspective also offer insights

that are important in discussions of organizational milieu.

Matching of client to college can be an area of comparative

advantage. Niche creation is a well-known concept in

business areas but is less emphasised in educational circles.

Targeting particular types of students and those with

particular needs as well as focusing on staff selection to

assist in cultural outcomes can be a contributor to the growth

and success of a college. Other significant areas in the milieu

dimension are somewhat nebulous characteristics such as

73

‘enthusiasm’ and ‘cultural awareness’. While these types of

characteristics present problems of definition and

measurement, they are frequently used as a basis of

comparison of international ELT colleges by revenue

contributing stakeholders such as students and educational

agents.

The third dimension in Tagiuri's framework is the social

system of an organization, its organizational and

administrative structure. This dimension relates to the

method of organization, the decision making process, the

formal communication patterns and the nature of the

component work groups. This aspect accords with the type of

information typically sought from a structural research

perspective. Many of the notions raised by classical

management theorists arise in discussions of organizational

structure.

A significant area in this dimension is the speed and process

with which decisions are made. Frequently decisions over

hard costs such as equipment purchases, which are relatively

insignificant from an overall budget perspective, are made by

senior organizational members whereas decisions on soft

costs such as staff time and meetings are relatively

unplanned and ad hoc. Certain structural features can

assume unrealistic importance while other equally volatile or

significant ones can be ignored.

74

The fourth and least tangible dimension of this model is the

culture of an organization. This is the dimension of the

organization that refers to its values, belief systems, norms

and ways of thinking, which come to characterise the people

in the organization. The cultural dimension includes the

forces that comprise the symbols, rituals, heroes and values

that reflect and shape the practices of the organization and

help to shape and reinforce human behaviour. While

organizational culture is the least tangible dimension of

organizational climate it has a powerful effect on the other

dimensions, and thus on the overall climate, of an

international ELT college. This study suggests that an

emphasis on the three themes of integration, collaboration

and client service can have repercussions throughout the

organization. This emphasis is likely to help to resolve

tensions in vision and values drawn from differing discourses,

to assist in configuration of organizational structure to match

core service activities, to provide a basis for decisions on

organizational milieu and to give guidance on issues affecting

organizational ecology.

A modified version of Tagiuri's model is outlined in Figure 3.1

75

ENVIRONMENT è

ê

Organizational Culture

psycho-social characteristics

norms belief systems key values

ç ENVIRONMENTê

Organizational Milieu

characteristics of individuals

staff attributes student

attributes motivation /

morale

ORGANIZATIONAL

CLIMATE

Organizational Ecology

physical/material factors

layout of premises design of premisestechnology

éENVIRONMENT

è

Organizational Structure

configuration distribution of

authority communication

patterns decision-making

practises

éç ENVIRONMENT

Figure 3.1. Organizational Climate

This is adapted from Tagiuri's original model and the suggested revisions by Owens (1995: p.79). For the purposes of this research the model is framed by the external

environment to enable discussion of external regulatory and market conditions.

76

3.6. Conclusion

Comment on the international ELT colleges in this study uses

both rational and non-rational theoretical perspectives to

highlight differing views of educational organizations, their

effective operation and accurate description. The bias is

towards the management of the organization, not out of a

sympathy with 'managerialism' (Thompson & McHugh, 1995:

p.12), but because it is those in the role of manager who are

most likely to be confronted with the uncertainties and flux

that is highlighted in this data and to be charged with ‘doing

something about it’.

Ultimately, in a study such as this, the perspective of the

researcher colours the theoretical approaches used, as the

discussion on the methodology of the study in Chapter 2

indicates. Research into issues such as the way

organizational culture can shape performance and life

chances of organizations and how the structure, ecology and

milieu of the organization can shape its culture and ability to

learn must be situated in a view of organizations and

organizational life that is based on deep philosophical notions

about the construction of our social and political realities. As

with many areas of social science research the process of

asking the questions, and the ongoing search for the answers,

can prove as valuable and enduring as the sometimes

ephemeral answers ultimately obtained.

77

C h a p t e r 4

THE INTERNATIONAL ELT COLLEGE ENVIRONMENT

4.1. Introduction

This chapter looks at some of the external environmental

influences on international ELT colleges in Australia. It first

looks at the notion of English as the premier international

language to explain the environmental creation of demand for

international ELT colleges. It then outlines the growth of the

international ELT industry in Australia and gives an overview

of legislation and other limiting factors that provide the

primary environmental constraints and regulations for ELT

colleges. It briefly summarizes the typical products and

services of international ELT colleges before concluding with

a brief summary of the chapter.

The organizational climate model in Figure 3.1 indicates that

all facets of an organization are shaped by, and inextricably

linked with, the external environment. Environmental

constraints play an important role in the formation of

organizational cultures and differing environments no doubt

tend to favour particular types of such cultures. Deal &

Kennedy (1982) note throughout their work that there is

likely to be a vast organizational cultural difference between

companies that must sell an undifferentiated product,

78

compared to those that are chiefly focused on innovation,

research and development.

In the early 1950s Homans established that the external

physical and technological environment generates activities

and interactions, which in turn generate sentiments and

norms. When these sentiments and norms have formed they

become the internal system of the organization, which can

then in turn affect the external system by influencing

activities and interactions. Thus the link between

environment and culture is circular. While the environment

determines constraints and options for the development of a

particular culture, once the culture is formed the shared

assumptions will in turn influence what will be perceived and

defined as the environment (Schein, 1985, p.51). In effect the

environment is not completely objective, tangible, and

measurable but comes to be constructed by the people in the

organization and reproduced by the networks of symbols and

meanings that unite them and make shared action possible.

The shifting nature of the boundary between the 'inside' and

the 'outside' of organizations also means that the whole

notion of environment has become a very rich and detailed

area of organizational data.

The environment of international ELT colleges, like other

educational organizations in Australia, is directly affected by

the great shift in social and organisational phenomena and

the evolution of social constructs from the modern to the

postmodern. As Baldwin (1997, p.14) writes:

79

It is tempting to draw analogies between what is occurring now in the delivery of education and training and the transformation of the financial sector a decade ago. As with the financial sector, innovation by providers, technological change and internationalisation are undermining traditional regulatory approaches. In education, as with the financial sector, traditional restrictions constraining who provides what sort of 'product' are breaking down and the boundaries between traditionally separate sectors are breaking down.

4.2. English as an International Language

It is frequently stated that English is the international

language and there is a vast array of statistical support for

this proposition. Over 300 million people use English as a

mother tongue language and a further 300 million use it as a

second language with a further 100 million using it fluently

as a foreign language. This has increased more than 40%

since the 1950s. If speakers with a lower level of fluency are

included the total figure is well over one billion users. English

is used as an official or semi-official language in over 60

countries with a prominent place in another 20. It is the main

language of the print media, of air traffic, of information

technology, international business, diplomacy, sport,

advertising, pop music and academic and scientific

conferences. More than 80% of information stored on the

world’s electronic retrieval systems is in English (Crystal,

1994, p.358). While some have suggested much of the data in

this area is relatively soft (Joseph, 2001: pp212 – 240) and

that the spread of English may be less rapid than is

80

commonly thought, there is no doubt that English is the

language of the globalisation of the world economy.

While there is ideological opposition to the manifestation of

this linguistic force, the provision of English language

teaching services is no doubt demand, rather than supply,

driven. Whatever ideological problems the provision of

English instruction may have, [and many writers such as

Gregson (2001) and Pennycook, (1994) have assiduously

pointed these out], it is certain that the denial of the right to

learn English would be a far more repressive measure.

On the level of English language teaching, therefore, it is safe

to say that whatever the outcome of the ideological debates

of post-colonialism there is little chance in the next few

decades that any other language will come close to English's

place in the world. The huge need for English language

teaching services has led to an increasing commodification of

ELT and a subsequent explosion in the number of providers

around the world. This increasing commodification has also

meant a significant fall in the real cost of ELT courses to the

student with consequent stresses on course quality.

Commodification is frequently a sign of the maturation of an

industry, so while it does present problems for ELT educators

and course quality, it is also a signal that the teaching of

English has ‘come of age’ as a commercial activity and now

holds a significant global economic presence.

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4.3.The Growth of the International ELT Industry in

Australia

The delivery of ELT is a highly intangible service. The output

is not a physical product or construction and its added value

to the client exists in forms such as added convenience,

amusement, comfort, opportunities or satisfaction. The core

activity of international ELT colleges in Australia is the

delivery of English language courses to overseas students.

Because they rely almost exclusively on full-fee paying

overseas students for their viability (Cervi, 1991; p.4) there is

both a far greater element of risk in the ELT sector and an

undeniably entrepreneurial aspect that can be lacking in

those sectors of the Australian education system with more

captive markets (Bundesen, 1992).

The ELT industry in Australia is a significant part of its

education services 'export' sector. As well as having

important links with the rapidly expanding tourism industry,

it occupies a crucial role as the first contact point for many

overseas students who will later move into institutions in

other sectors of the Australian education system, such as

universities, schools and VET institutions.

The international ELT industry in Australia, especially its

delivery by private providers, is very young. It was not

identified as a separate item in the export of education

services until 1986 and before 1981 there were few available

pathways for non-immigrant ELT students. From 1981 to

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1986 the industry grew in a fashion similar to many 'new’

industries with little regulation and steady increase in

profitability and visibility of organizations offering the

services. While some private ELT colleges began operations

in the mid-sixties, rapid and sometimes controversial growth

in the area began in 1986, as subsidised places for overseas

students in Australia began to be phased out and Government

funding to education was reduced. Foreign students began to

be seen as an important source of revenue rather than as

recipients of aid (Cervi, 1991; p.4).

The growing demand within Asia that accompanied its rapid

industrialisation and growth of its middle classes, in

combination with the increasing importance of English as an

international language, meant the industry began to grow

dramatically in 1987 with a particularly drastic increase in

the number of students from The People’s Republic of China.

By 1989 there were more than 38000 students in ELT

courses in Australia, more than 10 times as many as in 1986

(EA, 1991, p. 6). Indeed, in June 1989, there were 20000

students from China studying in Australia and up to 37000

waiting in a 'queue' in Beijing to commence study in

Australia.

Very quickly the laissez-faire approach was drastically

changed to a highly regulated and controlled market, most

particularly one that would restrict the 'visa overstay’

problem. In order to distinguish between those countries

where the overstay rate was particularly acute, the notion of

83

low-risk and high-risk countries came into being. This was

later formalised in relevant legislation as Gazetted and Non-

gazetted countries.

In the initial phase of this move, almost all of the major

nations in Asia were deemed to be high-risk countries, and

the effect of the new restrictions was immediate and

financially crippling to many colleges. The two legislative

'shocks' of the New Global Entry Criteria of August 1989 and

the Regulations under the New Migration Act of December

1989 had immediate impacts in the major markets of China,

Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong and Korea. This downturn

continued throughout 1990 and was also felt even in the low

risk countries that were turned off by the more complex entry

arrangements to Australia compared to competitor countries.

By 1991 there had been a 49% drop in ELT enrolments

compared to 1989, with China declining by 60% and other

markets declining by more than 30% (EA, 1991: p.8).

The ELICOS Association, as it was originally called, was

founded in 1981 as an industry body to represent ELT

colleges. It put forward a submission to the Industry

Commission Inquiry in 1991 identifying the dilemma that still

remains at the core of the international education debate in

Australia. The EA report (1991, p.i) states

"Australia currently has a choice between a conservative or an entrepreneurial approach to the export of education services. The conservative approach preserves our separation from an ascendant Asia. The entrepreneurial approach puts Australia in

84

a better position to share more fully in the dynamism of the region over the next two decades and beyond."

The EA report notes that export of ELT education services is

capital efficient with a high positive balance of foreign

exchange earnings for invested capital (EA, 1991: p.3). It also

emphasises that the formal sector of education has strong

limitations in the extent to which it can be differentiated,

whereas English language courses can be readily

differentiated to suit changing student demand. Such aspects

as course length, starting and restarting dates, focus, media

of instruction, purpose, student selection and grouping, level,

intensity and student teacher ratios can be mixed in an

infinite number of ways to suit a myriad of changing market

opportunities.

In 2000 there were more than 188,000 students from

overseas studying in Australia. They contributed more than

$3.6 billion to the Australian economy including more than

$1.8 billion on fees that were paid directly to institutions and

roughly $1.8 billion on goods and services, including

accommodation, food and transportation. More than 80% of

these overseas students studying in Australian institutions

come from Asia with Indonesia Singapore, Hong Kong,

Malaysia, South Korea and Japan the leading source

countries.

The proportion of students in the ELT sector fluctuates much

more than in other sectors of international education in

Australia. In 2000, 19.5% of overseas students on student

85

visas in Australia were enrolled in ELT courses up from

19.1% in 1999. Over the course of this project student

numbers in ELT fluctuated dramatically. The steady growth

in the sector in the early and mid 1990’s was severely

interrupted by the Asian economic crisis of 1997 - 98. From

1994 to 1995 ELT students on full-time student visas

increased by 30.7% from 26,173 to 34,209. From 1995 to

1996 there was a 26.6% increase to 43,307. From 1996 to

1997 however there was a 13.8% fall in student numbers and

in 1998 a dramatic decline of 26.8%. Only 27,356 students

were issued student visas to study ELT in 1998, which was

almost a return to the 1994 levels. From 1998 to 1999 there

was a small increase of 6.8% and from 1999 to 2000 the large

growth of the early 1990s return with an increase of 25.8% so

that there were over 36000 students studying English in

Australia on student visas. (DETYA: 2001, Table 5, DEST,

2002b).

The raw numbers above understate the true size of the sector

however, because they only indicate students who have

applied to Australia to study ELT on a student visa. Many in

the other sectors (Higher Education, Vocational Education

and Schools) would have initially completed an ELT course

included in their subsequent visa. Also many students

studying ELT do so while holding either tourist visas or

working holiday visas, meaning there is a large extra number

of enrolments to consider. The DEST estimates for 2000 are

that approximately 27000 students were enrolled in short-

86

term ELT courses in Australia while visiting on a tourist or

working holiday visa. This means that more than 63000

students undertook ELT study in Australia during 2000.

A developing issue in the branding of international education

in Australia is that students coming to Australia perceive

freedom as a significant factor differentiating Australia from

the United States. Australian Education International after an

exhaustive market research study concluded that while the

factors of challenge and status appeared to be the heartland

of international education Australia had a strong existing

position with a sense of freedom and that this will provide a

significant marketing focus in the years ahead (DEST 2002c).

4.4. The Regulation of the International ELT Industry

in Australia

In 1990 the National Consultative Committee on the Export

of Education and Training Services (NACCEETS) was set up

to strengthen industry consultation between various groups

of providers. The committee's title was changed in 1991 to

the National Consultative Committee on International

Education and Training Services (NACCIETS). NACCIETS

includes the various industry umbrella groups such as

ACPET, the EA, the AVCC, students represented though the

NLCISA, relevant unions, State governments and

Commonwealth Departments

87

From 1 January 1990 responsibility for the approval and

accreditation of courses offered to international students, and

the registration of the institution that enrols them, has rested

with State and Territory governments based on a range of

minimum standards, which were endorsed by the Australian

Education Council in June 1990. Assurance of educational

standards, therefore, rests at the state level and depends on

the accreditation process. In effect, monitoring of the

financial status of institutions, with regard to the use of

overseas students fees and the compliance with immigration

and visa conditions, is a Commonwealth concern, while the

assurance of educational standards and the monitoring of

course quality are state/territory functions.

International education in Australia and related training is

spread across the Commonwealth Departments of Education,

Science and Training (DEST) and Immigration and

Multicultural Affairs (DIMA) and more than a dozen state and

territory portfolios. This can have the great pitfall, as Graham

(1997, p.3) notes, of leading to policies either overlapping or

else being deficient.

Some of the most important regulatory bodies and legislation

are outlined below:

The ESOS ACT: DEST (FORMERLY DETYA)

DEST is the Commonwealth Department of Education,

Science and Training. It has been restructured several times

in the last two decades and has formerly been DETYA

88

(Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs),

DEETYA (Department of Employment, Education, Training

and Youth Affairs) and DEET (Department of Employment,

Education and Training).

The Education Services for Overseas Students (Registration

of Providers and Financial Regulation) Act 2000, or ESOS

Act, replaced similar legislation first enacted in 1991. It

commenced operation on 4 June 2001 and is currently the

most important Commonwealth Act affecting international

education in Australia along with the relevant sections of the

Migration Acts that cover student visas. In the late 1980's

and early 1990s Australia's reputation as a provider of

education to international students came under a number of

stresses that were identified at Commonwealth level as

having the potential to seriously damage its reputation. Some

of these pressures were identified by the Senate Standing

Committee on Employment Education and Training inquiry

(1992, p.5) as:

the emergence of some unscrupulous providers in

the private education sector

some evidence of unevenness in the quality of both

services provided and the support structures for

students

breaches by students of visa conditions

the financial collapse of several private institutions

and the consequent adverse publicity in overseas

89

countries about the problems of students who lost

money as a result.

As a result of these pressures, and the real or imagined

problems that they led to, the ESOS Act was designed to

address many of these concerns, especially the way that some

institutions were dealing with overseas students. The

intention of the Act according to the Senate Standing

Committee inquiry (1992, p.5) was:

to protect provider and course quality through registration of institutions and to protect student funds held by providers.

The Act also signalled to education providers and potential

overseas students that the Government was serious about

remedying problems arising from the failure of institutions

and the loss of funds by students and preventing any

recurrence of such problems in the future.

The most important features of the ESOS Act were that

1. Education providers had to be registered with DEST in

order to offer courses to overseas students. This

registration requires listing on the Commonwealth

Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas

Students (CRICOS) that is based on State or Territory

approval of the provider.

2. If an institution is suspended by its relevant state or

territory body then its registration with DEST and on

90

the CRICOS is suspended or cancelled automatically.

Failure to comply with aspects of the ESOS Act can

lead to such cancellation with defined procedures and

appeal mechanisms for the affected providers.

3. Institutions that receive Commonwealth recurrent

funding (such as public universities, TAFEs government

schools and most private schools) are exempt from the

financial regulation aspects of the ESOS Act.

4. Institutions that are not exempt from the financial

provisions of the Act had to establish special accounts

for pre-paid overseas student fees and keep transaction

records on such accounts.

(From mid-2001 the Trust Account provisions have been

supplemented by an industry wide insurance scheme known

as the ESOS Assurance Fund).

The ESOS Act came into force on 27 June 1991 with

regulations made under the Act being proclaimed in

November 1991 and June 1992. The setting up of the CRICOS

(Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Course for

Overseas Students) by DEET (now DEST) was the central

implementation measure of the Act.

There were many initial difficulties with the implementation

of the Act. The Senate Standing Committee inquiry noted that

more than two thirds of the relevant institutions were not at

that time complying with various sections of the Act for

reasons such as not submitting audited returns, auditors

91

offering only qualified reports, auditors not clearly stating in

their reports whether the institution had fully complied with

the Act, or enrolment details being at odds with information

extracted from Acceptance Advice form lodgements. With

ongoing improvement in the efficiency of the Act and its

administration, and electronic confirmation of enrolment

details, many of these problems were reduced.

Some of the backwash effects of legislation and its power to

alter perception can be seen in the following example. When

the ESOS Act was originally drawn up Schedule 2 of the

regulations included a list of exempt providers. This schedule

came to be known in the industry as the 'safe list' as it

seemed to indicate that the institutions mentioned on the list

were safe, and had an implied government guarantee,

whereas the private institutions not on the list were somehow

riskier. This schedule has since been amended to exempt

classes of providers, rather than individually named

institutions, and now exempts all institutions under direct

state or territory financial control.

It is important to note that the ESOS Act was drawn up to

provide financial security for international students studying

in Australian educational institutions. As its primary aim was

financial, it did not in itself provide any guarantees of

standards of courses or of educational quality. Quality of

courses and course provision is done through the industry

accreditation body, NEAS, the National ELT Accreditation

92

Scheme, which has some delegated powers from State

Government Education Authorities.

Australia's Overseas Student Program: DIMA

The other significant Commonwealth body for international

ELT colleges is the DIMA. DIMA supervises the migration and

visa areas of the overseas student program, which enables

non-Australians to study in Australia on a full fee basis. DIMA

sees itself in a supporting role to the DEST in the program,

through supervision of the immigration requirements

connected with the entry and stay of overseas students in

Australia.

DIMA sees the Overseas Student Program (OSP) as trying to

achieve three broad objectives. These are to increase

Australia's export revenue through the promotion of

Australia's education and training sector, to develop bilateral

relations through contributions to the social and economic

development of the Asia Pacific region and to promote

goodwill and an international understanding of Australia to

assist in strengthening Australia's future trade and security

(DIMA 1997, p.3).

For many students obtaining their student visa becomes a

significant concern in their initial explorations of study

abroad. For students from high-risk countries the obtaining of

a visa can be almost an end in itself. Even for those from low

risk countries the process is more arduous than most expect.

For many students already in Australia in ELT colleges, a

93

major concern is attaining a sufficient level of English to

advance to the next stage of study, either at university or a

vocational college. Increasingly strict English language

requirements on entry to such courses have given powerful

extrinsic motivation for ELT achievement to students who

want to continue to study in Australia, but they have also

allowed an element of corrupt or coercive activities to grow

at a few unscrupulous colleges.

ELT Institutional and Course Accreditation: NEAS

NEAS (The National ELT Accreditation Scheme) is a national

scheme that accredits ELT colleges in Australia – including

private colleges, university language centres, VET ELT

centres and private secondary schools. It has developed a

series of standards and guidelines that proscribe such areas

as class sizes, curriculum, teaching methods and materials,

orientation, social and cultural activities, professional

qualifications of English teachers and welfare counselling

It is an industry based, self-funding, autonomous system and

has been the accrediting body for ELT institutions since

1990. NEAS has established a set of quality standards and

criteria for the provision of English language programs. New

ELT colleges that wish to be accredited by the NEAS have to

meet all of these standards before being approved to

commence operations. NEAS also inspects each college

annually to ensure that these standards are being

maintained.

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In general institutional approval is a two-step process.

Applicants for NEAS accreditation undergo a twelve-month

provisional period before applying for full accreditation. Once

institutions have met NEAS requirements they then apply to

their State or Territory authority for registration on the

CRICOS. After twelve months as a provisional candidate,

institutions are assessed for accreditation. If they are able to

demonstrate full compliance with NEAS standards they

become NEAS accredited institutions. NEAS assesses

institutions for compliance with accreditation standards in

the following areas: management, finance and administration,

specialist staff, premises, student services, curriculum,

student assessment, materials and equipment and

recruitment and promotion (NEAS; 2001).

Multiple Regulatory Authorities

The break-up of regulatory supervision between DEST, DIMA

and the NEAS is an institutional symbol of the divided world

of the ELT manager. In effect one Commonwealth

department controls financial matters, another regulates

student visa matters while a third independent industry body,

with delegated powers from state government departments,

controls institutional and course accreditation matters. It is

by no means an unworkable regulatory model but it does lead

to many cracks and overlaps. It also reinforces the division

between the entrepreneurial/institutional activities of an ELT

college and its educational ones.

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4.5. The Products and Services of International ELT

Colleges

ELT, in common with other service industries, has a

pronounced difference from activities and practices in

organizations that produce goods. ELT colleges offer an

intangible benefit that cannot be inventoried or patented. The

ELT service cannot be easily displayed or communicated and

determination of pricing levels is complex. It is virtually

impossible to standardize ELT delivery, and the quality

depends on many uncontrollable factors, including the

actions of the clients themselves. There is no sure way for

ELT managers to know that the service delivery matches

what was planned or expected. The ELT service is

simultaneously produced as it is consumed, unlike

manufacturing where production and consumption are

separate. The clients participate in, and affect, the

transaction and also affect each other. Finally employees,

particularly ELT teachers, have an enormous bearing on the

outcome of the service with few rigid quality control

techniques available.

International ELT Colleges provide a range of educational

services to international students that have as their core

outcome the improvement of English language skills. Courses

typically cover the whole spectrum of English language

learning from beginning students with little or no English

skills through to courses to prepare students for high-level

academic studies or vocational activities in English.

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The ELT Colleges in this study offer most or all of the

following courses although the actual names of courses vary

slightly:

1. General English Courses

General English courses typically offer from 4 to 52 weeks of

English learning. The courses help students develop their

general skills in English and help them to practice

communicating accurately and fluently with English

speakers. The courses usually focus more on spoken

communication, especially at the beginner and intermediate

levels but also include components on English writing skills.

These courses are usually offered at all levels.

2. English for Business Courses

English for Business courses introduce students to the

specialised language of business and reinforce the

communication skills required in business situations through

classwork, field trips, lectures and familiarisation with

computers and office technology. The courses are usually

only available to students with intermediate level English

proficiency or above.

3. Exam Preparation and English for Academic Purposes

Courses

Many students at international ELT colleges have a desire to

do further study in Australia or occasionally overseas. The

most common entry exams required for this kind of study are

the IELTS and TOEFL tests and many colleges offer

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preparation courses for these exams. The courses typically

help students develop the skills and knowledge required for

these English examinations by working on academic reading

and writing skills, formal and informal speaking skills and

essay/report writing skills. The courses usually have

restricted entry although some colleges do not enforce this.

The EAP courses (English for Academic Purposes) usually

offer more detailed preparation for academic study and may

even specialise in particular disciplines.

4. English for High School Courses

Many students come to Australia to enter high school but do

not have sufficient command of English to be placed in a

suitable school. The English for High School courses typically

prepare students for entry to Australian high schools by

combining regular general English language activities with

school content and subject specific reading and vocabulary

skills. It is a growing area in many ELT colleges due to

increasing affluence and interest in the area from PRC and

Korea.

5. Holiday, Novelty and ESP Courses

There are also many courses that are offered to students on a

short-term basis, either for groups of students who come to

Australia for short periods of time or for students who have a

particular interest in a certain activity and wish to combine

their English studies with that activity. Course in English for

golf, for surfing, for diving and other recreational activities

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have been a small but important part of the course offerings

of many colleges.

ESP courses (English for Special/Specific Purposes) are

usually targeted at particular students groups. Typical ESP

courses may include a group of workers from the same

company who have particular specialised needs in English

(say understanding instructions on the safe use and transport

of chemicals or English for International Currency Trading).

Like the holiday and novelty courses they are usually

peripheral to main revenue activities of the ELT college but

are of growing importance.

As well as offering the courses above international ELT

colleges usually have to provide the following services:

Student counselling: to assist students with

application, study concerns and in adjusting to life in

Australia.

Accommodation assistance: to arrange temporary

hotel or other accommodation especially homestay

families for overseas students. There is frequently a

need for assistance with issues relating to rental

housing for longer-term students.

Airport pick ups

Assistance with job seeking: to assist students in

job seeking skills and interview skills and provide

assistance in resume preparation and job seeking.

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Mail facilities: So that students can have a central

pick up point for their mail and messages

Student social programs: International students

depend on the ELT college much more than their

domestic peers for their social life. Because many

students focus their life in Australia around their

college, the student social program can be a very

important part of the college’s activities.

4.6. Conclusion

The ELT industry in Australia is an important part of the

education 'export' sector. As well as having important links

with the expanding tourism sector, it occupies a crucial role

as the first contact point for many overseas students, who will

later move into institutions in other parts of the Australian

education sector, such as TAFEs, universities or private

vocational colleges.

This chapter has looked at some of the external

environmental influences on international ELT colleges in

Australia. It discussed the notion of English as the premier

international language to explain the environmental creation

of demand for international ELT colleges. It outlined the

growth of the international ELT industry in Australia and

gave a brief overview of legislation and other limiting factors

that provide the primary legislative requirements and

regulations for ELT colleges. It also summarized the typical

products and services of international ELT colleges.

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The environmental factors mentioned in this chapter are all

discussed further in their impact on the structure, culture,

milieu and ecology of each of the ELT colleges in the study.

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C h a p t e r 5

DISCOURSES AND DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

5.1. Introduction

The imperatives that drive entrepreneurs often seem to move

in a different direction to those that appeal to many

educators. This tension seems to be so common and so

pervasive throughout educational enterprises that it is likely

that there are some fundamental value clashes arising from

competing worldviews. The increasing importance of

entrepreneurial values in educational contexts, especially

those that are privately owned and operated or are run on

profit-making lines, mean that there are many areas of

antagonism between such an 'entrepreneurial' and an

'educational' view of the world. These are likely to manifest

themselves as tensions within international ELT colleges, and

the resolution of such tensions is, this study argues, likely to

be a critical ability for successful ELT management.

The discourse analysis in this and the following chapters

broadly follows a question framework developed by Kemmis

(1988, pp.57 - 85) that divides such an analysis into the three

areas of language use, contestation and institutionalisation.

This chapter provides an overview of discourse and discourse

analysis. The following chapter gives a brief description of

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the history and contemporary usage of the key ideas in the

two discourses. Chapter 7 outlines some of the contestations

between the two discourses. Chapter 8 then indicates how

the relevant discourses have been institutionalised in some

international ELT colleges, as well as how adequately

rhetoric and practice are matched.

The discourse analysis is intended to be illustrative and

suggestive, as a comprehensive analysis is beyond the scope

of this study. The purpose of the analysis is not to provide a

thorough and complete overview of the discourses and all of

the areas of contestation or resultant institutionalisation, but

simply to indicate a ‘feeling’ for the language use,

contestation and institutionalisation as an aid to discussing

the effects of the contestation on ELT managers. A

management model that contains a partial resolution of these

values clashes is also suggested.

5.2. Discourse

The conceptual meaning of discourse varies within the social

sciences with different meanings being located in different

theoretical areas of interest (Williams, 1988; p.254).

Discourse and its analysis in this report is a combination of

that used by Gumperz (1982) to discuss the dynamics and

analysis of communication situations with those of Fairclough

(1985, 1992) and Gee (1990) who also use discourse to

indicate the ideological nature of language and language

settings.

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Only a very small part of an individual's knowledge of the

world originates within their own personal experience, with

much the greater part socially derived from peers, parents,

institutions and the media. Schutz (1953, p.18) and many

other analysts have pointed out the "typifying medium par

excellence by which socially derived knowledge is

transmitted is the vocabulary and syntax of everyday

language.” The language of everyday life includes the naming

of things and events that necessitates a typification and

generalization of socially derived constructs. Rational action

and rational conversation take place within a frame of largely

unquestioned and undetermined constructs.

No text or stretch of utterances, therefore, can be

ideologically neutral, as everyone has to have a system of

beliefs in order to make sense of the world, and

communication itself would be impossible in the absence of

such systems. In a management text, for instance, crafting

the relationship between various people used in examples in

the text requires an ideology of how social interaction is

conducted. The choice of a sympathetic character as the

subject or object of an anecdote requires an ideology of what

qualities are likable or admirable and so on through the vast

array of choices that a writer of a text (or a speaker) has to

make. While some choices may appear to particular readers

or listeners as more appropriate than others, it is impossible

to communicate in an ‘ideology-free’ zone.

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Ideology plays a role in the creation, the consumption and the

prestige of texts and an awareness of the ideological nature

of language is an important critical and analytical tool. An

analysis of a discourse to reveal its underlying ideology

requires an understanding of the ways that the spoken and

written texts within it relate to their broader contexts. A

range of social and rhetorical practices forms the foundations

of any text, and these social and rhetorical practices are not

freely available to all. It is at this level of analysis though,

that ideology of the discourse becomes a significant

contributor to meaning. A joke that depends for its humour

on knowing a particular topical event is likely to exclude

those who don't keep up with the news, a person who does

not understand or refuses to use the conventions of a

particular scientific journal would be seriously handicapped

in their quest for publication.

All linguistically constituted modes of discourse, therefore,

are informed by, surrounded by and encased within non-

linguistic values, assumptions and beliefs that are an integral

part of them. Quite apart from the 'information' in the text, an

attitude of mind, an historical occasion, a belief system and a

social context are portrayed. Gee (1990 pp.175-176) argues

that people learn to speak, read and write in certain ways by

serving apprenticeships in social settings, where people

characteristically read, write and speak in these ways. Each

discourse is attached to a particular social identity and a

particular social group that is embedded in particular social

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settings and institutions. In this sense a discourse represents

a way of being in a family, a classroom, an educational

institution, a peer group, a business organization, a gender or

a profession, with the membership of the discourse enabling

the individual to take up particular roles and be recognised

by other discourse members as playing that role.

Involvement in a discourse by an individual is not an

automated following of rules stored in the data banks of the

mind. A useful analogy may be that of dancing. The

individual’s participation in the discourse is like a dancer

dancing with body, mind and soul carrying out a complicated

and sophisticated set of routines and actions that can be

combined with an individual's own creative style, as long as

this creativity does not make the dance unrecognizable as

dance or as a particular kind of dance. If the ‘dance’ does not

look fluid because an individual is having to 'think' and 'follow

the rules' the dance fails and other ‘members’ reject the

individual as a ‘dancer’ (Gee, 1990; p.171).

Much of the modern work in the analysis of discourses has

grown from the writings of Foucault (1972). Foucault

wondered how it was that we knew that a particular

statement or text ‘belonged’ in a particular academic

discipline. He demonstrated that it was not simply because all

the texts referred to the same object by showing the great

changes in the discourse of psychopathology from the 18th

Century to the 20th. Foucault argued from the premise of the

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right to speak, showing that, for example, the medical

discourse expressed by a surgeon is legitimised to a far

greater extent than that expressed by a folk medicine

practitioner.

He also rejected the notion that such statements and texts

can be simply linked by style, ‘a certain constant manner of

statement’ (Foucault, 1972, p.33) by showing the drastic

changes in style that have occurred over time within

discourses. He rejected the idea that it can be simply based

on themes for similar reasons. Ultimately he suggested that it

is systems of dispersion and formation that allow discourses

to be identified. For Foucault the essence of a discourse lies

in its power to 'produce' reality and cause new objects of

knowledge to appear within its domains or prevent other new

objects from forming. He saw discourses as perspectives that

can not only observe truths but create or disallow truths as

well. Work since Foucault has often focused on this notion of

the power of particular discourses and their ability to

determine what is relevant, what is true and what counts as

important.

Gee (1990, pp.176-178) makes the distinction between

primary discourses that belong to the initial socialising group

such as family, class or ethnic group (i.e. social and cultural

in the broader class, ethnic or national sense) and secondary

discourse produced within such groups and institutions as

churches, schools, gangs and offices. Such secondary

discourses are a tradition handed down through time that

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constrains what happens in the present, since only what is

recognisably similar to what happened in the past can be

recognised as a meaningful performance within the

discourse.

Discourse is used in this report in Gee’s notion of a secondary

discourse - an area or discipline that is a more or less unified

system revolving around identifiable themes, objects and

styles, but, most importantly, around a system of the

dispersion and formation of what is seen as true. A discourse

comes to take an area of knowledge unto itself and in the

process develops systematic language for doing so. Discourse

insiders have a sense that the truths of their particular

discourse are ‘self evident’. Secondary discourses are

something like a tradition handed down through time that

constrains what can happen in the present. Each new

performance in the discourse must be similar enough to

earlier ones to be recognised, but can be just new enough to

change slightly what can be recognised as within the

discourse in the future.

Gee (1990, p.179) notes that people can be members of two

conflicting discourses living out “internally and in the world

the opposition between our discourses”. It is the contention

of this report that many ELT managers are in exactly such a

role; trying to resolve the discourse of the entrepreneur with

that of the educator. Living with this cognitive dissonance

can have the advantage of opening up possibilities for

resistance to domination and hegemony although it produces

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intellectual and emotional tension through the attempted

resolution of competing moral systems.

5.3. Discourse Analysis and Description

Bloom (1979, p.6) has noted that the innocence of reading is

a pretty myth. Even realistic texts are ruled by a set of

conventions that readers have to construct as being realistic.

This makes the transactions between authors and individual

readers (or in oral communication between speakers and

listeners) a kind of contract. The real world writer uses

language that makes reference, and the real world reader

accepts the obligation to cooperate with it. The text or story

is then constructed and mediated by discourse practices

which are embedded in socio-cultural practices as described

by Fairclough (1993). In a written text, the events and

information are mediated by the discourse practices of the

narrator, who is the speaker 'inside' the text, and the

narratee who is the listener 'inside' the text. This speaking

and listening inside the text is, in turn, filtered by the socio-

cultural practices of the implied author - the persona of the

real world author as revealed in the language and notions in

the text - and the implied reader who is an idealised version

or mode of attention of a reader, as suggested by the

language and assumptions made in the text (Palmer, 1992,

p.108).

An analysis of a text therefore requires not only an analysis of

the events and information described, but also of these

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various levels or stages in the transaction between real world

author and real world reader. The analysis of entrepreneurial

and educational texts in the following chapters uses the

terminology from the frame of written communication

transactions shown in figure 5.1 below. This frame is adapted

from one devised by Stephens (1992, p.21).

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Figure 5.1. Transactions between Writers and Readers

Thus in any written transaction the writings or sayings of a

real world author are filtered by the implied author, who is

identified by the socio-cultural practices - the attitudes,

values and underlying ideologies - in the work, and realised

through a narrator persona who relates the events of the

story from particular viewpoints using particular discoursal

IMPLIED AUTHOR(socio-cultural

practices)

NARRATOR(discoursal practices)

EVENTS OF ‘STORY’(text)

NARRATEE(discoursal practices)

IMPLIED READER(socio cultural

practices)

READER(real world)

AUTHOR(real world)

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practices. Real world authors and readers successfully

conduct this transaction by cooperating in ways similar to

those outlined by Grice (1975, pp.45-48). The narratee (the

listener 'inside the text') has to actively work with the

narrator to note the implications of each incident that is

being related, and assist in forming a narrative of these

incidents that 'makes sense' in order for the work to be

successfully interpreted. The implied reader has to share in

the values of the implied author, not only regarding the

central themes of the work, but also in the large number of

underlying assumptions and beliefs that are required to keep

the narrative and the text moving.

The creation of meaning in a text depends on a range of

levels. At the heart of a text analysis is the actual events of

the story or information being conveyed which are easily

retrievable and relatively unambiguous. One of the great

difficulties in comment on discourse, however, is that the

most easily retrievable and unambiguous data is the least

useful in determining the underlying shape of the ideology.

The role of implied author and implied reader, for example,

can be extremely difficult to tease out and isolate, although it

is at precisely these positions in the transaction of meaning

that much of the work in the construction and revelation of

the discourse and its underlying ideology takes place.

Not only is the most crucial data the hardest and most

controversial to unambiguously select and discuss, but also

what is not said is frequently more critical than what is.

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Pennycook (1994, p.39) has illustrated this with regard to

advertisements for the growing world coverage of the media,

listing a whole range of questions that are typically ignored.

As well as the problem of ‘silences’, there is the problem of

noticeability. The more powerfully something ‘works’ in a

text, the less likely an analyst will see it as worthy of

comment, for it is precisely the most naturalised ideological

representations which come to be seen as non-ideological

'common-sense' (Fairclough, 1985; p.739).

A recurring weakness in discourse analysis has been the

hidden motivations and collusions of the analysers. Many

analyses are implicitly attempting to create new secondary

discourses based on new ideologies that would usually put

the analysers themselves in positions of increased power. As

most discourse analysis has so far been carried out by liberal

intellectuals there has also been a tendency to label aspects

of discourses being analysed in particular ways as signals of

'good' and 'bad' ideology. As Myers (1997) has pointed out,

the jargon of such analyses, and of much post-structuralist

writing itself, bears interesting discoursal echoes of the

language used in the propaganda works of former Marxist

regimes. Under such regimes once something was labelled

feudal or reactionary or bourgeois or capitalist it was

conveniently dismissed as evil. Likewise in many discourse

analyses once something is labelled as 'neo-fascist', 'neo-

imperialist', 'neo-colonialist', 'patriarchal', ‘sexist’, 'racist',

‘managerialist’ or ‘economic rationalist’ it is readily dismissed

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as evil without any intellectual consideration of the actual

points raised.

It is clear that there is a need to examine what is around,

above and beneath texts in order to draw out the assumptions

that form the basis for the beliefs and values that are

expressed, and the ways that they are expected to be

understood. The ideological nature of all writing, including

‘objective’ scholarly writing, is sometimes disputed but, as

Owens (1995, pp.5-6) points out in the area of educational

management:

Academics, who appear to be engaged in dispassionate research or at least an even-handed search for understanding, are often in fact guided by the pursuit of more or less well-hidden social and political agendas. On the other hand reformers and entrepreneurs with political instincts often find it helpful to disguise their polemic as coolly detached analysis. Thus the roles of scholar, researcher and entrepreneur frequently have become badly entangled with the result that they often use similar language and style in their appeal to the heart and mind....

5.4. Ideological-Discursive Formations

In discussing the discourse of the ELT educator and that of

the entrepreneur the values and representations that are

drawn on create what Fairclough (1985, p.739 ff) calls an

ideological-discursive formation (IDF). Fairclough argues that

typically one group holds dominant power in an organization

and the way that it represents reality, its IDF, becomes

dominant. This IDF if unchallenged then becomes

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naturalised. The premises and practices of the dominant IDF

are taken to be commonsensical and natural ways of acting,

talking and thinking. New members of an institution become

inculcated into a community of practice and into the IDF of

their situation. Fairclough suggests they almost unwittingly

act to both reflect and reproduce that IDF by their discourse

and by their practices. Such naturalized ideologies and IDFs

come to be seen as 'essential' background knowledge,

schemata or frames of reference. The naturalisation of the

dominant group’s IDF acts then to alienate the IDFs of other

groups within the institution.

5.5. Conclusion

This chapter has discussed discourse and discourse analysis.

It has provided a definition of discourse as used in this study

and indicated the terminology and the framework that is used

to discuss the discourses of the entrepreneur and the ELT

educator in the following chapters.

The chapter has shown that all writing and communication

exists within an ideological framework. It has noted that,

while there are inherent difficulties with both the acquisition

and interpretation of data in discourse analysis, the examples

used in the following chapters aim to be illustrative of serious

discoursal tension and conflict between the ideological-

discursive formations, the values and representations of

reality, of the entrepreneur and the educator in international

ELT college settings.

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C h a p t e r 6

THE DISCOURSES OF THE EDUCATOR AND THE ENTREPRENEUR: DESCRIPTIONS

6.1. Introduction

This chapter gives a brief description of the notion of the

entrepreneur and the educator and then uses examples from

a small number of texts to hint at their respective discourses

and to get a flavour of the discoursal values concerned. The

examples are illustrative and the distinction between these

two secondary discourses is necessarily focused more on

their contestations than on their agreements.

This chapter examines and describe some of the values and

the attitudes that form parts of the worldviews of the

entrepreneur and then of the educator. These broad areas

reflect a range of opinions underpinned by a range of

assumptions, but the contrast between the normative

assumptions in the two is sufficient to explain many of the

recurring tensions for ELT managers in international

colleges. The chapter concludes with a brief summary.

6.2. The Discourse of the Entrepreneur

To some, the idea of the entrepreneur is that of the

courageous adventurer rushing in where those less bold fear

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to go, sacrificing and struggling to build in an alien

environment –the notion of the Rhodes-ian figure who creates

value in the far flung outposts, developing and exploiting

them ruthlessly but efficiently. The opposite pole has the view

of the entrepreneur as a sleazy, white shoe-wearing

individual manoeuvring around the edges of the law to

extract merciless profit from the toil of honest labourers

through a variety of murky schemes. While the dichotomy can

be exaggerated, it is nevertheless a very real problem in

trying to obtain an objective outline of the notion of an

entrepreneur.

Casson (1982, p.9) has noted that even within the discipline

of economics there is no established economic theory of the

entrepreneur. The Australian Industry Task Force on

Leadership and Management Skills (1995, p.107) uses the

following definition of entrepreneurship based on that of Kao

(1983):

Entrepreneurship is the attempt to create value by an individual or individuals:

through the recognition of significant (generally innovative) business

opportunity

through the drive to manage risk-taking appropriate to that project

and

through the exercise of communicative and management skills

necessary to mobilise rapidly the human, material and financial

resources that will bring the project to fruition

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The Task Force sees entrepreneurship as a set of values that

should infuse and underpin the motivation and practices of all

business enterprises. It regards entrepreneurship as a

critically defining characteristic of good and effective

management. For the purpose of this paper an entrepreneur

is seen as a person who willingly takes on the responsibility

(either through equity or representation) to make commercial

decisions with far-reaching consequences. When their

judgement is proven correct and with the benefit of historical

hindsight other analysts can see that the entrepreneur was

right at a time when others were wrong. Acting differently,

and achieving success (or failure) because of these actions,

causes others to change their minds as well. According to this

view the entrepreneur is atypical and, despite holding a

minority viewpoint, has to be able to persevere in the face of

opposition who are wrong. The entrepreneur needs to be a

value judge of untested operations. In smaller organizations

such as the ELT colleges in this report the entrepreneur is

required to decide the potential success or failure of each

new major revenue-generating project that the college takes

on.

The notion of the entrepreneur is usually bound up with the

idea of individuals who perceive the profitability of a good or

service and therefore arrange its production and/or

distribution. The notion of the entrepreneur is also closely

bound up with the idea of profit which is the residual after all

other factors of production have been met. The concept of a

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single entrepreneur owning and running a business is a

theoretical abstraction and the ownership and management

of many large enterprises are often distinct. In all of the ELT

colleges referred to in this study the founding of the college

and its continuing operation arose from entrepreneurial,

rather than social or political considerations. Managers have

to acquire entrepreneurial habits if they are to enhance

organizational effectiveness especially in financial areas. The

development of new projects and commercial initiatives as

well as new or different ways to control the cost of inputs are

significant management responsibilities.

The entrepreneurial world view has been pejoratively labelled

fast capitalism by critical theorists such as Gee, Hull and

Lankshear (1996, p.24) who see its value system as

represented most clearly in the popular management texts of

the last two decades such as Senge’s The Fifth Discipline,

Peters’ Liberation Management, Handy’s The Age of

Unreason and Waterman’s Frontiers of Excellence.

Other writers have also noted the development of a

specialised discourse that has evolved in this area. McGregor

(1997), for example, has argued that fluency in the discourse

is now absolutely necessary for success and even survival in

the business world. Micklethwait and Wooldridge (1996) see

much of the publishing in the area as being based on greed

and fear, preying on the paranoid anxieties of managers.

They also note that the range of texts that is included in the

area is very broad from serious academic tomes such as the

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Competitive Advantage of Nations to the fantastic Leadership

Lessons from Star Trek The Next Generation, to the folk

traditional Jesus CEO: Using Ancient Wisdom for Visionary

Leadership to the faintly ridiculous Burst into Flames: Drive

Your Company Like a Huge Dirigible.

The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge is one of the most widely

admired of this entrepreneurial ‘fast capitalist’ group of texts.

The Australian Industry Task Force on Leadership and

Management (1995, p.167) argued that the learning

organization outlined by Senge will be the standard

philosophy for many Australian enterprises and a major way

they cope with change and turbulence. His work has also

influenced thinking on educational organizations, perhaps

because of its appeal to aspects of learning and education. In

the book, Senge describes the art and practice of a

prototypical organization that he calls the Learning

Organization. Senge's ideas about the learning organization

are based on five principal areas or disciplines. These are

Systems Thinking, Personal Mastery, Mental Models, Shared

Vision and Team Learning.

Senge sees Systems Thinking as the ability to understand

non-linear causes and effects and to see events holistically as

part of a complex and interrelated system. The unit of the

whole, though, is the organization rather than the individual,

the society or the world. Personal Mastery, while including

competence and skills, emphasises aptitude for personal

growth and learning. Senge (1990, p.141) writes that

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"[p]eople with high levels of personal mastery are continually

expanding their ability to create results in a life they truly

seek", involving individuals continually clarifying what is

important to them and continually learning to see current

reality more clearly.

Mental models are the cognitive patterning devices or

internal images that people have to explain at a fundamental

level how the world works. The book argues that whatever

these are, they limit people to familiar ways of thinking and

acting. These mental models are similar to Argyris' (1978)

notion of theories-in-use. Indeed Senge (1990, p.175) cites

Argyris: "Although people do not [always] behave congruently

with their espoused theories [what they say] they do behave

congruently with their theories-in-use [their mental models]".

This notion of mental models is also loosely based on the

ideas from cognitive science of selectively attending to

sensory input. Two people can observe exactly the same

situation and yet describe it totally differently because of

their differing mental models. Senge argues that these

models need to be in-awareness rather than out-of-

awareness.

Shared Vision is described by Senge as a force that is carried

by people throughout an organization, an empowering force

that creates "a sense of commonality that permeates the

organization and gives a coherence to diverse activities"

(Senge, 1990: p.206). Team learning is seen as the process of

aligning and developing the capacity of a team to create the

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results its members truly desire. The team is a group who

need one another to act with Senge using the analogy of a

great sports team or jazz ensemble as his image of an ideal

team.

All five disciplines outline the sort of universal positives that

are virtually motherhood statements - it is impossible not to

agree with their desirability. However the central issues of

power, control and determination of insider/outsider

boundaries are powerful silences in the book. How does one

become a member of a learning organization? How is that

membership terminated? What is the purpose of a learning

organization? Who decides on that purpose? What are the

relative positions of stakeholders and why? What happens

when things go wrong? How can shared visions be created

when some organizational members need to suffer so that

others may prosper? Like texts in many areas of human

behaviour, including education, the 'hard yards', the dirty

specifics and the common but tricky win-lose situations are

ignored in favour of the simple win-win pieces of the

organizational puzzle.

The implied reader of most texts that favour an

entrepreneurial worldview is a believer, an owner or

manager and the books only make sense when this mode of

attention is adopted. There are other important assumptions

and adjustments that the implied reader must adopt. As noted

above, the unit of analysis used throughout the work is the

organization and its profitability, and the possible conflict

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between organizational success and societal failure is

avoided. An implied reader must see growth and size as

measures of success, measures that even many economists

and financial analysts would now dispute. The implied reader

must also ignore real world knowledge of the corporations

cited that does not appear to conform to Senge's analysis.

The Shell Corporation, for example, is referred to throughout

the work as one the best examples of a learning organization

with an ethical vision, yet its activities in Nigeria and North

Sea oil rig scuttling would seem to contradict an

organization-wide shared ethical vision.

By using the organization as a unit of analysis, the

entrepreneurial world view adopts the implicit position that

what matters is what is inside the organization, and that

'what is not the organization' is to be treated differently from

'what is the organization'. The wider implications of global

economics are left out of the calculations. Gee, Hull and

Lankshear (1996) use the example of small cooperative

organizations in Nicaragua to show that it is not possible to

take such texts and apply their formulas to many small third

world organizations. The Fifth Discipline and other

entrepreneurial texts may be describing a formula for

organizational winners, but the total situation they describe

will still require winners and losers in a regular capitalist

fashion.

The narrator and narratee throughout the work switch from

management consultants to CEOs of large corporations to

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direct dialogues between the implied author and implied

reader. The assumption is that narrator, narratee and reader

are all important people who have real control in their

organizations and can direct others to change. It also

assumes that readers, like narrator and narratee, work in

areas with strategic responsibilities rather than operational

ones. It would seem to exclude the work activities of many

members of many organizations who have little or no control

over the strategies of their organizations and are engaged in

the satisfaction of operational needs, dealing with the 'here

and now' rather than the future 'there and then'.

From the opening sentence The Fifth Discipline includes the

reader inside its world:

From a very early age we are taught to break apart problems, to fragment the world.

(Senge, 1990: p.3)

The use of we indicates that writer and reader share a

common purpose. This common purpose is to build learning

organizations:

...where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning how to learn together.

(Senge, 1990: p.3)

The commercial motive for this wonderful new plan is

revealed in the third paragraph of the work with the

imprimatur of Arie De Geus, then Head of Planning at Royal

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Dutch Shell, and the most prominent commercial advocate of

Senge's techniques:

The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage.

(Senge, 1990: p.4)

The linking of competitive advantage to collective aspiration

and the expansion of thinking and creativity is a tension

within the discourse of the entrepreneur. Is the learning

organization (or any other management tool) a vital

technique because it is expanding people's capacity to create

results they truly desire, or is it to sustain competitive

advantage? What about those whose desires conflict with

their organization? What of those who wish to learn

destructively? What of those whose true desires lie outside

their organization?

Senge makes a firm distinction throughout his work between

learning organizations, which are new, uncertain, adaptable

and fast-changing, and controlling organizations, which are

old, bureaucratic, rigid and inflexible. The way that power

has traditionally been exercised in controlling organizations

has limited the ability of organizational members to fulfil

their aspirations. In learning organizations, according to

Senge, members are set free to achieve far greater outcomes.

This tension between the old bureaucratic 'modernist'

controlling organizations and the new, uncertain, fast-

changing 'postmodernist' learning organizations is presented

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to readers of this book, and many similar texts, using one of

the recurring techniques in western literature - that of the

quest to the unknown land. Said (1978, p.54) in an analysis of

how Asia was constructed in western fiction found the most

frequently occurring theme to be the contrast and tension

between a place or state of order and safety on the one hand

(the West, home, the settled colony, the garrison, the club

and the company of 'one's own kind') and a troubled

hinterland on the other (the East, far from home, the frontier,

the native world, 'out there'.) Crossing from one to the other

often rewards protagonists with conquest, praise, wealth and

sexual gratification but doing so is also dangerous, confusing

and sometimes disillusioning. There is a strong assumption at

the implied author/implied reader level in the entrepreneurial

literature that those bold explorers and adventurers who lead

the charge to the brave new organizational world will be

similarly well rewarded. The quest plots of western literature

and mythology and the how to’s of entrepreneurial success

run a surprisingly parallel course.

There are occasional indications in the work that power is

ownable and transferable in organizations and thus only

some organizational members are able to empower others:

Empowering the individual when there is a relatively low level of alignment worsens the chaos and makes managing the team even more difficult.

(Senge, 1990: p.235).

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Of course, this assumes that certain people (who are different

to the 'individuals' in an organization!) can choose to

empower others, that these certain people can determine

when there is alignment and that team management is really

a covert line management responsibility, rather than

something that is generated within the team.

All five disciplines in Senge's learning organization seem

reasonable and desirable and yet certain aspects of his

prototype may cause the counter-intuitive results that Senge

notes in his discussion of Systems Thinking. Indeed the

notion underlying Systems Thinking itself, that things are so

complex that no-one can really do anything effective unless

they understand a whole chain of sophisticated cause and

effect loops, can be a very disempowering view, ultimately

stripping people of power and a sense of personal control.

Discussions of Personal Mastery within the text rarely refer

to what is, perhaps, the central issue in such mastery, at least

from a materialist perspective, and that is access to, and

control over, actual material resources. Ownership and

control of such resources usually determine a person's

control and fit with their environment. Yet an equitable

redistribution of material wealth within organizations is

another ‘loud’ silence within the Fifth Discipline.

Senge's notion of Shared Vision has similarities with the

sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit in early Christian

writings. Indeed it is one example among many of a broad

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salvationist and millennial flavour throughout much of the

entrepreneurial discourse. The Fifth Discipline, like many

such texts, proceeds by a series of anecdotes, tales and

parables which are often uncritical accounts of all the

benefits that accrued to particular organizations that

followed the path to salvation offered by the author. The

prescriptions are rarely based on sustained quantitative

research but rather on accounts of particular organizations

that have entered a state of 'grace', had their workers

empowered and consequently been transformed (Gee, Hull

and Lankshear, 1996: p.73).

Team learning and induction into learning communities has

become a powerful theme in the entrepreneurial discourse

largely due to Japanese corporate success in the 1970s and

1980s that truly shocked most western managers. However

the fatal flaws of groupthink and the abilities of groups to

magnify mistaken perceptions, rather than correct them,

have been well documented by anthropologists, a finding

again notoriously absent from the work. The tribulations in

East Asian economies in the late 1990s and Japan’s

continuing inability to enliven its moribund economy would

also seem to indicate that notions of team and community are

not enough of themselves to guarantee success.

Critics have argued that the whole desire for these new

learning organizations is suspicious. Gee, Hull and Lankshear

(1996, p.27) for example, maintain that old capitalism was

based on a working class that did not have to think, having

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only to do what it was told, whereas now it demands workers

who can operate at all levels. The old capitalism was about

standardisation and democratising desire, while today’s

capitalism is about specialisation and customising desire. As

a result of technological and social changes the competition

is now global and the winners are those who can design and

produce customised products and services faster than their

global competitors. Factors such as 'hypercompetition',

massive technological changes and the demands and desires

of increasingly sophisticated consumers have meant that

organizations have to respond accordingly. The

entrepreneurial discourse is simply a new coat of paint on

good old-fashioned exploitative ideas.

The Fifth Discipline, and other texts within the

entrepreneurial discourse, work by grabbing their readers,

building on words and metaphors that have positive

connotations and with which readers are already familiar,

and then twisting them to give them entirely different

meanings. The discourse extends from the typical domains of

business and management into domains of human behaviour

and motivation that have, until now, been considered 'soft'.

This extension, though, has not been without a continuation

of the primary motivations of entrepreneurial theories -

bottom line performance, profit, growth and cost/benefits

that remain the underlying motivators of the discourse. The

organization and its performance are seen as more significant

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than individual fulfilment or national or international social

equality.

There are many silences and absences of questions in the

entrepreneurial worldview. The dysfunctional side of science

and technology, its uneven effects on the distribution of

power and knowledge, the free market for goods but not for

labour to name a few. As the real world readers of these texts

are mainly white-collar workers in the developed world, it is

not surprising that very real issues that face the majority of

the world's population in developing countries do not rate a

mention.

The entrepreneurial discourse is usually seen as particularly

male. Burrell and Hearn (1989) throughout their work have

shown that most organizational theory has largely excluded

non-hetero, non-male forms, with the whole discourse of

organizations and organization theory exuding an acritical

'malestream' point of view. The entrepreneurial discourse

also shows a preference for humanist, universalist ideologies

rather than cultural relativist ones, assuming that there is a

pan-global business culture that outweighs the influence of

local and national cultures. This universalist - relativist

debate is a fundamental tension between the entrepreneurial

worldview and its critics. Gee, Hull and Lankshear's (1996)

core complaint against fast capitalism, for example, is its

universalist notions and the resultant parallels with

universalist notions of literacy that are taken as discredited

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by those who believe in the notion of critical literacy and

language learning.

Discourses are built around mutually shared beliefs that

ultimately form coherent worldviews. The values discussed in

the section above were grouped into a discourse that has

been labelled that of the entrepreneur. Some central values

of this discourse are the reward of considered risk-taking

behaviour with an admiration for such qualities as boldness,

courage, strength in adversity, going against the tide,

individualism and field independence. The discourse has a

male orientation (in the psychological sense of the word) and

is little concerned with those of limited power or means. It

sees organizational success in financial terms and focuses on

strategic and dynamic complexity, rather than day-to-day

operations. It favours individuals rather than processes, and

opportunity is seen as fortune favouring the brave. It has an

emphasis on effectiveness or doing the right thing and

ultimately sees profit as the core purpose of organizational

activities.

6.3 The Discourse of the ELT Educator

Most ELT colleges in Australia that cater to international

students exist because of the worldwide demand for English

language skills needed for commercial and academic

activities. Even though many such colleges owe their

existence to entrepreneurial imperatives, many ELT

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practitioners identify with a discourse that has underlying

values somewhat opposed to those of entrepreneur.

The discourse of the international ELT educator, like that of

the entrepreneur presents difficulties of precise definition.

Core educational activities are becoming increasingly

differentiated and activities that have perhaps little relevance

to what would have been considered ‘education’ in previous

decades have assumed greater importance.

Teachers in accredited ELT institutions in Australia must

have university qualifications in education and either an ELT

certificate or at least 800 hours of classroom teaching

experience. This suggests that many of the general principles

that underlie constructs in education also apply to ELT

educators. One difference between ELT educators and those

in other fields of education may be in their more global

orientation. Because English teaching is in demand around

the world many in ELT have worked in several countries

during their careers.

In the last three decades much educational writing has been

conducted within a liberal-democratic framework that has

been influenced by broader philosophical notions of

liberalism and liberal values (White, 1995: p.216) In recent

times the foundation notions of the educational worldview

have involved the attempts to demonstrate the value of

education in a modern liberal society. The central focus has

become the notion that everyone

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should be equipped to determine his or her own major goals in life and not have these paternalistically imposed whether by custom, parents, teachers, or religious and political leaders.

(White, 1995; p.217)

The discourse of ELT has developed from related discourses

in other fields of education. It has tended to develop practical

and theoretical strands that focus on different areas and

influence practitioners in different ways. The connection

between the teaching of English and the study of applied

linguistics has meant that ELT has been a more reflective

discourse than that of the entrepreneur, with writers and

practitioners in the field occasionally questioning why

English is in such tremendous demand around the globe, and

whether or not this is a 'good thing'. In general however the

discourse is dominated by texts that address the logistical

issues raised by the rapid spread of ELT and the seemingly

insatiable demand for English learning around the globe. As

Candlin notes:

…the twin pressures of commercialisation and the often short-term imperatives of research have conspired to make difficult a general reflection on the purposes and objectives of language teaching and learning as part of the personal and cultural experience of teachers and learners…

(Candlin 1991 p.ix)

While there is more understanding of entrepreneurial

imperatives in ELT than in some other areas of education, the

discourse overwhelmingly favours its educational roots. In

Japan for example there is tremendous demand for a non-

traditional form of ELT known as eikaiwa or 'meeting-

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speaking' English. Even the famed shinkansen bullet trains

offers such English learning activities after polling found that

this was the most popular activity that commuters would pay

to do on their journeys to work (Japan Times, 1989). ELT

experts however often denounce eikaiwa because it does not

follow any existing language teaching methodology. A

common criticism of such activities is that "ultimately the

western teacher of English is paid to be a westerner rather

that to teach anything" (Evans, 1990, p.28). Eikaiwa is also

held in low repute because of the lack of conventional

educational qualifications and experience of those who do it.

Syed (1992) notes that native speaker was the principal

prerequisite of employment; 82% of the language school

teachers he surveyed were native speakers but only 11% had

ELT qualifications and experience and 75% listed Japan as

the first and only place that they had ever taught English.

Michael Lewis and Jimmie Hill's (1992) Practical Techniques

for Language Teaching is an introductory text for new

language teachers that has a strong emphasis on the

practical classroom side of ELT while Alistair Pennycook's

(1994) The Cultural Politics of English as an International

Language is a socio-cultural analysis of the impact of the

spread of English and ELT written for more experienced

members of the profession. Both texts assume that the

implied readers are teachers or ELT professionals that have a

close working relationship with non-native speaker students.

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Both works reflect the idea that English is largely taught by

Anglo native speakers to non-Anglo learners.

Practical Techniques is described as "a basic teacher training

handbook for all less experienced teachers. It covers the

syllabus for the RSA UCLES CTEFLA, which is one of the

usual entry-level ELT qualifications to the profession in

Australia. The narrator in Practical Techniques is like that of

an experienced teacher to a novice. As the review on the back

cover says, "conveying an upbeat, can-do attitude.” All the

techniques are in classroom and there is no mention of what

will occur outside the classroom, how to relate to students or

any mention of managerial, entrepreneurial or logistical

functions. At the 'chalkface' level of ELT, there is a strong

emphasis on what 'works' in the classroom, with ideas judged

by their immediate utilitarian value. Learning English, like all

foreign language learning, is a long, hard slog and, for

speakers of non-European languages, many hundreds or even

thousands of hours can be spent in ELT classrooms. Thus

texts such as Practical Techniques stress their utilitarian

value from the opening pages:

This book is not theoretical. It is a collection of practical ideas and techniques which you can use to make your own teaching more effective, and more enjoyable for you and your students.

(Lewis and Hill, 1992; p.3)

The guiding principles of this book are that:

...language teaching is only an aid to language learning, and that it is those things which help the students to improve which are of particular importance; and secondly that language is first

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and foremost communication. Those activities which mean that students can use the language, and communicate better, are to be encouraged at the expense of activities which will only mean that students ‘know’ the language.

(Lewis and Hill, 1992; p.3)

The values that underpin the ELT discourse are revealed in

the ways that classroom activities are to be conducted. These

stress that ELT should be:

1. Learner centred (teach the students not the book,

learning is more important than teaching)

2. Active (involve students in the learning process,

don't tell students what they can tell you, vary what

you do and how you do it, activities and relationships

in the classroom change)

3. Comfortable and non-threatening (we all learn best

when we are relaxed, don't emphasise difficulties,

useful and fun is better than either alone, students

can be silent but still involved)

4. Self aware (students need to learn how to learn)

These notions value a ‘caring and sharing’ emphasis in

human relations – one where there should be little loss of

face or fear of failure. Thus the texts written for classroom

practitioners emphasise the notions that English language

learning and teaching should be enjoyable, practical and of

immediate use, with ideas based on practical experience.

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The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language,

(Pennycook, 1994), on the other hand, is far more general

and questioning of the rationales behind the teaching of

English. Pennycook examines the teaching of English around

the world, the development of the discourse of ELT and the

neo-colonial effects of the growth of English as an

international language, before arguing the need for

refinement and change in the ways that ELT is conducted

around the world.

English language teaching is usually understood by its

practitioners to be a 'good thing' although the view of why it

is good have shifted from the need of English for

development to the need for English for growth in a global

market. Pennycook (1994) argues that a particular view of

English as an international language has come into being

through colonialism and the neo-colonial agendas of

linguistics and applied linguistics and the global spread of

teaching practices. He points out that English can never be

removed from its social, political, economic and cultural

contexts and would prefer English teachers to develop

alternative methods of dealing with international English.

Whether or not languages can be successfully removed from

the social and political contexts of the speech community

within which they developed is complex. Whether English can

only reflect the 'mindset' of its Anglo native speakers, or

whether it can be used to reflect the mindsets of any of its

individual users is, as yet, unresolved. It would be common

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among ELT practitioners to hold that the power any member

of the world community attains by becoming fluent in English

far outweighs the possible disadvantages to themselves as

individuals, although on a societal level the expansion of

English is sure to wipe out many languages, in a similar

fashion to the disappearance of the many distinct regional

dialects with the growth of literacy and standard national

languages.

Language may well be more elastic than socio-cultural

theorist realise however. To demonstrate one example among

many: Chinua Achebe the Nigerian novelist, poet,

broadcaster and diplomat for Biafra has written about Ibo

society and the impact of colonialism in English in novels

such as Things Fall Apart (1958) and A Man of the People

(1966). Achebe (cited in Kachru, 1987) has discussed the

possibilities and limitations of international English and used

two passages on the writing of Arrow of God as examples,

one 'Africanized' and the other 'Englishized'. The passages

are:

I want one of my sons to join these people and be my eyes there. If there is nothing in it you will come back. But if there is something then you will bring back my share. The world is like a mask, dancing. If you want to see it well you do not stand in one place. My spirit tells me that those who do not befriend the white man today will be saying, 'had we known' tomorrow.

Compared to:

I am sending you as my representative among those people - just to be on the safe side in case the new religion develops. One has to move with the times or else one is left behind. I have

139

a hunch that those who fail to come to terms with the white man may well regret their lack of foresight.

In certain areas Pennycook's critical analysis shows that the

western model of education has led to a deskilling of

populations in many non-Western countries in terms of

indigenous systems of belief, folklore, language, symbols, art,

music and knowledge (Pennycook, 1994; p.49), echoing the

argument that school and schooling, far from being an

opponent of the new world order, may well be its leading

missionary edge.

If there are many examples in entrepreneurial writings that

have echoes of the quest theme that has pervaded Western

Literature since Homer, education texts have echoes of

notions of the ‘sacred’ and the ‘profane’. Educational matters

are held to be ‘purer’ than matters of administration,

coordination and operations. This sacred/profane distinction

is at the heart of much thinking on education. The teacher

training textbook above or teacher training courses

themselves, for example, rarely impart understanding of

issues such as timetabling, funding, resource allocation,

logistics or even such matters as classroom discipline. These

details of a teacher’s existence are lumped into the profane.

The symbolism of medieval clerical robes that are de rigueur

dress ups for university and college graduations are perhaps

a visual symbol of this link.

The notion of equal distribution of power is firmly placed

within ELT educator discourse. EA Journal, the journal of the

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international ELT industry in Australia, shows a recurring

tendency for writers to disassociate themselves from being

managers or holding power and to be uncomfortable with a

perception that such is the case. Heap, for example, writes

that he was shocked when students identified him as holding

incredible power due to his position as the Director of Studies

at an ELT centre connected with a university. He writes:

" I don't think I had ever considered myself powerful although I've had various positions of more or less responsibility over the years. I was rather taken with the idea but also felt somewhat uncomfortable with it, subscribing as I do to notions such as 'Strength is made perfect in weakness', 'Blessed are the meek', 'The only power is no power', 'To lead is to serve' and not to sentiments found in books with such titles as Power! How to Get it, How to Use it.

(Heap and Cole, 1996 p.18)

That the holding of such values, and the actual interpretation

of actions, can be very different is again highlighted by Heap

(1996, p.19), who uses an example of the DOS and Assistant

DOSes at his ELT college who changed the time of an in-

service session after a different time had been agreed at a

staff meeting. The memo that informed staff of this change

read "we have decided to ..." these words were anonymously

circled by one of the English instructors with the comment

WHO??? - an indication that the instructors found such

actions 'disempowering' despite the intentions of the

manager. He also notes in ELT contexts that there can be

euphemisms used to disguise the raw notions of power in

such colleges and that therefore words such as leadership,

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management and responsibilities can all indicate control and

power (Heap 1996, p.19).

The discourse of the ELT educator is a reification of a set of

concepts that plays a role in the transmission and

development of educational culture. Its description and

analysis is meant to be illustrative in order to compare and

contrast it with that of the entrepreneur discussed above.

Nevertheless the set of values, beliefs and prejudices that

educators draw upon to pejoratively deride aspects of

financial, commercial or industrial thinking mean that there

is, at root, a discursive formation that has developed and is

transmitted within the education sector in Australia and

elsewhere and that this discourse can be identified and

described.

The discourse of the ELT educator as represented in this

paper is not, of course, a monolithic entity. The fast capitalist

notions that underpin an entrepreneurial market driven

worldview, however, grow from very different origins and

create divergent values to many of those that underpin the

worldview of the ELT educator. The ELT educator is likely to

value the detail complexity of daily operations in the college

and the mechanisms by which English is taught and learned.

They are likely to have a greater trust in processes and have

an event orientation to work, seeing each class as somewhat

different. They are likely to value efficiency and doing their

assigned tasks well with a belief in accountability. Most

142

importantly they are likely to value educational quality of a

college over profitability or financial considerations.

6.4. Conclusion

This chapter has briefly examined and described some of the

values and the attitudes that form the worldviews of the

entrepreneur and then the ELT educator. A small range of

examples were taken from published texts. The examples

were illustrative and it was noted that the distinction

between these two secondary discourses is necessarily

focused more on their contestations than on their

agreements. It is to these contestations and possible

commonalities that this study now turns.

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C h a p t e r 7

THE DISCOURSES OF THE EDUCATOR AND THE ENTREPRENEUR: CONTESTATIONS

7.1. Introduction

The political and ideological nuances of the words

entrepreneur and management make them awkward

concepts for many involved in education. The words seem to

somehow belong to business, industry and commerce with

education somehow apart from, or perhaps above, such

profane activities. Yet of course upon reflection most

educators would agree that the tasks of principals, directors

of studies, college owners, deans and department heads all

involve the same skills as those required by managers and

entrepreneurs in the commercial world.

The contrast between the values of the entrepreneur and the

values and outlooks of ELT educators is, like any structuralist

dichotomy, a less than accurate depiction of a complex

situation. Nevertheless, anyone who has worked in

international ELT colleges in any capacity would be aware

that a clash of values frequently occurs and there are few

educational institutions that are free of problems relating to

resource allocation for educational activities.

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There are, therefore, a number of areas of important

contestations between the discourses of the entrepreneur

and the educator. This chapter examines some of these

contestations at the general level before discussing some

possible commonalities that may be of assistance in finding a

functional resolution of the clashing values. The following

chapter then examines some specific institutional difficulties

resulting from the discoursal conflict, and looks at examples

of these contestations in international ELT colleges.

The main contestations examined in this chapter are the

respective views of organizations and the competing notions

of modern and postmodern organizational units, varying

perspectives on the commodification of education,

understanding of transaction costs, orientation towards the

future (optimistic or pessimistic), views on injustice and

elitism and finally acceptance of universalism compared to

relativism.

7.2. View of Organizations

Johnston has reflected on the ways ELT management might

differ from management in other areas and speculated that,

in ELT, management is:

amorphous, largely unsupervised, often ill at ease with itself; but also thanks to its closeness to ELT perhaps uniquely open to influence from some of the healthiest trends in interpersonal dealings, such as humanistic approaches.

Johnston (1989, p.5)

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Almost all ELT managers, and indeed ELT practitioners,

would agree, that it makes business sense to satisfy clients

rather than dissatisfy them, to win them rather than lose

them, to strengthen 'revenue earning' teaching operations

rather than degrade them and to cultivate markets rather

than to sell them short. Charles (1993, p.15) argues that the

more the ELT profession mixes with the 'outside' business

and professional world the more it learns to engage with the

management content of that world, and match its

performance standards. Yet suspicion and hostility remain.

Hammond (2001, p15) notes that even in academic ELT

journals there are laments of ‘losing colleagues to business’

meaning teachers moving across to management and that

there is a strong perceived polarity of the ‘camps’ in ELT

colleges.

While the entrepreneurial world view draws on beliefs that

come from notions of supply and demand and monetary

motivations, notions that derive from the discipline of

economics, the world view of the ELT educator derives from

notions of personal growth, fulfilment and social harmony;

ideas that are broadly situated in sociology and psychology.

The idea that the college exists to make money is an

entrepreneurial one. The notion that the idea of the college is

to offer courses that will provide outstanding educational

services to students, and be a motivating and inspirational

work environment, is an educational one. While the two views

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are not totally incompatible, resolution of the two aims has

many difficulties.

Many of the values that are important in the communicative

classrooms of ELT educators give rise to predominant view

among such educators that the human resource perspective

is the 'sensible' view of organizations and that this view of

organizations is the one held as the ‘common sense’ view of

organizations by many educators, whose paradigms of

organizational and educational issues may be very similar.

The entrepreneurial discourse, on the other hand, tends to

favour explanations from the views of traditional

management or its more recent symbolic / cultural iterations

that put the needs of some organizational members above

others, largely based on their power and influence.

Part of the discoursal clash between the educator and the

entrepreneur may be due to a much broader historical

process. Hargraeves (1995; p. 15) sees the forces of

entrepreneurial and educational worldviews as part of a

larger conflict between modernity and postmodernity. He

describes the trends thus:

The fate of teachers work, its structure and culture, is caught in a powerful and dynamic struggle between two immense social forces: those of modernity and postmodernity. On the one hand, is an increasingly post-industrial, post-modern world, characterised by accelerating change, intense compression of time and space, cultural diversity, technological complexity, national insecurity and scientific uncertainty. Against this stands a modernistic, monolithic school system that continues to pursue deeply anachronistic purposes within obstructive and inflexible structures.

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It is in the struggles between and within modernity and postmodernity that the challenge of change for teachers' work, educational leadership and schools as workplaces is to be found.

The postmodern organization is often used as a label for a

collection of characteristics that are becoming more

prevalent in certain organizations in the latter half of the

20th century and the initial years of the 21st. This broad

movement from modern to postmodern is impacting on many

organizations. It has made the ability to adapt and change

ever more important to an organization's perceived success

and meant that the ability to change effectively is ever more

essential to an organizations continuing life chances.

Aspects of postmodern organizations have been linked to

some of the diffuse intellectual notions that underlie the

postmodernist tradition and its relationship to the broad

assumptions of the modern era. Like many terms that are

used to describe broad movements in social, economic,

political and cultural life though, postmodernism is rather

vague and ill-defined. The collection of ideas that has come to

be labelled as postmodernism can be more correctly seen as

a partial description of the breakdowns and transformations

in the central structures and organizing principles of the

modern era.

In organizational theory archetypical 'modern' organizations

are those large bureaucratic organizations that adopt a

rationalist view of their operations. Such organizations are

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usually configured with a hierarchical structure and

emphasise the job and the tasks rather than the people who

fill them. In this type of organization the job description is

more important than the individual who fills it and there is an

assumption that the organization has 'positions' to fill rather

that a range of members whose talents must be combined

and maximised.

The rationalist paradigm of modernism has begun to be seen

as only partially suitable to the solution of many of the

deepest human problems. Disenchantment with the

rationalist paradigm has led to the postmodernist reaction

where almost everything is pre-paradigmatic (Bergquist,

1993. p.16). In the organizational literature this is becoming

ever more apparent. Peters & Waterman's book in the early

1980s suggested that something was known about the ways

that organizations achieve excellence; by the late 1980s it

was admitted that they had been too hasty in forming

conclusions; many of their ‘excellent’ organizations of the

early 1980s had become troubled institutions by the end of

the decade (see Peters, 1988).

Most organizational theorists conceive of organizations as

social systems which possess two essential attributes: a

reason for being such as a mission or purpose and a range of

constraints such as boundaries or limits. Bergquist (1993:

pp.65-66) notes that an important distinction between

traditional work organizations and postmodern organizational

identities lies with the differing emphasis on mission and

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boundaries. In order to succeed traditional organizations

have tended to emphasise their boundary conditions while

paying less attention to their purposes or missions.

Postmodern organizations, on the other hand, need to have

much clearer missions because their boundaries and limits

are fast changing and can become extremely blurred.

This fundamental difference in purpose and boundary

conditions means that archetypical postmodern organizations

are more likely to be of small to moderate size and complexity

and have flexible structures and modes of inter-institutional

cooperation to meet their more turbulent organizational and

environmental conditions. They have to emphasise clarity of

mission partly to compensate for their increasingly diffuse

boundaries. It is a significant dilemma faced by these kinds of

organizations and the successful management of the state of

flux of their rapidly changing boundaries is a central

organizational concern. Jameson’s (1991) core argument is

that because postmodern organizations by definition possess

such boundary fluidity, organizational purpose is the

essential element in their continued existence.

Traditional organizations orchestrate a clear demarcation

between the inside and the outside of their institutions,

making the organization and its location virtually identical. In

the postmodernist view of organization, however, the location

of the organization and its boundaries is far less fixed in

physical and even in psychological terms. Such organizations

can change premises easily and frequently enabling them to

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take advantage of differentials in ecological variables such as

asset values and changes in their market niches.

The activities and clients of postmodern organizations may

also be expected to change rapidly - in the educational sphere

this might involve rapid shifts in the age of students (moving

from teaching adults to school children for example) or their

first language backgrounds (eg changing from teaching

Vietnamese-speaking migrants to Australia with severe

learning difficulties to Japanese short term tourists who wish

to combine language learning with holiday activities).

It has been suggested that working in the these kinds of

organizations is like living on the edge, a kind of threshold or

flow experience that may present more exciting opportunities

and challenges for those who have learned to thrive on

change and can live with instability. For those whose

expectations, coping abilities and learning behaviours were

shaped through experiences in modernist organizations,

however, life in these organizations may be more likely to be

troubling and unsettling. Indeed, underlying many of the

tensions in international ELT colleges, and the anxieties of

their educational managers, are some of these differing

conceptions of how an organization is configured. Some

characteristics of the postmodern organization, such as their

uncertainty of operations and fast-changing work patterns,

are probably less alienating to those with an entrepreneurial

orientation.

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The similarity between the research paradigms for education

and those of the human resource perspective on

organizations can mean that many educators hold one

particular view of organizations. It may be that the fact that

most large traditional educational organizations are still

chiefly configured on bureaucratic modernist assumptions,

while international ELT organizations are more likely to be

configured on postmodernist patterns, makes tensions and

'culture clashes' more likely.

At the institutional level these clashes can also be important

in areas such as career structures and pay scales. One of the

key aspects of the entrepreneurial world view is that jobs

only exist as part of the process of adding value to activities,

and once such activities do not add value the workers who

perform them should be dispensable. The tension between

this view and the ‘jobs for life’ of the modernist era has been

one of the key changes of the last two decades, and the rise

of temporary and part-time work is a key feature of it. At a

meeting of the Directors of Studies from ELT colleges around

Sydney the inability of structures developed for modern era

organizations to keep up with the changes was well

demonstrated. The teachers’ union representative who was

speaking insisted that ELT teachers should conform more to

the way that school teachers were employed. The notions of

casual, part-time, sessional and full-time built in to the union

negotiated award used schools and school teachers as a

model. It does not have, and probably never did have, much

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relevance to the real employment situations of most ELT

educators in Sydney, but the fact that the business activities

of the ELT colleges had many points of difference to

traditional schools was seemingly unimportant. The union

negotiator said, “I’ve never understood why [ELT Colleges]

you employ so many casuals.” Explanations of the swings in

student enrolments and the difference in structures between

small entrepreneurial colleges and schools with annual

government funded budgets did not register. The differences

were viewed as deficiencies, not only by the union negotiator

but also by many of the ELT managers present.

Much of the international ELT industry thrives on temporary

or casual work. Gee, Hull and Lankshear (1996) comment on

this feature of capitalism in recent years:

In recent years temporary work has become more and more prevalent - in fact such jobs are the fastest growing category of job in the new capitalism. Temporary jobs provide workers with no job security and few benefits like health insurance, but enable corporations to adjust their labor overheads to the ebb and flow of the market (Parker 1994). Indeed the largest employer in the United States is Manpower Inc. a temporary-employment agency.

This notion that certain things in the world of work are good

and others bad though can be a limiting feature of educator

thought, at least from an entrepreneurial perspective. A

closer look at the above statement reveals an array of value

judgements that, at the very least, call for examination:

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1. The rise of temporary work has been consciously

created by disembodied entities called 'corporations'

rather than in response to conventional supply and

demand notions.

2. The lack of job security is the overriding issue for

workers [compared to pay, time flexibility, quick start

(interview today/start tomorrow) and other aspects of

temporary and part-time work which for many workers

can be far more important than security.]

3. Adjusting labour overheads is a 'bad thing' that

corporations do (rather than a good thing in reducing

transaction costs and hence creating extra work in the

future).

4. On costs such as job security, health insurance and

other benefits are entitlements that are not

contributing factors to the rise of temporary work. (It is

this lack of understanding of transaction costs that has

been partly responsible for the demise of many

traditional jobs with increasing global competition and

the removal of public subsidies for private operations.)

ELT colleges that are privately owned have many points of

difference with traditional educational institutions and share

many features with those types of organizations that are

coming to be labelled as postmodern. Entrepreneurs are

likely to view the organization as one that offers temporary

financial opportunity whereas ELT educators with

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organizational models based on those in other areas of

education may view this uncertainty as threatening. This is a

prime contestation between the two discourses.

7.3. Commodification of Education

Reid (1996) throughout his work argues that a discourse of

commodity production has pervaded the administrative

practices of educational institutions in Australia in recent

times. His analysis of the language that constitutes what he

sees as a value shift in the provision of higher education in

Australia includes a strong focus on the terms commodity and

production. The terms ‘commodity’ and ‘production’ can

appear in many contexts with positive or neutral

connotations. In Reid’s analysis, however, there are clearly

shared values in the use of such terminology, indicating that

they are extremely negative when applied to education.

Commodities are things and so are dehumanising when

applied to human interactions, and production is chiefly to do

with material goods and factories and has a linkage with

‘mass production’ that seems to counter notions of

individualism that underpin the service at the heart of

education.

Reid uses this shared discoursal value system to develop

ideas put forward by Fairclough (1992: pp.6-7). He argues

that there has been a process of re-wording that changes

learners into consumers, courses into packages and an

'invasion' of teaching and research by the vocabulary of

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advertising and management. These new ways of talking

about what educational institutions do, and what educational

administrators need to strive for, leads to the

acceptance/inculcation of new attitudes. Reid lists a range of

terminological contrasts that are indicative of educator as

opposed to entrepreneurial values. The first word in each

partnership is the preferred terminology from an educational

perspective the second pejoratively assigned to the outside.

Thus ‘values’ versus ‘prices’, ‘leaders’ versus ‘managers’,

‘collegiality’ versus ‘corporatism’ and ‘education’ versus

‘training’ (Reid, 1996, p.iv).

Despite the criticism of managerial trends in higher

education, Reid does suggest that many familiar notions

about what educators feel education should be are nostalgic

'beat ups’ - commentators constructing as normative what

they think they remember from the past. The very awareness

that the language of management and that of education are

distinct, however, confirms the reality of an educator

discourse. At bottom, Reid's analysis reveals a preference for

public, rather than private, funding of educational activities.

This, when viewed from an entrepreneurial perspective, can

lead to the domination of educational activities by producer

interests such as teachers, education academics and

bureaucrats over the more diffuse consumer interests.

As Harrison (1996, p.5) notes:

The exercise of public authority in an industry affects the distribution of wealth between producers and consumers. In the

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political battle for the use of public authority, producer groups are favoured. Concentrated producer interests, often already organized, will tend to dominate diffuse consumer interests….In practice educational decisions are dominated by public education producer interests, and consumer desires are neglected. Change takes place only if producer interests do not object too much and changes that benefit producer interests are favoured.

Educators can acquire an admiration for a system that tends

to focus on political action rather than improved services as a

way to enhance producer benefits (Lieberman, 1993: p.273).

It retains appeal to many educators because it seemingly

enhances their own prestige. By reducing the emphasis on

client service, however, it may have long-term disadvantages

for organizational development and renewal.

7.4. Transaction Costs

One feature of postmodern organizations is the more global

and internationally inter-reliant nature of their business

transactions. Casson (1993, p.38) indicates that a good deal

of entrepreneurial effort in market economies is involved in

improving trading arrangements. This often involves

reducing transaction costs such as advertising, specifying

requirements, negotiating terms, transferring title, physical

exchange of goods or services, checking compliance and

sanctioning defaulters.

The issue of transaction costs is, however, another area of

contestation between the two discourses. From an

entrepreneurial perspective the reduction of transaction

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costs is almost the prime area of managerial effectiveness.

Frequently though, from an educator perspective, such

reductions are seen as a serious threat to prestige or status.

For example, a staff meeting may be held to be an important

means of communication for little apparent cost. The real

cost of the meeting though, when one totals the salary of all

members of the meeting can be vast. A one-hour meeting of

twenty teachers who earn an average of $50 per hour gives a

cost of $1000 or around the price of a new computer. The

college could outfit two new computer labs every year if

weekly staff meetings were not held!

This results in a contestation over the nature of efficiency.

While ELT educators value efficiency, they see it in terms of

delivering sound educational experiences. Entrepreneurs on

the other hand view efficiency as maximising financial

benefits while minimising costs. For educators this can come

to be seen as a negative single-minded drive to cut costs at all

costs (Harrison, 1996: p.2). Educators, though, have a

tendency to allow hidden costs to develop, especially in the

soft areas of staff time allocated to non-revenue earning

activities. From an entrepreneurial perspective it is vital for

the financial success of private ELT colleges to be effective in

reducing these costs so as to minimise overall transaction

costs. The balance of reducing transactions costs while

maintaining educational quality is one of the most difficult for

the ELT manager to resolve.

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7.5. Process vs People

Ironically Foucault’s fears of the productivity and efficiency

of instrumental-rational forms of organization, which Weber

also suggested were to be found in modern bureaucratic

organizations, now underpins much institutional educational

thought. Many educators place a high value on processes

rather than favoured individuals, and would agree with the

proposition that power and its distribution in modern

societies should not depend on the personal prestige or

prowess of individuals but rather should be exercised through

an impersonal administrative system that operates in

accordance with abstract rules. The mechanisms by which

these abstract rules are determined, though, is not brought

up and their possible unfairness is little examined (Sarup,

1988: p.77).

Determination of salary levels for teachers by qualifications

and years of experience, for example, does not stand up to

performance management best practice. The highly

intangible nature of teaching has led to a certain level of

assumption among teachers that the difficulties involved in

assessing performance means that no performance

measurement can take place. From the entrepreneurial

perspective however, some teachers are clearly of greater

value to the organization than others for an array of personal

and professional reasons.

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At present such clashes tend to be resolved at the minimalist

legal level. Few international ELT colleges in Australia have

successful strategies to reward staff financially for their

success or to implement pay regimes that differ from the

usual award scales and those that do typically simply pay less

than the required minimum award wage – hardly a strategy

to endear the entrepreneur to the educator! Over time

however it is possible that some ELT organizations in

Australia may look to develop different incentive strategies to

attract and keep certain kinds of ELT educators. There is

little doubt that many young dynamic teachers would be

attracted to an organization that had other financial

incentives besides years of service and qualifications

acquired.

7.6. Commonalities

While there are a range of conflicting notions between the

discourses of the entrepreneur and the ELT educator, it may

also be possible to find commonalities or areas of shared

values between the two. These commonalities are likely to be

fruitful avenues in the process of reconciliation of discoursal

tensions.

For different reasons both ELT educators and entrepreneurs

are familiar with, and tend to support the idea of, integration

and the notion that the whole is more than the sum of the

parts. ELT educators are used to ideas of humanism in

education, educating the whole person and not separating

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affective and cognitive activities. ELT has a strong research

tradition of valuing authenticity in the language classroom

and valuing the contextualization of learning content.

Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, are also likely to regard

holistic thinking as important, as a focus on the organization

as a dynamic whole is an important notion in entrepreneurial

thinking.

An emphasis on integration of all organizational activities,

from finance to marketing to education, therefore, should be

a core value that has appeal to entrepreneurs and educators.

Effective outcomes are more likely for ELT colleges that have

a culture of responsibility for overall success rather than of

being commissioned for one specific task. The sense of

belonging and participation that springs from a focus on

integration should assist both profitability and educational

quality, satisfying both entrepreneurial and educational

prerogatives.

Collaboration may be another factor that is capable of

appealing to, and sharing meanings across, the two

discourses. From an entrepreneurial point of view greater

collaboration has obvious appeal in the savings to costs of

duplicated effort and the greater likelihood of successful

financial outcomes if all staff are cooperating. Hargreaves

(1994, pp.244 - 245) speaks of cultures of collaboration in

education seeing collaboration as one of the most promising

devices for assisting in principles of action, planning, culture,

development, organization and research. Collaborative work

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cultures provide moral support, strengthen the resolve of

organizational members and contribute to improvements in

efficiency through a reduction or elimination of duplication

and redundancy. Again ELT has a tradition of classroom

collaboration and group dynamics, reflected in such texts as

Classroom Dynamics (Hadfield, 1992). Hadfield notes that a

successful group dynamic is a vital element in the

learning/teaching process. She reflects upon her own

experience, shared by many in ELT, of two contrasting

classes. One, a group of affluent, well-educated Europeans in

a well-resourced and well-equipped ELT department in the

UK using an enjoyable and lively textbook; the other a group

of Tibetans in an unheated room without electricity in the

middle of a -20oC Tibetan winter using dog-eared, badly

stencilled copies of dry TOEFL preparation materials. The

experience with the European group was awful while that

with the Tibetans was one of the most successful and

rewarding of her ELT career. The contrast was due to the

group dynamics and greater sense among the group of

collaboration (Hadfield, 1992, pp.9-10).

A third commonality may be a focus on the client. Notions of

student-centred learning in ELT have been important since

work on the development of communicative ELT course

programs began in the 1970s. In entrepreneurial thinking

focusing on client and customer care as a primary business

advantage has always been a fundamental idea in marketing

and general management.

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Each of these three areas is discussed more fully in Chapter

13 The Culture of Work Organizations and Chapter 14 The

Culture of International ELT Colleges. For now the simple

model of these commonalities and clashes in Figure 7.1 may

aid the discussion of discoursal contestation and possible

resolution in the following chapter.

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Figure 7.1ELT educator values and entrepreneurial values

IdealDirection

Focus on Client Service

Focus on Collaboration

Focus on Integration

Other Stakehold

ers

Other Stakehold

ers

Staff

Staff

Management

Management

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7.7. Conclusion

This chapter examined some of the contestations between the

discourses of the entrepreneur and the ELT educator. The

main contestations examined were the respective view of

organizations including the competing notions of modern and

postmodern organizational structure, the differing

perspectives on the commodification of education, the

divergent understanding of transaction costs, the varying

orientation towards people and processes within

organizations. As well as indicating some of the general

contestations between the two discourses this chapter has

briefly foreshadowed discussion of some areas of

commonality between the discourses that may provide some

means of functional resolution for an ELT manager.

The following chapter discusses some of the contestation of

the two discourses in particular institutions and some of the

practical implications of these contestations.

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C h a p t e r 8

THE DISCOURSES OF THE EDUCATOR AND THE ENTREPRENEUR: INSTITUTIONALISATION

8.1. Introduction

This chapter briefly describes the institutionalisation of the

discourses of the entrepreneur and the ELT educator in

international ELT colleges, and discusses their manifestations

as ideological-discursive formations. It furthers the discussion

of the previous three chapters through an examination of

some of the actual conflicts of the discourses and their values

at particular institutions.

This chapter argues that the IDFs of both the entrepreneur

and the ELT educator are institutionalised in international

ELT colleges. Each IDF is clearly dominant in particular

zones of activity so that areas of college life, such as

curriculum and timetabling, tend to favour the ELT educator

view of operations, those of finance and marketing those of

the entrepreneur. There are also a number of clearly

contested zones. Three specific areas of contestations at the

institutional level are discussed in the following sections.

Each of these institutional contestations is linked to one of

the three areas of integration, collaboration and client service

discussed in the management model in Chapter 7 above. The

contestations reviewed here are:

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1. Course selection and development (integration)

2. The management of staff and the allocation of

resources (collaboration)

3. The recruitment and placement of students and the

certification of student achievement (client service)

The value of the model in assisting in the resolution of

discoursal tensions is then briefly examined. This chapter is

illustrative and further discussion of institutional

contestations occurs in the examination of the four climate

dimensions of ELT organizations in subsequent chapters of

the study.

8.2. Institutions and IDFs

Reconciliation between entrepreneurial and educational

imperatives needs to be found by managers at international

ELT colleges if they are to thrive. Yet despite this need, the

many areas of antagonism between an entrepreneurial and

an educational view of the world manifest themselves as

contestations at the institutional level. Before discussing

these contestations in detail, however, a brief overview of the

nature and construction of ideological-discursive formations

is required.

International ELT colleges, like all such social institutions,

involve significant groups of subjects who differ in their

ideologies. It was noted in Chapter 5 Discourse and

Discourse Analysis that typically one group holds dominant

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power in an organization and that the way that it represents

reality, its ideological-discursive formation (IDF), becomes

dominant. This IDF then becomes naturalised, and the

premises and practices of the dominant IDF are taken to be

the natural ways of acting, talking and thinking. New

members become inculcated into the IDF of their situation

and act to reflect and reproduce that IDF through their

discourse and their practices.

At the institutional level of international ELT colleges the

notion of a single dominant IDF is not completely accurate.

Neither the discourse of the entrepreneur nor of the ELT

educator completely prevails. ELT managers interviewed in

this study regard the situation within their own institutions

more in terms of zones. In certain areas and activities of the

college, entrepreneurial values hold sway. In other areas, the

values of the ELT educator are to the fore. To the extent that

owners and financial controllers lean more to the values of

the discourse of the entrepreneur, the corresponding IDF had

more influence and power over the institution than those of

the ELT educator in contested areas. However to the extent

that the core revenue earning service of the college is ELT,

its corresponding IDF retains influence.

When conflict occurs between competing discourses,

language can be used by a dominant group to suppress

articulations of conflict that are against their interests and to

frame ideological struggle. Where struggle is framed in the

‘talk’ of the dominators, it is difficult for the weak to regain

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the momentum. ELT managers with a sense of powerlessness

come to believe in the ‘right’ of an ‘employer’ to overrule an

‘employee’. Thus:

Ultimately if owners don’t like you they can always find a reason to get rid of you. They don’t even have to say it…you’re always aware that your job depends on them.

Angela, Director of Studies, College B, 1996And

You have to adopt their point of view to a large extent because that is what you’re paid to do. Sometimes I’ve got to persuade them that what they want might ultimately damage the college but there are a lot of grey areas.

Peter, Director of Studies, College C, 1996

In response, the expression of ELT discoursal values falls

back on the power of the regulator. Thus:

They’ll [the owners] only listen to things we have to do for the inspectors.

Elliot, Senior Teacher, College C, 1996

All ELT managers interviewed accepted the profit rationale of

their colleges and that ultimately it is the bottom line that

counts. Their vacillation as to the extent of their

responsibility for creating and maintaining this profit though,

suggests that the resolution of entrepreneurial and educator

values is elusive.

8.3. Course Selection and Development

The selection and development of particular courses is an

important area of overlap between IDF zones. Owners,

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marketing staff, and others in contact with educational

agents and frontline trends affecting the organization, may

often discover opportunities for the college. The ELT

management however, may also see the potential difficulties

and pitfalls of branching into new course areas that require

additional resources and expertise beyond the capacity of the

institution.

For example at College B, after several marketing trips to

South Korea the Managing Director was firmly of the belief

that an English for High Schools course would attract

students and quickly realise a substantial profit for the

college. The Director of Studies of English was aware of this

enthusiasm, but tried to dissuade the Managing Director

because of the difficulties of hiring high school trained

teachers, having to acquire large numbers of suitable texts,

and the problems of attracting older students to a corporate

look college that would have ‘youngsters’ bouncing

basketballs in the corridors. The Managing Director looked

ahead and saw the possible benefits, the ELT manager the

costs. Ultimately the course did take place and realise a small

profit although the difficulties foreseen by the ELT manager

did all occur.

An understanding of what occurs in the classroom, and the

exact nature of student satisfaction while learning English,

frequently mystify marketing managers, entrepreneurs,

owners and other non-ELT managers working in colleges that

do not place any emphasis on integration. In only one of the

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colleges examined here had the financial owners of the

college any background in English language teaching. For

most, actual operations of their core service were a slightly

mysterious activity about which they understood very little.

As a consequence, ELT managers usually experience little

interference in areas such as curriculum, choice of materials,

professional qualifications of staff and other ‘educational’

features of life at the college.

This ignorance of the nature of the activity however, has

advantages and disadvantages. Often the limited

understanding leads to inappropriate decisions on the part of

owners. At College C, for example, students who had the

same native language as the owner of the college had their

complaints heard more readily than other language groups.

Because they tended to be younger and more likely to be

progressing to further study in Australia, the owner did not

realise that some of the complaints, when acted upon, would

alienate students from other countries at the college. The

owner recommended getting rid of excursions from the

college timetable, but the effect of this was to lead to a

transfer of older (and higher yielding) working holiday

students from the college. This led to a greater concentration

of students of one nationality there, and ultimately an

increase in the problem of attracting students, because the

college had come to be seen as dominated by a single student

nationality group.

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Course selection and development is closely concerned with

price and return on investment. From an entrepreneurial

perspective courses have to be evaluated with regard to their

profit making potential. ELT managers, on the other hand,

may look to the ‘prestige’ benefits of certain courses, without

true regard to their costs, and ignore less prestigious ones.

The Director of Studies at College D, for example, argued

against offering courses to beginner and elementary level

students, as these were not ‘academic’ courses. Without such

courses though, it became very difficult to achieve sufficient

numbers of students to run a profitable language centre.

There is a tendency among more academically inclined ELT

managers to view students’ primary reason for studying

English as being in order to do other courses, rather than as

a stand-alone life skill or interest. For many of the students in

international ELT colleges in Australia however, English and

social activities are their primary motivation to be in

Australia. Even much of the vocational education sector in

private colleges is, in effect, running English language

content courses for students whose main interest is to

improve their linguistic, rather than their vocational or

academic, skills. Similarly, popular courses, such as holiday

courses that combine English language learning with sports

or social activities, are frequently derided by ELT

professionals, despite their obvious attraction to students and

their profitability to the college.

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Integration was identified in the previous chapter as being a

significant managerial tool for resolving clashes of values that

are likely to impact upon organizational performance in ELT.

A management emphasis on linking teaching, administration

and marketing so that they reinforce each other should lessen

the possibilities of poor decisions being made with regard to

course selection and development. Such integration needs to

be kept in-awareness and continuously reinforced at all levels

to prevent a drift to balkanisation. Integration is an ongoing

process, not a one-off event. Effective integration is time

consuming and involves a lot of reflection as well as a great

deal of listening and communication.

Integration of aims and activities should be an important goal

in international ELT colleges. The attempt to retain control

over familiar areas of the organizational landscape and to pay

insufficient attention to areas that are unknown is a trap for

unwary managers. An emphasis on integration by ELT

managers can allow decisions on course selection and

development to be taken with consideration of effects for all

areas of the college. Considerations of opportunity cost, or

what the college loses by not offering the course, as well as

the impact of new course offerings on existing courses,

should be taken into account. Some recognition needs to be

made that values inculcated within the discourse of the

entrepreneur look towards the possible opportunities and

minimise the potential pitfalls, while those within the

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discourse of the educator may more accurately perceive the

drawbacks in new offerings.

Responsible ELT managers also have to examine courses

impartially. Premium courses that carry prestige have to be

carefully considered from a financial as well as an

educational view. Less prestigious courses and opportunities

have to be considered in order for the college to maximise its

financial viability. Effective communication of the benefits

and costs, the advantages and disadvantages of courses and

course structure must be transmitted across marketing,

administration and education areas. Decisions need to be

made with a sound regard to all three zones.

8.4. The Management of Staff and the Allocation of

Resources

Integration is focused primarily on work activities and tasks

across the organization. An important cultural concept that

may assist in the development of integration is an emphasis

on collaboration. The creation of the sense that all in the

organization are collaborators pulling together for a common

purpose is linked to, and grows from, an integrated approach

to organizational activities. Collaboration focuses on the

people within the organization and their spirit of cooperation

and common purpose.

The recruitment of teachers is frequently an area of

contestation within international ELT colleges, and

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management difficulties occur because of competition for

‘scarce’ positions arising from poor recruitment strategies.

Because of the structure of payment awards, it is vital for

cost control to have as many teachers as possible on the

lowest salary ‘steps’ from an entrepreneurial perspective.

This means that young, inexperienced teachers are desirable

from a profit maximisation point of view. Because salaries

rise quite rapidly with years of service, there is also an

entrepreneurial imperative to increase staff turnover. In

order to facilitate staff turnover, it is important to have as

many teachers as possible on casual or temporary contracts

rather than in permanent full-time positions.

Each of these points is difficult to support for an ELT

educator. The presuppositions of most educators would be

that: experience is a vital factor in good teaching, that rapid

turnover is bad for an educational institution and for

students, and that job security increases the work

performance of teachers, both in the classroom and in the

creation of educational resources for the college. Once again

resolution of the entrepreneurial and the educational is

needed.

Lynn (1996; p 86) points out this potential contradiction of

ELT management. ELT managers often have to confront

situations which sit uneasily with the warm relaxed

atmosphere of the ELT classroom, one of which is the conflict

between caring for staff needs and desires while also facing

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business realities. This conflict is shown in some ELT

manager responses to the Asian crisis of 1997 and 1998:

Suddenly I was asked to choose to fire about a quarter of the staff. Even though legally they were on casual pay there’s still a kind of expectation that work is going to continue. The owners just seemed to be completely ruthless about it.

Anna, Director of Studies, College D, 1999

The hardest part of the job is when you have to get rid of good teachers because student numbers are down. Even though teachers are on casual contracts there is still a kind of feeling that you are responsible to keep them employed. I hate it!

Sam, Director of Studies, College A, 1999

Ongoing professional development of staff is also difficult in a

high turnover environment where little trust is usually

developed between organization and teachers. Financial

realities can also cause bad publicity for a college especially

when hard-working or particularly loyal staff lose their

positions. Danni, for example, returned to College B after an

overseas trip but found that there was no position available

for her, despite several years of committed work for the

college, and a ‘word of mouth’ promise that a position would

be available. The Managing Director was going to Spain on a

student recruitment mission at about the same time and

bringing his wife along as a ‘consultant’; whatever the real

merits of the situation were, Danni became a persistent critic

of the college in her subsequent position at another college.

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Obviously staff recruitment and management issues pose

special problems in the development of a collaborative work

culture. ELT managers who can maximise collaboration are

likely to be among the most successful. Perhaps the most

critical skill in this area is to be able to hire appropriately.

Colleges need to carefully analyse each teacher and staff

member’s individual situation before employment is offered

and be wary of making commitments that may not be able to

be honoured.

ELT managers need to have a range of teachers with varying

time frames of employment expectation. ELT managers at

each of the four colleges stressed that at interviews they

were most interested in professional skills of the applicant

and rarely probed expectations of employment. This is likely

to lead to a greater number of staff wanting full-time

employment than can be reasonably offered. Alternatives

such as hiring teachers from the UK or Ireland on working

holiday visas, for example, who are only allowed to work for

three months with one employer, are often not considered.

Several ELT managers interviewed saw this time restriction

as a serious disadvantage and would not offer positions to

such candidates. The experience at College E, however, was

that they were often extremely energising for longer term

staff, thankful for the opportunity for a short-term

professional position abroad and were grateful for a ‘short-

term’ security that was as valuable for them as full-time

employment would be in other cases. From the

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entrepreneurial point of view such teachers provided a buffer

in case student numbers declined.

Offering development opportunities to teaching staff with an

expectation that employment with the college is a phase,

rather than an ongoing certainty can also improve a sense of

collaboration without a continuing obligation of employment.

A recognition by ELT managers that ‘none of us is here

forever’ and a focus on making staff more employable for

their ‘next’ position can also assist in developing a

collaborative culture and prevent a climate of fear and

uncertainty developing. Nevertheless, staffing issues are a

particularly difficult area of ELT management and a range of

contesting values in personnel management have to be

resolved if the college is to succeed.

Resource allocation is another common area of dispute in

many international ELT colleges. At College A, for example,

the Director of Studies strongly argued for the acquisition of

new learning materials such as graded readers for the college

library. The college owners, however, decided to use

available funds to convert one room at the college into a gym.

Feedback from students and agents about the new gym

facility was extremely encouraging. For the DoS however, it

seemed a symbol of the dominance of the entrepreneurial as

compared to the educational value system at her college. In

her view, despite positive feedback from important

stakeholders, it was a decision that disempowered teaching

staff and their commitment to educational quality. The large

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numbers of students who came to use the gym and informed

the DOS about the enjoyment that they found there and how

much it added to the college did present some challenge to

the DOS. Interestingly one of the chief reasons that the

English students expressed enjoyment at the gym was that it

was a place in the college where they could ‘hang around’

and meet other students and talk, whereas the more

educational facilities such as the computer rooms and library

were ‘silent places’ where speaking and practising oral

English were not really encouraged.

ELT managers see the allocation of resources within their

colleges as a significant and frequent point of contention with

other managers and owners. In general marketing activities

seem to attract a large share of discretionary expenditure. At

College D, for example, funds for coursebooks and other

teaching materials were difficult to obtain beyond those

mandated for the initial inspection and accreditation of the

college.

Spreading awareness of financial constraints and

encouraging collaborative solutions to them, however, can

actually lead to better outcomes. For example, in most

international ELT colleges students undertake social

activities as part of their studies. One popular activity in the

Sydney area is class picnics or BBQs. It would seem that if

the college pays for all the food and provides all the catering

then the students will be grateful and the event will be a

success. Often however, in these circumstances a

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customer/provider relationship is set up, so that if the food is

not suitable, is too hot or too cold, then there is cause for

complaint despite its ‘free’ provision. At College B, for

example, a group of students was taken horse riding to the

Blue Mountains area near Sydney and lunch was included.

The lunch, a typical Australian country fare of sausages, salad

and bread was not suited for many of the East Asian students

who felt 'cheated’ even though it had been provided as an

extra.

On the other hand where the college pays little or no amount

for the picnic students can tend to take ownership of the

event. As a result of ELT manager reports of these and

similar experiences, at College E the students were

responsible for financing and menu selection at some of the

college’s events. These activities were always very successful

and international lunches, for example, where students all

brought food from their country and shared the food in picnic

settings were features of college life. Because the students

had ownership of the events and because they were forced to

contribute they got far more out of their participation and the

events themselves were more rewarding for all concerned.

This type of financial constraint can often bring valuable

pedagogic outcomes as well. Thus in the above example,

because the students have all prepared and brought food

from home there is a 'real' communication gap that allows

students of different nationalities to try each others foods and

explain how various items are made and when they are

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typically eaten. Unlike the simulated language gaps of

English classes this allows authentic communication in a real

environment. As a teacher it is easy to see that far more is

learned on occasions such as these than in passive classroom

environments.

Chapter 14 The Culture of International ELT Colleges notes

that collaboration involves risk on the part of the ELT

manager. Open communication in times of uncertainty such

as downturns in student numbers leaves ELT managers

emotionally exposed. The more that ELT managers work to

have staff collaborating, though, the more likely it is that staff

will understand the reasons behind hard decisions and will

assist in their implementation. Like integration strategies,

collaboration is a very time-consuming area of management.

Learning how to get staff to work together, to share lessons

and ideas, to respect difference and enjoy their diversity are

significant management skills. Fortunately they are ones that

ELT managers who have been successful teachers should

already have some aptitude for.

8.5. The Recruitment, Placement and Certification of

Students

Collaboration is an important goal for inter-staff relations.

Collaborative work cultures in ELT colleges are likely to

encourage the third area of advantage for ELT colleges from

the model in Chapter 7 - the development and promotion of a

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client service ethic – ensuring the college is highly responsive

to and caring of its clients.

Contestations about the exact nature of client service are a

feature of ELT colleges and strategies of student recruitment

and placement reflect this. It is in the interests of the ELT

professionals in a college to have students who have the

greatest chance of learning success, who are keen and

committed learners, who are financially secure, who have no

intention of breaking any laws or violating visa conditions and

who plan to come to all classes. From an entrepreneurial

point of view however, all course fees are equal and in many

cases ‘bad’ students can actually be a much higher yielding

financial ‘resource’ because of their need to repeat courses,

to stay a longer time in the college before attaining required

certification and, in the case of students who are frequently

absent, make minimal use of services to which they are

entitled.

At College D, for example, the DOS was under significant

pressure to enrol students to attain a sufficient number of

students to make the college financially viable. Clashes arose

over students who were too weak for particular courses such

as IELTS preparation classes and Academic English classes.

With the enrolment of such ‘undesirable’ students

entrepreneurial imperatives were temporarily satisfied but

longer-term problems were created.

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Such clashes can lead ELT managers to feel that they have

little control over the acquisition of students.

You kind of drift along with the ocean currents. You know… DIMA changed the laws for China today – let’s get more Chinese. Oh the Japanese economy’s in recession less Japanese next month. Riots in Jakarta mean a heap more Indonesians coming even though none of them really want to study. You simply can’t control or plan anything. I just leave it to the Director to worry about that kind of stuff. I just deal with the students once they arrive…

Angela, Director of Studies, College B, 1999and

I used to think there was a science behind it but its all just gossip and hearsay. Max (a Thai agent) speaks to the owners for 10 minutes and suddenly next week 30 Thais turn up at the college. You can’t make any real decisions.

Peter, Director of Studies, College C, 1999

A feeling of powerlessness in the above comments and others

like them suggests entrepreneurial values frequently override

educator ones in international ELT colleges. In such cases

ELT managers become reactive, become implementers of

decisions rather than partners in them. It remains unclear to

what extent this is self imposed – a kind of avoidance strategy

of being responsible for the consequences of the hard

decisions, by simply blaming them on those ‘above’.

Class size is another frequent area of contestation. At its

crudest level there would appear to be a tension between a

small number of large classes which increases profitability

and decreases student satisfaction and a large number of

small classes which has the reverse effect. The relationship is

not exactly linear though:

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One of the most surprising things was how little we were affected by the Asian crisis. At the time we reduced the number of teachers but we kept on getting enrolments. This meant that most of our classes were full to overflowing. Far from making the students discontinue most of them re-enrolled – it was almost as if they liked the crowding.

Brian, Senior Teacher, College C, 1999

This was also the case at College E where, despite frequent

overcrowding, enrolments were barely affected during this

time. At College E, which would have had one of the largest

class sizes in Sydney, the re-enrolment rate was superior to

all other colleges investigated. Both College A and College B

which had limited class sizes and promoted this as a feature

of their colleges subsequently had to introduce price

incentives for re-enrolment; indicating that small class sizes

are by no means a critical factor in student choice of

international ELT college.

Perhaps the social motivations for students learning English

in Australia – the need to meet friends and have a wide range

of social contacts – are at least as important to many students

as their gains in English language proficiency. Students may

judge their short-term gains in friends and social life as more

significant than the long-term outcome of their improving

English. Also because students are living in an English

speaking country, their English proficiency is increasing ‘by

default’ however effective or ineffective their formal tuition.

It is up to ELT management to understand their clients’

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needs and wants well enough to make appropriate decisions

in this area.

The tension in all international ELT colleges about

appropriate class size also relates to the physical size of

students in classrooms:

It didn’t matter when we had 18 or 20 young East Asian students in one class but I’ve got a class now that has 12 guys from East Europe in it as well as six Japanese and Koreans. The great big sweaty boys from Slovakia and Poland fill the room and then some – it really makes the class seem overcrowded.

Kate, Teacher, College E, 1998

Certification of student achievement is another area of

contestation. Clashes in this area go to the heart of the

differing values of the entrepreneur and the educator. What

to the entrepreneur can be only a grade on a piece of paper

can to the educator appear to be fraud bordering on criminal

behaviour. A growing trend for internal certification at

international ELT colleges that allow progression to further

education in vocational and university courses has increased

contestation in this area. Visa requirements for full-time

students mean that those whose attendance falls below 80%

have to be reported to the DIMA. In such cases it is usual to

cancel the student’s visa. Colleges with high absentee rates

may also become somewhat suspect in official eyes. Skilful

resolution in this area is a primary concern of effective ELT

managers.

All ELT managers in this study indicated that pressure from

students, agents and other managers in the college with

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regard to the issuance of student documentation about

attendance and achievement were a significant area of

pressure in their jobs. Client service should never extend to

manipulation of exit documents, but industry gossip would

suggest that such practices occur at a number of colleges.

Advance warning and effective counselling systems would

seem to be the solution in this area. Many students with the

cheerful abandon of the teenager do not realise the

consequences of skipping class until it is too late. Appropriate

warnings before the damage is done are frequently sufficient

to prevent problems occurring.

8.6. Conclusion

This chapter has shown that the IDFs of the entrepreneur and

the ELT educator are both institutionalised in international

ELT colleges. Commonly each IDF dominates in particular

zones. This chapter argues, however, that there are a number

of contested zones within the institutions. Some of these are

course selection and development, the management of staff

and the allocation of resources, the recruitment and

placement of students and the certification of student

achievement.

Tensions between the IDFs are apparent in these aspects of

ELT college life. Managers in ELT organizations have to find

resolutions to these value clashes in order for their ELT

organizations to satisfy both their entrepreneurial and their

educational responsibilities. This means that the discourses

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of the ELT educator and of the entrepreneur coexist in

international ELT colleges. There is a tendency for those in

administrative and managerial functions of the college to

identify more with the discourse of the entrepreneur and for

those involved on the teaching side of operations to identify

more with the values of the discourse of the ELT educator.

This leads to activities becoming compartmentalised. The

crucial dilemma for ELT managers lies in finding optimal

resolutions to these value clashes. The model of integration,

collaboration and client service has been tentatively

suggested as one possible approach to a resolution of such

discoursal value clashes.

This chapter has only initiated the discussion of the

contestations that occur in the institutionalisation of

entrepreneurial and ELT educator discourses. The

contestations are spread over the range of organizational

dimensions. These contestations are played out in the

evolution of each organization’s structure, milieu, ecology

and culture. The following chapters provide brief theoretical

backgrounds to each of these climatic dimensions before

demonstrating the range of management dilemmas faced by

ELT managers in designing solutions. It is to the

organizational climate dimension of structure of international

ELT colleges that this discussion now turns.

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C h a p t e r 9

THE STRUCTURE OF WORK ORGANIZATIONS

9.1. Introduction

The previous four chapters have analysed the discourses of

the entrepreneur and the ELT educator and discussed some

of the contestations that exist within international ELT

colleges. This chapter examines the structure of work

organizations and its relationship to international ELT

colleges from a theoretical perspective, before comment in

the next chapter on organizational structure issues at

international ELT colleges in Australia.

This chapter defines the concept of organizational structure

and power distribution for the purposes of this analysis. It

then provides some theoretical background to the types of

structures that appear in educational organizations and in

international ELT colleges. It analyses these structures and

their suitability for promoting integration of management

activities, a strongly collaborative work culture and a clear

focus on client service. It explores the relationship between

organizational structure and other elements of the

organization’s climate and argues that informal structures

influenced by an organization’s culture, ecology and milieu

can be as significant as formal structures in the

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understanding of organizational behaviour and in the analysis

of educational and entrepreneurial outcomes.

9.2. Organizational Structure

The study of organizational structure and configuration is a

broad field. The interest in the field stems primarily from the

belief that particular organizational structures are more

suitable than others for improving organizational outcomes.

Frequently formal roles within organizational structures are

depicted on organizational charts or organigrams. Formal

structures such as departments, teams and divisions and

their hierarchical arrangement are obviously of concern to

managers, but informal structures, such as friendship groups,

people working in close proximity, project teams and even

smokers outside the door of the building also contribute in

important ways to the overall system. Both informal and

formal groupings are powerful in shaping organizational

behaviour. An examination of an organization’s structure,

therefore, has to investigate the formal and informal roles

and relationships between members of an organization and

how these affect task allocation, coordination of activities,

supervision and performance.

After an analysis of the literature in the field, Mintzberg

(1981, p.104 and 1983) found that, despite the vast array of

research into organizational structure, there is a convergence

in the descriptions leading to five clear and distinct

organizational configurations. These five configurations are

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based on varying assemblies of the component parts of all

organizations. These parts are the strategic apex, the

operating core, the middle line of managers, the

technostructure and the support staff.

The strategic apex is the top management of an organization

– owners and executive managers. In international ELT

colleges the strategic apex usually involves the owners, the

Financial Controller and the Principal. The operating core

consists of the people who do the basic work of the

organization. In international ELT colleges the operating core

are generally the teachers and the reception and marketing

staff. The middle line is made up of managers, who are

intermediate between the strategic apex and the operating

core. These would include the Assistant Directors of Studies

and Senior Teachers as well as the Marketing Manager, the

Chief Bursar and the Registrar.

The technostructure and the support staff provide services to

the staff of the organization. The technostructure consists of

personnel who design systems concerned with the planning

and controlling of work. In many international ELT colleges

the primary role of the ELT Director of Studies lies in this

area, a further indication of the ambivalent nature of ELT

management at this level. The support staff, on the other

hand, provide services to the rest of the organization such as

copy assistants, computer network engineers, cleaners,

cafeteria employees and similar staff.

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Using these categories Mintzberg derives five different kinds

of fundamental organizational configurations. These are: the

simple structure found in very small organizations such as

corner shops, the machine bureaucracy that would be

commonly found in manufacturing organizations, the

professional bureaucracy found in organizations that need

highly trained professionals in their operating cores, the

divisionalized form which tends to exist in organizations with

a number of parallel operating units with autonomy for the

middle line managers of each and, finally, the adhocracy

configuration, in which staff have to combine their efforts and

be coordinated primarily by mutual adjustment and where

line authority and similar distinctions tend to break down

(Mintzberg, 1981; p104).

International ELT colleges, because of their need for the

services of ELT professionals, tend to conform most closely to

Mintzberg’s professional bureaucracy configuration or to the

divisionalized form. The distinction largely depends on the

degree of autonomy of the ELT manager and whether their

primary responsibility is for overall performance, such as

revenue and profitability, or solely on execution of

operational tasks largely within the sphere of the educational

activities of the college.

While the adhocratic structure is difficult for management to

implement and maintain at the formal level, it may be the

most suitable to reinforce goals of integration, collaboration

and client focus for international ELT colleges. The following

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chapter shows, however, that it also requires a degree of

commitment that makes it quite vulnerable to changes in

management.

There are a number of elements of structure in Mintzberg’s

(1981, p.104) descriptive framework that are relevant in the

description and differentiation of international ELT college

structures. One of the most significant is the degree of

formalization of procedures such as written job descriptions

and procedure manuals and the extent of compliance with

them. Procedures that are codified and standardized are

often referred to as bureaucratic while those that do not fit

this description are organic.

Another element is the nature and extent of control systems

in the organization combined with the sorts of communication

and liaison devices used to facilitate adjustments between

and within organizational units. The more centralized the

decision making the greater the likelihood that decisions are

made by managers in the traditional line management model.

In general, centralised structures tend to reinforce past

behaviours and favour bureaucratic procedures. More

decentralised structures may facilitate the assimilation of

new patterns and associations by encouraging experiments

on the edges of the organization (Nicolini & Meznar, 1995,

p.731) but may also experience problems with accountability

and record keeping.

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The third significant element is the ability of the structure to

focus on, and respond to, the external environment most

especially changing market conditions and the organization’s

clients.

9.3. Power distribution

The control system reflects the delegation and dispersal of

power in and around the organization and is a significant

indicator of an organization’s structure. Handy has identified

four main configurations of power distributions within

organizations based on the way tasks and work roles are

assigned. These four configurations are: power, role, task and

person (see Handy, 1993 for a complete discussion of these

configurations).

Power, however, is not a unitary concept. Four principal ways

that power may be obtained and observed are resource

power, position power, expert power and personal power.

Resource power is the power obtained by control of resources

such as money, guns, information, or brute physical strength.

Position power is the power that comes from occupying a

position or a formal role in an institution or society. Expert

power is the power obtained and exercised by possessing

knowledge, expertise or wisdom while personal power is the

power that can be obtained and exercised through charisma

or strength of personality (for a more complete discussion in

this area see Aitken & Handy, 1986).

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In most organizations resource power and position power are

given from above or outside. The response to the exercise of

these kinds of power is compliance - those in power may need

to check that their ‘orders’ have been ‘carried out’. Expert

power and personal power, on the other hand, are given from

underneath, from the people over whom that power may be

exercised. The response to this type of power is identification,

which obviates the need for checking or the exercise of

formal authority.

The power configuration can be visualised as a web with rays

of power and influence spreading out from a central powerful

source. It is the kind of power distribution system that would

be expected to be found in entrepreneurial organizations that

depend on a central power source such as an owner or a

strong charismatic leader with strongly centralised decision-

making. Bureaucratic procedures become important in such a

configuration because most decisions rest with one, or a

small number of, powerful individuals. It largely depends on

the resource power of the source. A diagrammatic description

of a power structure is given in Figure 9.1.

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Figure 9.1. The Power Configuration

The power configuration is favoured by many with an

entrepreneurial outlook. At its best it is a benevolent

dictatorship with an efficient allocation of resources,

providing the central powerful clique has a sound

understanding of the organization’s operations. At its worst a

power configuration can be an egotistical dictatorship with

resources allocated inefficiently because the central core has

a poor understanding or organizational requirements.

Handy’s second type of power distribution, the role

configuration, is synonymous with bureaucracy. It can be

depicted as a Greek temple with the pillars representing the

various functions or specialties of the organization that are

coordinated by a top band of senior management. In this

structure the role or job description is seen as more

important than the individual who fills it. It is the dominant

paradigm in many people's thinking about organizations and

Waterman, (1994) describes our society’s thinking on

organizational issues as still being "entombed in the

pyramid". In many larger organizations the pyramid defines

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who you are and determines how much you get paid. There is

frequently a direct correlation between how many bodies sit

'below' you on the pyramid and the amount of your pay

cheque. This configuration largely depends upon position

power although positions in the hierarchy can be determined

by expert and person power. The role configuration is

illustrated in Figure 9.2.

Figure 9.2. The Role Configuration

The role configuration at its best provides predictability,

fairness, sound long term decision-making and high levels of

accountability and legal compliance. Because of the time lags

and distractions of bureaucracy however, organizational

purposes can be distracted by procedural issues and few

individuals feel responsibility for the overall health of the

organization.

The task configuration is more oriented towards the job or

project at hand than towards a formal hierarchy. It is usually

symbolised as a net or matrix. The whole emphasis in such a

structure is on getting the job done by bringing together the

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appropriate people and resources and basing influence on

expert and personal power rather than on position or

resource power. The growing use of consultants and contract

workers in many Australian organizations reflects an

increasing preference for this type of organizational

structure. The task configuration is illustrated in Figure 9.3.

Figure 9.3. The Task Configuration

The task configuration is most likely to encourage and

strengthen a collaborative work culture in an organization.

When teams work cooperatively and communication between

task groups is good resource allocation is appropriate,

talented people are encouraged to develop, teams can learn

from mistakes and organizational members are more

motivated because there is little perceived coercion. However

if task groups conflict, resources can be allocated inefficiently

because of poor communication. The lack of dissent in task

groups can easily lead to groupthink and talented individuals

who lack appropriate teamwork abilities can be frustrated.

There can also be a lack of ultimate management

responsibility and accountability.

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The person configuration is not found in many organizations

as it essentially subverts the organization’s needs to those of

the individual members. Control and management in person

structures is difficult, except by mutual consent, and the

organization is therefore subordinate to the individual. It is a

frequently expressed desire of many professionals to work in

organizations with person-oriented power distribution

systems and it has been argued that barristers' chambers and

some universities can be identified by this type of

configuration. A person structure can be represented

iconically as a cluster or galaxy of individual stars.

Figure 9.4. The Person Configuration

In an effective person configuration each member of the

organization would be likely to be highly motivated because

there was no coercion. Pride would be easy to create as

members would be doing exactly what they wanted with

resources provided by the organization and the organization

would be very innovative because members would be free to

experiment. On the other hand it is likely that such

organizations would quickly become balkanised with

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everyone doing their own thing. There would be an overlap of

activities and functions due to a lack of coordination and the

lack of a common purpose would over time harm pride in the

organization. Without sufficient group encouragement the

organization would also tend to become inward looking and

conservative.

Handy contends that each of these configurations may be

appropriate and effective in particular circumstances, and it

is the suitability of the fit of the power distribution system to

its purposes, environment and stakeholder needs that is

significant rather than the classification of particular kinds of

power distribution as ‘good’ or ‘bad’.

The combination of Mintzberg’s and Handy’s models have a

number of implications for the following sections on the

structure of educational organizations. These are that the

structure of the organization influences the patterns of work

within it, that the structure of the organization is closely

related to the control system and formal procedures within it,

that both the formal and informal structure of the

organization are significant and that there is an interplay

between the organization’s structure and its ability to focus

on clients and the market. In general, organizations that lean

towards power and role configurations favour centralised or

hierarchical decision-making processes, whereas those that

exhibit task and person configurations tend to favour more

collaborative decision-making. It is likely that power and task

configurations would have more rapid response times to

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clients and markets due to their more effective liaison and

communication mechanisms while the role configuration is

likely to provide greater stability and accountability.

9.4. Describing Organizational Structures

Educational organizations vary across a number of structural

variables. These are the formalization of procedures, the

nature and extent of control systems including the delegation

and dispersal of power in the organization, their

communication and liaison devices and their ability to

respond to changing markets and client needs. Strong control

systems lead to formalization of procedures in all but the

smallest organizations. Both strongly controlled, centralised

organizations and collaborative decentralised ones however

can have a strong or weak external focus on the markets and

clients they serve. This leads to a simple matrix that can

assist in the description of organizational structures in

education generally and in international ELT colleges. The

horizontal axis indicates the extent of centralized

management control and the amount of formal procedures,

while the vertical axis indicates the level of external focus.

Each quadrant is labelled according to the most significant

feature of power dispersal that the organization’s structure

would display with that matrix combination.

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Management Control and Formal Procedures

ClientFocus

Low(Organic)

-

High(Bureaucratic)

+

Low

-

I N S U L A T E D

[ P E R S O N ]

B U R E A U C R A T I C

[ R O L E ]

High

+

A D H O C R A T I C

[ T A S K ]

M A N A G E R I A L I ST

[ P O W E R ] Figure 9.5

The ELT Structure Matrix

While this study suggests that it is important to disperse

power and control and encourage collaborative work

cultures, it would seem likely that educational institutions

that have insulated structures would experience difficulties.

By having low internal control but also responding slowly to

environmental and consumer imperatives the institution

would quickly become directionless and ultimately be less

relevant to clients and the market.

Educational institutions have traditionally had quite

bureaucratic structures with high internal control

mechanisms that can optimise quality and provide stability.

Those with only a low level of response to clients and the

external environment may not exploit new opportunities and

markets with sufficient speed. In the 1980s the university,

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TAFE and migrant education systems in Australia, for

example, despite possessing the necessary infrastructure and

expertise, did not use their advantages rapidly enough to

dominate the operation of the international ELT sector in

Australia, in part because of their bureaucratic structures.

This allowed privately owned colleges to move into the sector

and attract large numbers of fee-paying international

students. Most of these larger educational organizations in

Australia have made and are making significant changes in

their focus on client needs, but still see the need to maintain

significant management control and formal procedures. This

has led many such organizations to be more managerialist in

structure.

Like other educational organizations, most privately owned

international ELT colleges in Australia have either

bureaucratic or managerialist structures with a high

centralisation of power. A high level of internal control gives

the advantage of longer-term stability and perhaps higher

educational outcomes but increases bureaucracy and

response time. A managerialist structure provides a greater

focus on the client and better entrepreneurial outcomes.

Neither structure satisfactorily resolves the tensions of loose

coupling and the ongoing value clashes of educators and

entrepreneurs.

It may be possible for educational organizations to focus

closely on clients and external market factors without high

levels of manager control and excessive formal procedures

202

however. This quadrant of the matrix is closely aligned with

Mintzberg’s notion of the adhocracy and displays a task

configuration. An adhocratic structure uses mutual

adjustment as the key means of coordination and there is

little formalization of procedures and a high degree of trust.

Relationships among organizational members are multiplex

and an essentially organic system is in place. There is limited

planning but an acceptance that the organization has to

respond to change quickly. There are many liaison devices

and a selective decentralization of decision-making. Power is

distributed both by expert control and by mutual agreement.

9.5. The Relationship between Structure and

Organizational Climate

Different structures obviously influence the type of

interactions in organizations and the ability to understand

and design organizational configurations is an important

diagnostic tool for managers (Mintzberg, 1981 p.113).

International ELT colleges offer a highly intangible service,

part of the trend to an increasing proportion of economic

activities in advanced economies being services rather than

goods. Many of the elements of traditional organizational

structure, such as command and control or standardization,

are less suitable for ELT colleges because of the intangible

nature of their service and the fact that the quality depends

on many uncontrollable factors, an especially critical one

being the motivation and performance of the ELT teachers

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and the make-up of and relationships between the students

themselves. As with most service industries, employees in

ELT colleges have a strong bearing on the outcome of the

service and so have to play an important role in management

systems and organizational structure.

The contested institutionalisation of the discourses of the

entrepreneur and the educator, discussed in Chapter 8, can

be partially explained through structural analysis. Myer and

Rowan (1978, p.79) suggested two decades ago that, in

educational organizations, instruction tends to be removed

from the control of the organizational structure both

bureaucratically and collegially. This leads to the idea of

educational organizations as "loosely coupled systems" with

the structure being disconnected from the work activity, and

the work activity disconnected from its effects. Educational

administrators often have little direct authority over

instructional work but generally make decisions about

support aspects such as scheduling, allocation of classes and

hiring. They describe the elaborate sets of formal rules that

were used to classify teachers and students, which may be

'self-evident' to insiders but be almost nonsensical to

outsiders. They suggest that there were significant

contradictions in performance and control systems in many

educational organizations. Thus:

documents of what teachers do are either non-existent or vacuous while documents that define persons as teachers are elaborately controlled

(Myer and Rowan, 1978: p.85)

204

On the same page they cite a study in the San Francisco Bay

area by Cohen and others that found that 77% of elementary

teachers agreed that personality characteristics were more

important for success in teaching than any particular

knowledge or professional skills. Yet the regulation of paper

qualifications remains standard procedure in almost all

educational organizations. ELT teachers with years of

overseas teaching experience, abundant enthusiasm, cross-

cultural skills and glowing references from former employers,

for example, would find it difficult to obtain employment

without the possession of a one month teaching certificate

that has, at best, only partial relevance to the daily tasks of

many in ELT.

In the large school, university and vocational systems there

may be important reasons for a continuation of this loose

coupling; there may be political imperatives to maintain

public confidence in the system or financial imperatives to

acquire sufficient resources. In the more entrepreneurial

world of international ELT colleges, however, this loose

coupling tends to lead to a range of conflicts unless strategies

are developed to overcome them.

The ecological features of a college can assist in the

development of a particular organizational structure

especially in the facilitation of informal communication. The

management of milieu can be important so that staff are

hired who value the type of structure the college wants to

205

develop. The organization’s culture is perhaps a prime

determinant of the success or failure of its structure. The

following chapter demonstrates that even where two colleges

have similar formal structures and operations the underlying

organizational culture and the informal structures it creates

can have a significant bearing on overall outcomes.

An emphasis on the three themes of integration, collaboration

and client service can provide a significant basis for

improvement of the organizational structure of an

international ELT college. An effective organizational

structure can also serve to reinforce these goals and help

resolve the competing values of the discourses of the

entrepreneur and the educator.

9.6. Conclusion

The basic function of an organization’s structure should be to

establish patterns of human interaction that accomplish

organizational tasks. It is difficult to select a single

configuration that is best suited to optimal organizational

outcomes across the whole range of work organizations and it

is likely that different configurations are best, depending on

other variables such as size and nature of work tasks.

This chapter has given a brief overview of some models of

organizational structure. It has examined Mintzberg’s

hypothesis of the five principle organizational configurations,

combined with Handy’s notion of power distribution across

206

organizations. It has looked at the notion of educational

organizations as being loosely coupled systems and examined

the combination of an organization’s internal control with its

external focus.

In the following chapter some linkages between these

configurations and educational and entrepreneurial

discourses is made. The discussion of the structures of

international ELT colleges examines the nature of the

configurations of the organizations under review and

diagnoses some of the conflicts and difficulties that beset

them due partly to structural dilemmas. It is then proposed

that the use of an adhocracy structure may be considered as

an effective organizational configuration for these colleges.

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C h a p t e r 1 0

THE STRUCTURE OF INTERNATIONAL ELT COLLEGES

10.1. Introduction

Educational organizations are often "loosely coupled systems"

with the structure being disconnected from the work activity,

and the work activity disconnected from its effects. Creating

greater links between administrative and teaching activities

and developing awareness of entrepreneurial and educational

goals can be assisted by managerial efforts to help minimise

the negative effects of this loose coupling. Bureaucratic and

managerialist structures are the default configurations in

ELT colleges but an adhocratic configuration that reinforces

collaboration between staff may be a more suitable structural

goal.

This chapter examines the structure of a number of

international ELT colleges and compares their configurations

to the theory discussed in the previous chapter. It also

describes some structural initiatives that took place at

College E and their effect on the climate of that college. The

chapter suggests that the adhocracy configuration may help

to reinforce goals of integration, collaboration and client

focus for colleges, although it requires a degree of

208

commitment that makes it vulnerable to changes in

management.

10.2. The Bureaucratic Structure in ELT Colleges

The bureaucratic structure was described in the previous

chapter as having relatively high levels of formal procedures

and internal control and relatively low focus on external

matters. Its advantages are the perpetuation of a stable

organization and strong accountability and legal compliance.

Because of the lower degree of external focus however such

organizations can be vulnerable to changes in market

conditions.

College B and College D both displayed many of the

structural features of bureaucratic organizations. College B

was originally part-owned by a large private Japanese

educational organization but in 1998 became fully Australian

owned. The college was initially required to raise the prestige

of the organization in Japan and give it an international

profile as well as to make a profit. Given this history of

external accountability there has been an emphasis on

written procedures at College B. There was also a deep sense

in the early development of the College that teachers were

separate from the management core of the organization.

At College B procedures were formalized and there were

written job descriptions and procedure manuals that staff

were expected to adhere to. All staff were expected to have

209

the minimum amount of formal training and knowledge

stipulated for their job and, in general, substantially

exceeded it. Hiring would generally proceed on formal

assumptions of qualifications and experience. Consequently

College B had the most qualified and experienced staff of the

ELT organizations reviewed in this study. The emphasis upon

quality of educational work also meant that the standard of

classwork at College B was very high. There was also a

scrupulous adherence to record keeping of student

attendance and performance.

Decision-making and control were centralized with the

General Manager of the organization ultimately responsible

for all significant managerial decisions and the ELT managers

primarily responsible for operational rather than strategic

matters. ELT managers played a more subordinate role as

gatherer of information and implementer of decisions. There

was little delegation of power downwards or outwards from

the General Manager except in areas of content expertise

such as curriculum or testing matters.

Like College B, College D had a bureaucratic structure.

Employees were expected to fulfil the duties outlined by their

role with little input into the organization either horizontally

or vertically away from this role. College D had an emphasis

on written procedures. The written job descriptions and

procedure manuals formed the basis of the management of

staff. Staff were expected to understand the procedures and

to adhere to items such as dress codes and rules of

210

fraternisation with students. In general procedures were

formalized and all staff had the minimum amount of formal

training and knowledge stipulated for their job although

there was a pressure to hire less experienced staff in order to

minimise costs. As part of a larger institute the ELT college

was initially designed to assist international students to

prepare for studies in its other courses.

It was expected that the ELT managers would be familiar

with all necessary components of running and administering

an ELT college, such as marketing, administration and

reporting requirements as well as those that fell into the

realm of educational matters. Because the institute had little

experience with international education there was a lack of

understanding of how to implement appropriate structure

and budgets for international ELT. Many procedures were

formalized with written job descriptions and procedure

manuals but development staff such as marketing staff were

not catered for.

The institute commenced operations on the assumption that

“if you build it they will come” but many of the subsequent

difficulties of the ELT operations stemmed from the

inappropriate structure with poor centralised decision

making.

Decision-making and control were centralized as far as ELT

operations and business college operations were concerned.

The failure of senior institute managers to fully understand

211

the potential for legal and financial difficulties in

international education ultimately led to organizational

failure. Indeed, subsequent to this study, College D changed

premises and ownership structure and after numerous

disputes between the top managers of the institute and the

new owner of the ELT college the college was closed and the

remaining students were transferred.

10.3. The Managerialist Structure in ELT Colleges

College C and College A both had more managerialist

configurations. At College C the college’s founders sold it to

the current owners in 1993. The current owners were a

syndicate of active and inactive partners. The inactive

partners had equity stakes but did not have any operational

control over the college. Because of this structure it was

imperative that College C be able to produce dividends each

year for its inactive partners/investors. This ownership

pattern also meant that College C had an emphasis on

written procedures.

The owners of College C were all from one particular ethnic

group. There could be a subversion of the typical ‘line

management’ pattern at College C by students from that

same ethnic group who had extra access to the top

management of the college. Jacques, in a series of studies in

the 1950s, found that in bureaucratic organizations where

there was a confusion of role boundaries or when the same

person fulfilled multiple roles, high levels of insecurity and

212

frustration resulted (see Jaques, 1951, 1956). The ELT

managers at College C indicated that while there was a clear

formal structure at College C, there were various escape

routes and diversions to this structure that led to

unwillingness by management employees to exercise

authority.

This matter was particularly significant in areas that were

typically under direct ELT manager control such as issues of

course content, student attendance records and student

performance certificates.

The marketing staff at College C were not salaried employees

but rather ‘consultants’ on small retainers and large

commissions. This had certain advantages for the

organization but led to problems of control and competition

among staff. Marketing staff, who were reluctant to ‘lose’

commissions, did not always adequately advise potential

students or implied commitments to potential students that

ELT managers found impossible to fulfil. A common problem

in this regard was assuring students with weak English that

they would be able to commence an IELTS exam preparation

class although subsequent testing by ELT staff revealed

unsuitably low levels of English for such a class.

Decision-making and control on financial matters were

centralized with the two active partners retaining authority in

these matters. ELT managers were seen as gatherers of

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information and implementers of decisions. There was little

delegation of power except in day-to-day operational matters.

College A was also managerialist. It was originally a small

vocational college unit of a much larger English college. In

1992 the large English college began to accumulate debts

resulting from the changes to entry requirements for

students from the People’s Republic of China. This debt

problem led to the owner of the English college wishing to

file for bankruptcy. The three current owners of College A

discussed the pending closure of their organization with the

former owner. An agreement was made that they would

continue to operate the business college taking over all debts

owed by that division of the college and creating a new

business entity. This entity would lease premises and

equipment from the English college and share particular

administration facilities. Initially the three owners fulfilled all

the roles at the small college providing teaching, student

administration, marketing and financial administration of the

college. Due to fears of incurring debt, extra teaching staff

were only hired on casual weekly or monthly contracts.

The managerialist structure of the college grew out of these

early experiences. The three owners saw themselves as

survivors and builders of the organization that followed. As

soon as the college moved they commenced preparations for

an English language college. The senior ELT manager, who

would be a Director of Studies, was ultimately to become an

employee even though the owners would have preferred an

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‘entrepreneurial’ risk-taking ELT manager to take an equity

role in the college as a fourth partner it proved extremely

difficult to find such a person. Because each of the owners

had of necessity made the crossover from teaching to an

entrepreneurial view of management they also expected that

their ELT manager would share their views.

All significant decisions were made by the owners but there

was also an informal expectation that people would not limit

themselves to their job description. For example, the ELT

Director of Studies was expected to take on the duties of the

Business Director of Studies, while the Business DOS was on

vacation. The formal written job descriptions and procedure

manuals that existed were largely the products of external

monitoring requirements and an array of more informal

expectations assisted in the maintenance of a strong client

focus. Such documents were occasionally referred to but it

was much more important for staff to be satisfying the

immediate requirements identified orally by the owner

managers than to be laboriously following the job description.

There was a limited performance appraisal system although

once again this was largely oral and informal.

The formal training and knowledge required for ELT

positions at College A were largely those set by external

monitoring authorities. There was a desire on the part of the

ELT managers to ensure personality fit for the organization

too. In general there was a perception among the managers

that those who had previously been comfortable working for

215

large bureaucratic organizations would not find the patterns

of work and organizational life at College A suitable.

Decision-making on minor matters was de-centralized and

staff were given to understand that they were expected to

take relevant decisions and solve disturbances without

constant recourse to senior management in such cases. There

were various communication and liaison devices although in

general these operated at the management level with

meetings between Directors of Studies and Owners and then

at the staff level with contacts between staff of different

divisions of the college. Such meetings and contacts were

primarily informal and oral and indeed there was a suspicion

of the procedures of formal minuted meetings.

10.4. The Management of Structure in ELT Colleges

Pickering (1999, p.5) has indicated some of the metaphors

commonly used to describe organizations in the management

literature such as machines, organisms, brains, culture,

political systems, psychic prisons, transformational flux and

domination instruments. A brief survey of ELT teachers

however, added a range of new metaphors to the list.

Teachers saw their respective colleges as: brothels,

Rottweilers, headless chickens, ivory towers, dinosaurs, The

Spanish Inquisition, warm baths, families, private armies,

jazz bands, tightropes, circuses and headless dinosaurs.

216

It would seem therefore that in ELT, in common with most

industries, the design and improvement of an organization’s

structure is an important management task. Organizational

structure however, is a contingent variable, which means that

a similar configuration may be successful in one college and

not in another. College D and College B, for example, both

leaned towards the bureaucratic configuration. It would seem

that despite the similar structures, however, there were

elements that made this configuration work more effectively

at College B than at College D. On the other hand College A

and College C were both configured similarly on

managerialist lines. Again though, there were other

organizational factors that suggest that this structure was

more effective at College A than at College C.

Charles (1993, p.11) suggests that international ELT colleges

require new structural metaphors by changing the traditional

hierarchical structure of such colleges to ‘fronted’

organigrams. In essence the organizational chart should be

turned on its side with teachers, administration and

marketing staff at the 'front' of the operation being

'producers' in a prime position to gain market intelligence

and senior managers and the technostructure being seen to

be in support roles ‘behind’. This parallels an emphasis on

client service as the focus of the organization’s activities

A significant drawback of the bureaucratic or managerialist

configuration for international ELT colleges is that managers

may see their organizations as consisting of jobs and roles

217

rather than an integration of activities matched with people

and skill sets. Favouring a clear assignment of responsibility

but limiting the capacity of people in organizations can

render ineffective many of an individual's greatest strengths

and exacerbate their weaknesses. An emphasis by managers

on an integrated organization, on the other hand, would

favour the development of an adhocratic configuration

The analysis of the above four colleges and research into

organizational structure suggested that the adhocracy

configuration may well be desirable structure for an

international ELT college. An adhocracy would allow the

organization to innovate in complex ways and to adapt well to

the fast-changing ELT environment. An adhocracy could draw

on the strengths of the bureaucracy in that it relies on

experts and professionals to get the bulk of its work done. It

should emphasise, however, the working together to improve

the current situation rather than the working apart to perfect

established skills. Rather than remain in the operating core

as in a professional bureaucracy, the experts need to be

dispersed throughout the organization.

Managers in the adhocracy have to see themselves as linkage

experts rather than controllers. They need to see

coordination and an encouragement of collaboration as their

primary functions and allow their control function to be

subsidiary. Research on school effectiveness shows that

teachers prefer task configurations that demonstrate

cooperative, collegial and collaborative structures with staff

218

working as a team with shared goals (McGaw, Piper, Banks

and Evans, 1993; p.1). Because teachers are the critical

element in the service delivered by ELT colleges it makes

sense to encourage such collaborative cultures and reinforce

them through the organization’s structure.

A clear focus on integration and collaboration, and the

development of an adhocratic structure, would stress that the

organization is a field of activity that encompasses a variety

of tasks, projects and services. It views the workplace as a

network of collaborative relationships rather than as a site

with people and systems located together (Field & Ford,

1995, pp 74-75, 81). An international ELT college based in

Australia therefore, needs to see its sphere of operations as

including the various cooperating institutions, the agents and

marketing teams, the homestay families and, up to a point,

the government regulators such as the Federal Department

of Immigration and the State Department of Education as

well as the relevant accrediting bodies such as NEAS and

industry bodies such as the EA, ACPET and Trust Fund

providers.

There are also limitations to the adhocratic structure

however. There is a constant need for hands on management

to retain an adhocratic configuration and there is a serious

time cost in raising awareness among organizational

members. As the organization ages there seems to be a

desire among many organizational members to pursue

bureaucratic rather than adhocratic organizational goals.

219

Finally it can be difficult for senior management to agree to

subdue their control functions to linkage ones.

10.5. Action Research at College E: Structure

As a result of research into organizational structure and the

observations of structure at other ELT colleges, at College E

four structural initiatives formed part of the action research.

At the commencement of the action research discussions on

structure with staff showed that there was an enthusiasm for

working towards a different type of organizational

configuration from that most teachers and administration

staff had previously experienced.

Each of the action research initiatives in the area of structure

was designed to reinforce the values of integration,

collaboration and client service. The action research cycles in

1997 and 1998 emphasised the intent to move towards an

adhocratic structure encouraging the best features of person

and task configurations. Action research cycles three and

four in late 1998 and early 1999 attempted to build on and

reinforce the structural achievements of cycles one and two.

The three structural initiatives were:

Action Research Initiative S1: Action Research

Cycles 1 (July – December 1997) to 3 (July -

December 1998): That the college organizational

structure be perceived as a fronted organigram with those

220

in client contact including administration and teaching

staff being seen as the most crucial in the organization

with those ‘behind’ playing support roles to ensure the

effectiveness of those ‘in front’. As well that the mixture of

exogenous and endogenous factors that ELT educators

used to determine educational and institutional quality for

the international ELT college reflect organizational goals

focusing primarily on client satisfaction.


Cycles 3 (July – December 1998) and 4 (January –

June 1999): The organization would try to have as few

barriers as possible between staff. Teachers were to be

encouraged to teach across both vocational and English

subjects. Teachers were to be encouraged to do marketing

and/or administration work. Administration and marketing

staff were to be assisted in upgrading their educational

qualifications.



June 1999): Management decisions on structure were to

be explicit and communicated to all employees and be

reached as far as possible through consultation. All staff

should also have the opportunity to witness managers in

action and be able to question them about their activities

and decisions.

221

In order to implement Structure Initiative 1 the Principal and

other managers made constant efforts to inculcate the value

of client service as the primary operational task in the

organization. Open door management policies were

implemented from the start of operations and there was no

shielding of senior managers from students or agents. This

was a very effective initiative during the early phases of the

college. As student numbers grew it did impose a time and

efficiency burden on managers that was never entirely

resolved.

All ELT educators at the college were advised during

interview and induction phases that evaluations of their work

would be based primarily on student satisfaction. Staff room

discussions were held on the importance of understanding

students’ real needs and motivations. A lot of thought and

planning went into the college excursion program so that

students were taken to places that were ‘off the beaten

track’. Socialising with students was strongly encouraged and

the college used to provide funds for teachers to drink on

Fridays after lessons in the same location as the students.

Nathan a teacher at College E at the time recalls:

The emphasis on excursions and staff-student bonding that existed at that time was fantastic. The situation in 98/99 was so good partly because we were encouraged to share our experiences of Sydney and its environs with the students, and helping them find their way around here other than to and from Darling Harbour.

222

In order to implement Structure Initiative 2 a corresponding

ecological initiative (see Section 12.6) was introduced that

set out a plan for open classrooms and mixed staff rooms. A

concerted effort was also made to ensure a diversity of

duties. For example, many English teachers also hold

qualifications that permit them to teach courses in business

and computing. As the clientele for ELT and vocational

courses at College E was very similar, and there were mainly

non-native English speakers in the vocational courses, this

had many advantages. Many of the English teachers found

the opportunity to work in content subjects refreshing after

years of working solely with language and the initiative was

seen as a very positive feature of College E. As vocational

subjects were taught both morning and afternoon while

English was only taught in the morning it also offered an

extra income stream for a number of teachers. As ELT is, in

general, a less well-paid profession than many, this was also

welcome for those who loved teaching but may have

otherwise had to change careers due to financial pressures.

This initiative also led to a preference for hiring teachers who

had the ability to teach across disciplines, which itself led to

an ongoing commitment to preventing a break into a

divisionalized form.

As well as the teaching across disciplines, teachers were

involved in college marketing activities and in records

administration. The vocational college taught a Diploma

223

course in Records Management and several members of the

ELT staff took this course and assisted in the building and

maintenance of the college database. Two teachers moved

from teaching into marketing with one becoming the college

Marketing Manager.

Structure Initiative 3 was also supported by an ecological

initiative that had managerial staff share workspaces with

other teaching and administration staff. This initiative is not

concrete and fell more into the level of consciousness-raising.

Many people, even those trained in critical awareness, do not

reflect in a structured way on their work organizations and

their possibilities for improvement. It is therefore difficult to

assess the effectiveness of this initiative although a range of

comments from teachers at College E during interviews for

this project and afterwards reveals an awareness of structure

and culture variables. For example;

1. (The) management style is heartfelt and appreciated.(Pamela, Teacher, Action Research Cycle 2, College E, 1998)

2. (The) open support of teachers and all the other staff is hugely encouraging and genuine.

(Yumiko, Marketing employee, Action Research Cycle 3, College E, 1998)

3. It demonstrates the type of mutually respectful relationships that exists at College E

(James, Teacher, Action Research Cycle 4, College E, 1998)

4. I worked at the language schools within the University of F and Institute G and H College as a casual/relief teacher for spells of six - eight weeks. The staff atmosphere at College E was outstanding in comparison – particularly friendly,

224

supportive, fun, transparent and workable. By comparison, I found the other colleges isolating, scary, daunting and at times distinctly unfriendly.

(Penny, Teacher, Action Research Cycle 5, College E, 1999)

5. The idea of the front not the bottom is a great one. Seeing the college from front to back rather than from top to bottom makes a lot more sense. I also like the idea that a lot of teachers teach other subjects besides English. The computer teaching has been a real benefit for me.

(Marie, Teacher, Action Research Cycle 4,College E, 1998)

6. I like the emphasis on seeing the whole place as one. I don’t feel like a cog in the machine as I used to in other places I’ve worked. I get a lot of chances to do other things besides teach… as you can see I’m now the Marketing Manager!

(Ivan, Marketing Manager, Action Research Cycle 6,College E, 1999)

Along with the success of these measures were many areas of

contestation. Division of tasks is a familiar construct to many

people. Several teachers at College E objected to open

classrooms especially for ‘trial’ students, which they saw as

an exploitation of their professionalism. Partly this is

explained by the fact that for marketing reasons certain

teachers would be more likely to have trial students placed in

their classes than others and so bore the burden of this

arrangement. This difficulty was partially solved by allocating

one session of the teaching day, the third session from 12:00

– 1:00 each day, as the only session that trial students could

observe classes. As part-time students attended class until

12:00 only this avoided any problem of overcrowding and

limited disruptions. On the other hand, despite some initial

teacher opposition, many teachers took an interest in this

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area of college operations and were quite proprietorial about

‘their’ trial students.

The owners of the college took to the management initiatives

from a bottom line perspective. There were cost savings to

open plan offices and logistical advantages to open

classrooms that made them accept the initiatives. On the

other hand, they found it hard to relinquish a certain manner

of control, which they had been used to exercising in previous

colleges that they had owned. As time went on though, the

proof was ‘in the pudding’. The growth and success of the

college, far beyond their initial expectations meant that they

came to value the different structure of the college and to an

extent accept it.

Since the end of active commitment to an adhocracy however

there has been a drift back to the bureaucratic configuration.

This may suggest that this form is felt to be a more ‘natural’

configuration for an international ELT college, in spite of less

effective organizational outcomes. In common perhaps with

some other action research in educational organizations,

many of the initiatives were not successfully embedded into

the college. Once the commitment to action research was

removed, and management personnel had changed, College E

drifted away from an adhocratic configuration.

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10.6. Conclusion

Organizational structure is a significant area of

organizational climate. Manipulating the structure of an

organization can impact upon culture and organizational

outcomes. While improvements to structure are not the only

method of enhancing organizational culture they can prove to

be the most effective (Anthony 1994 p.3). There is a value in

using organizational structure models as management tools.

Analysing the configurations of similar organizations can be

of benefit to international ELT managers who can attempt to

find patterns and systems that work best. There is also a

value to inculcating staff in the understanding of such models

in order to bring about a greater empathy with organizational

goals and their own ability to work towards a configuration

that is most likely to lead to successful outcomes.

It would seem likely that ELT managers should strive to

manage structure proactively rather than let the traditional

configurations of ELT develop by default. In the growth and

development of College E the adhocratic structure worked

effectively for the time of the action research project. With

the increasing age of the organization, changes to the ELT

management and a lessening of commitment to the

adhocratic structure however, a drift back to a bureaucratic

configuration occurred.

The people who are stakeholders in an organization, its

milieu, are also strongly linked to the production and

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maintenance of the organization’s structure. It is to the

milieu of international ELT colleges that this discussion now

moves.

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C h a p t e r 1 1

THE MILIEU OF INTERNATIONAL ELT COLLEGES

11.1. Introduction

This chapter examines the milieu of a number of international

ELT colleges and provides some examples of the need for

reconciliation between educational and entrepreneurial

concerns in this organizational dimension. It first looks at

milieu and its relationship to organizational climate. It

outlines some features of milieu relevant to ELT colleges and

the nature and range of management difficulties in this

dimension. It then examines the milieu at College E and some

action research initiatives that took place there. It analyses

some of the impact of these initiatives in relation to the

organization’s climate and then concludes with a brief

summary.

11.2. The Relationship between Milieu and


ELT is a very person dependent industry. Many of the

students studying English in Sydney are doing so for a

complex array of educational, social and economic reasons.

For many, the interaction with college members and fellow

students is far more important in judging and recommending

colleges than course content or teachers’ linguistic expertise.

229

Subtle differences in the milieu of international ELT colleges

therefore, can influence their organizational outcomes.

Impey and Underhill (1994, p.vii) in the introduction to their

ELT Manager’s Handbook note that

People are the key to successful management: the provision of high quality ELT is a meeting of people and minds. Even among traditionally labour intensive service industries, teaching is unusually intangible and dependent upon the motivation and good will of all staff; successful interaction is all...

The milieu dimension relates to this ‘people’ aspect of the

organization. It includes the characteristics of the staff,

clients and other stakeholders of the organization; their ages,

genders, ethnicities, expectations and levels of satisfaction,

socio-economic backgrounds, morale and motivation,

behaviour towards other organizational members and a range

of other personal attributes and characteristics.

Milieu and organizational culture are closely linked. In this

study, milieu refers to the organizational members as

individuals and their relatively enduring physical and social

characteristics and attributes, while organizational culture is

the collective interaction patterns and assumptions that

influence organizational members. The discussion of

organizational culture in chapters 13 and 14 focuses on the

interactions between people and the symbols and values that

give meaning to their work within the organization.

The chief groups of stakeholders in international ELT

colleges are the teachers, the administration, marketing and

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counselling staff, the agents (who are usually external to the

college) and, of course, the students. For ELT managers with

responsibility for the hiring and replacement of ELT teachers

and support staff, awareness of the contribution of the milieu

dimension to organizational climate can provide significant

leverage towards the achievement of successful

organizational outcomes. The possibilities for actively

managing student intakes also allows some management of

the overall student milieu, especially in the ratio of learner

nationalities. Many international ELT colleges have a

relatively rapid turnover of teaching staff, administrative

staff, and students compared to other types of educational

institutions. This means that opportunities to implement

management strategies in the area of milieu are available not

only through choices in the start up phase, but on an ongoing

basis.

Organizational culture can have a powerful effect on

decisions that affect the milieu of an international ELT

college. An emphasis on the three cultural themes of

integration, collaboration and client service can provide a

significant basis for steering the course of the milieu of an

international ELT college. This can, in turn, both reinforce

these cultural values and work to resolve the competing

values of the discourses of the entrepreneur and the

educator.

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11.3. The ELT Teacher Milieu

The types of teachers employed in a college, their ages,

genders, life experiences, career aspirations and approaches

to teaching can provide significant variance in the

atmosphere of different ELT institutions. All of the colleges in

this study hired a range of teachers from those who had just

completed their ELT qualifications to those with 10 or more

years of experience. Most of the teachers had only the

minimum required ELT qualifications and there were a

number of teachers who had not completed full teacher

qualifications but had taught ELT overseas for a number of

years. Most of the teachers felt that, while the knowledge and

skills obtained in their ELT certificate courses was not

perfectly matched with their work activities, it was an

appropriate entry qualification and many had recommended

such certificate courses to friends. Only three teachers at the

five colleges in the study were over 50 years of age and more

than two-thirds of the teachers were under 40 years of age.

This tends to confirm the view of ELT as a ‘young person’s

game’.

Waites (1999, pp244-305), in a research study conducted in

Geneva and Sydney to examine the career cycles of ELT

teachers, found they had far more variations during their

career cycles than school teachers, who were in a more

stable and predictable situation. According to the teachers

interviewed despite the ELT becoming increasingly more

professional, its unpredictable nature made it stimulating and

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rewarding. In spite of the instability of the ELT career many

appeared to have more positive career experiences overall,

than school teachers with more stable career paths. Waites

also concluded that the perception of professional

development issues between ELT teachers and ELT managers

were divergent.

ELT teachers are largely responsible for the generation of the

functional quality within their ELT college and can create

considerable competitive advantage for it. Agents regularly

inform their clients of ‘star’ teachers at particular colleges.

The main IELTS teacher at College A, for example, had a

reputation for achieving very good results with her classes.

Three different agents interviewed indicated that they

recommended potential IELTS students to College A because

of the feedback they had had about the teacher. Likewise at

College E, one teacher had a background in the theatre and

was an extraordinarily outgoing and personable teacher.

College E would frequently receive requests from agents to

inform them of which class or level the teacher was currently

teaching.

Most of the teachers at the five colleges examined were

between 25 and 39, single or in a de facto relationship with

no children, interested in travel and other cultures and not

strongly career focused. Most had moved into ELT because

they wanted to travel or had been living in a country where

work as an ELT teacher was easily available. Staff room

conversations had a high frequency of discussion of overseas

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destinations for holidays and work, and Lonely Planet

Guidebooks seemed to be a common ‘reference’ book in staff

rooms.

A number of teachers who were about to get married or have

children spoke of the necessity of finding either managerial

positions within ELT or changing careers to gain greater

employment stability for the raising of a family. The

connection of life changes with moves into ELT management

is taken up in Chapter 15.

Teachers, not surprisingly see themselves as a critical factor

in successful ELT colleges.

The college is only as good as the teachers…Brian, Teacher, College C, 1996

If the teachers are good, then the college will be successful. When the teachers are unhappy it’s really hard to satisfy the students or put on a ‘happy face’.

Maria, Teacher, College D, 1997

English language teaching can be seen as one of the more

‘postmodern’ occupations. Forth (1998, p.22) notes that few

people enter the ELT profession with a burning desire for

lifelong membership as teachers. Rather, for most

newcomers, ELT is an attractive stop-gap. The temporary and

casual nature of the work, the contact with exotic groups of

students of similar age, and the practical and realistic entry

requirements seem to suit the desire of many in their mid to

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late twenties to postpone hard career decisions and enjoy

freedom and interesting experiences for as long as possible.

For those who remain in ELT however, a certain cynicism and

frustration can creep in:

The short-term contracts, the lack of development opportunities, the repetitiveness of certain kinds of teaching, far from being liberating, at a later stage in the life cycle become oppressive. This can lead to a scepticism and pessimism about the whole ethos of ELT. In particular, one can find expressions of scepticism about the management of language schools, a scepticism that sometimes borders on hostility.

(Forth, 1998; p.22)

This scepticism towards management is discussed in Chapter

15 but it needs to be noted in passing that antipathy to ELT

managers is a relatively enduring characteristic of many

teachers, and a severe disadvantage for ELT managers to

overcome.

All of the international ELT colleges discussed in this study

have a high ratio of casual employees and contract

consultants to permanent full-time employees. This has

consequences for the relative power of the different groups of

stakeholders. College C, for example, has two owners, six full-

time employees (two permanent full-time educational

administrators, a full-time Registrar, a full-time Marketing

Manager and two full-time office administrators),

approximately 30 teaching staff engaged as casual/contract

employees and three to five marketing staff who are paid a

small retainer and then a five percent commission on each

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student enrolment they bring to the college from an agency

and a nine percent commission on each direct student

enrolment. The college also uses a range of consultants for

course development and staff training, generally paid on a fee

for service basis.

In the last decade in Australia there has been significant

pressure by regulatory authorities to ‘professionalise’ the

industry and teachers in accredited ELT colleges must now

have a suite of qualifications. In order to be employed,

teachers must have a recognised pre-service teaching

qualification plus an appropriate ELT qualification, or a

recognised degree or diploma plus at least 800 hours (about

1 year) classroom teaching experience, plus an appropriate

ELT qualification. English for High School courses must have

50% of such courses taught by teachers whose pre-service

qualification is for high school teaching or who have at least

800 hours classroom teaching experience in Australian high

schools.

Colleges can still employ some teaching staff who do not

completely fulfil these requirements, but they must be able to

supply written evidence that such teachers have proof of

outstanding competence in ELT. Such proof may include a

high grade in their ELT qualification, documents from

previous employers or references from ELT course directors.

Colleges however, are not allowed to have more than 20% of

their teaching staff employed under this provision.

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Staff selection policies based primarily on qualifications and

experience, a common practice in many educational

institutions, may not be entirely suitable in international ELT

colleges. Characteristics such as ‘enthusiasm’ and ‘cultural

awareness’ play a significant role because of the personal

nature of the activity. Many students who come to Australia

to improve their English desire a different type of learning. In

their home countries they have usually been taught by non-

native teachers and looked at the lexicogrammatical,

semantic and phonological aspects of English, the areas of

traditional language teaching focus. For their English classes

in Australia, on the other hand, they usually expect native

speaker teachers of English who focus less on grammatical or

semantic instruction than on communication skills.

ELT classes in international colleges usually involve

interaction solely in English between the teacher and an

array of students of various nationalities. Mostly the classes

are small, as the NEAS accreditation requirement is an

average of fifteen students per class. Lessons vary depending

on the age, ability and interests of the students, but the

teacher usually suggests the topic of conversation, perhaps

provides some reading material for stimulation, asks

questions that will rekindle the conversation when it lags,

and provides correction and feedback as needed.

Considerable judgement and skill are necessary in the

selection and encouragement of conversational topics. The

object is to maintain fluency and enjoyment rather than to

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directly challenge or threaten student beliefs. Differences in

personality need to be handled, turn-taking occasionally

needs to be made obvious and timid learners need to be

encouraged to speak.

Students are frequently asked to explain their comments, to

increase the amount of communication they offer in answer

to questions, to realise when more than a literal response is

required to questions, to take a more active role in

conversations, to ask more questions, to be more voluble and

to use gesture and eye contact in more effective ways. Even

Academic English courses and exam preparation classes for

IELTS and TOEFL involve far more interaction and

communication between teachers and students than is usual

in many other learning situations.

Teachers can feel that they are as much hosts trying to keep

a dull conversation going as they are educators. There is a

slightly unsettling effect of this type of teaching, especially in

colleges that focus on short-term client feedback, such as exit

questionnaires and satisfaction surveys. Teachers have to

juggle the satisfaction of short-term and long-term client

goals.

Is the ‘customer’ always right? Giving the ‘customer’ what they want puts teachers under a lot of pressure. What the ‘customers’ want and what the teachers think are their educational needs varies considerably.

Mike, Teacher, College B, 1996

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How we judge our lessons may be different to how the students judge [them]. It’s hard to make sure they’re enjoying themselves and learning at the same time.

Diana, Teacher, College B, 1996

Teachers are also under some pressure to involve themselves

to a certain extent in relationships with the students that go

beyond the classroom.

Our role goes way beyond the classroom and students become very attached to us and bring us their problems

Henry, Teacher, College A, 1997

We often socialise with students and see a lot of them at the pub on Friday nights. We look after them even after they have left the college. They are always asking us about visas and their financial problems, and finding work and stuff like that.

Paula, Teacher, College B

Indeed Underhill (1995, p.2), in perhaps a moment of quiet

cynicism, felt that the professional aspects of ELT are

somewhat suspect:

The profession that seems to me most comparable to [ELT] is prostitution, for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is ubiquitous; secondly it needs at the most basic level only two participants, but no resources or equipment, and can be conducted anywhere at any time, in varying degrees of comfort; thirdly, the majority of the activity is unregulated and delivered by unqualified practitioners, as far as one can gather to the satisfaction of the clients; fourthly there is a continuous scale from highly formalised, organised, managed, fully-charged at one end to the completely informal, spontaneous, spur of the moment exchange, barter or gift. In other words our central activity is virtually indistinguishable from ordinary everyday human intercourse. Our problem is to justify asking a lot of money for what many give for free. This clearly distinguishes us from the traditional so-called professions. I cannot readily

239

imagine wanting to engage in a little casual dentistry on a Friday night, on an informal basis, as a gesture of friendship.

Whatever the validity of Underhill’s analogy, it does

emphasise that ELT only exists because of the people who

engage in the exchange of learning and teaching. A keen feel

for teacher personality and motivation levels needs to be

developed by effective ELT managers. Recognising the

qualities that students want in their ELT teachers, and then

implementing this through recruitment of appropriate

teaching staff, is essential for the overall quality of the

college.

11.4. The ELT Administration, Marketing and

Counselling Staff Milieu

Reception staff in ELT colleges play an important role in

forming impressions of the college. For many students the

receptionist is their primary point of informal contact with

the college. Effective ELT managers need to recognise the

importance of building a strong reception team.

Likewise marketing and counselling staff, especially those

from the same language group as the students, play a critical

role. Frequently such staff are bi-cultural, knowing their own

culture and that of Australia well. For many students these

staff are the interpreters of the confusing events that are

surrounding them. Such staff have the potential to influence

student opinions of the college especially with those students

240

whose English proficiency is poor. They are also a valuable

source of information for ELT managers who need to absorb

important cultural details about a diverse range of ethnic and

national groups in order to treat students politely and

appropriately.

Such bi-cultural staff make promotion of the college much

easier. In early 2000 College E had a marketing exhibition in

Thailand. I travelled to the exhibition with the College

Registrar, who was born in Thailand and had lived there until

she came to Australia in 1992. She had arranged for two of

our ex-Thai students to meet us at the promotional fair. At the

exhibition the response to our display was overwhelming,

despite the presence of many more established institutions

with lower priced courses. One of the main selling points was

that potential students saw the ex-students and the Thai

Registrar obviously laughing and joking in English with the

Principal of the college. The ‘intangible’ service of an English

course was made tangible. They could see that they could

acquire these abilities, the ex-students were able to give them

the ‘student low-down’ that young people want to hear. It was

so different to most of the other displays with a senior ELT

manager forlornly sitting with an ‘official’ interpreter, who

knew little about the college or its courses, trying to ‘sell’ the

institution.

In many colleges these marketing and administration staff

are poorly compensated for their work relative to the

teaching staff. Frequently the opportunity to acquire work

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rights in Australia is the motivation for such employees to

stay with the college. In three of the colleges in this study

some or all of such staff had taken employment with the

colleges because it would allow them to remain in Australia

and change their student visas to temporary resident visas. A

number of such staff appreciated the chance to socialise with

the ELT teaching staff and saw it as a real benefit of their

position.

11.5. The ELT Agent Milieu

Few international ELT colleges have the resources to market

directly overseas to their potential students in all countries

and so they depend on a network of agents and

representatives to attract students for them. These agents act

as college representatives in the recruitment of students.

They operate in a similar fashion to travel agents acting for

airlines. Such agents are, in effect, outsourced marketing

representatives and are a concrete manifestation of the

blurring of the traditional boundaries in postmodern work

organizations. Educational agents can be key figures in the

success of ELT colleges even though they are external

stakeholders in the organizations. The management of agents

and the information they deliver to prospective and current

students, therefore, is a key management task at educational

institutions that recruit overseas students.

The success of a college and its intermediation strategies

with domestic and off-shore agencies is of immense

242

importance in getting a sufficient flow of students to maintain

operations. Many ELT managers, though, regard agents with

some suspicion, even where they recognise the organizational

need for developing and maintaining relationships with them.

Seeing the agents as outsourced departments of the college

rather than as rivals, drains or enemies of the institution is a

most significant step in bridging entrepreneurial and

educational values and thus in effective ELT management.

The relationship between colleges and agencies is complex.

For the colleges in this study, owners, ELT managers and the

agents themselves all agreed that payment was the primary

factor in developing and maintaining relationships between

agencies and colleges. The relations with agents are subtle

however, and have to be much more than a ‘provider –

distributor’ relationship to be of maximum value to both

parties. Agents frequently provide valuable endorsement of

the quality of the educational service offered by the ELT

college to students and in return are an extremely important

source of primary market information. Reader (1996, p.8)

notes that agents in many markets are becomingly

increasingly choosey over the colleges they represent. In

listing the factors that make agents accept or reject to

represent colleges, he concludes that commission amounts

and percentages top the list. He suggests that ELT colleges

…expecting to be overwhelmed by responses to tuition only commissions of 10 per cent or even 15 percent are still living in the early 1980s. Many agents now work as full-blown tour

243

operators and themselves have to pay hefty considerations to regional travel agents.

Reader (1996, p.8) also notes that the global ELT market is

increasingly cost sensitive and there is immense difficulty for

agents in selling high-priced top range courses – however

frustrating that is for colleges who wish to prioritise quality

over economy.

Local and national location is another important factor for

agencies. Some agents reject or drop colleges over location

frequently because of client concern about issues such as

safety and convenience. Australia as a whole benefits from

perceptions about danger in large cities in the USA and the

UK, which the terrorism scares following the September 11

tragedy in New York, have exacerbated. Regional Australia

however, suffers from a perception in many Asian countries

that it is ‘boring’ and ‘racist’.

One area of great to concern to agents is other agents.

Disputes over national or regional exclusivity are a frequent

cause of dispute and can result in termination of cooperation

between colleges and agents. On the other hand, a degree of

inertia in established relationships frequently means that

once agents have an ongoing relationship with one college

they do not quickly change, even when they are convinced

that a new organization is better. There is “a liability of

newness” (Haveman, 1992, p.48) to overcome.

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Agents cover a wide range of legal ownership types. Some

agencies may be wholly owned subsidiaries of the college in

which case it might be more correct to label them

representative offices. Such representative offices direct all

students who enquire in their offices to the college that owns

them and are usually a regional centre for enrolments and

client support. There is a range of incentives to setting up

such offices. Most obviously is the fact that all students will

be encouraged to come to the target college and advice will

be up to date. Such offices can also attract government

funding from programs aimed to boost exports such as the

Export Market Development Grants making them even more

attractive. Applicants may qualify for up to 50%

reimbursement of eligible export marketing expenses above

$15,000 pa to a maximum of eight grants. Up to $200,000 pa

may be reimbursed (DETYA 2001; p.7). In large markets or

for large institutions such representative offices can be more

economical than the standard industry commission only

agencies.

Most agencies however, are established as separate

businesses and may range from sole traders acting without

any bona fides to partnerships and properly registered

companies with migration advice licences. The fiduciary

relationship between colleges and agents has been uncertain

for many years and is a clear area of concern within the

industry and for its regulators. Percentage commissions paid

to educational agents is perhaps the most closely guarded

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“commercial in confidence’ secret in the industry. Federal

Government guidelines under the ESOS Act during the late

1990s allowed an initial 20% draw down of student tuition

from the trust account before tuition commenced. This is a

rough indicator of the expected market rate of commission

although the real situation is much more complex.

Agents tend to think in terms of amounts of money received

rather than percentage commissions. A ten per cent

commission on an A$10000 annual university tuition fee is

$1000. To make the same amount of money from a 3-month

ELT course enrolment the agent would need to charge 33%

(assuming the base ELT fee of $1000 per month). In general

if the course fees are large (more than $8000 per year) the

commission is usually (though not always) below the 20%

mark. Universities, expensive vocational college courses and

longer ELT programs therefore fall in to this category.

On the other hand, cheaper courses such as classroom-based

vocational courses and short-term ELT courses are far less

valuable to agents to promote and so colleges usually offer

far higher rates of commission. Commission rates of 30% are

not uncommon at ELT colleges in Sydney and rates as high as

50% and even 60% have been recorded. Often the only viable

method of competition for small new colleges is on the

amount of commission that they offer agents. While these

figures may seem astoundingly high to those unfamiliar with

international education practice they are not dissimilar to

discounting and commission approaches in the international

246

tourist industry – an industry that ELT has many links with,

and one that increasingly shapes its thinking.

It is not usual for the agent to keep all this commission.

Frequently part of the commission is passed on as a discount

to the prospective students and one of the main ways that

agents, especially those within Australia, promote themselves

to students is as ‘bucket shops’ that are able to give students

a ‘discount’ price over a direct enrolment at the college.

Dealing with agents is an especially complex part of the ELT

manager’s work. The communication network of a college

and its agents throughout the world can be very intricate and

there are many features of such networks in educational

enterprises that require a large measure of trust. The time

spans for materials to reach each agent and the complexities

of the visa processes make this a particularly difficult barrier

to entry in the industry and are reasons why many private

colleges tend to be skewed towards a couple of national

markets.

Problems with agents can occur and must be remedied. The

Seoul office of the AIEF, for example, made the settling of

disagreements between various agents and organizations

that send students abroad its top priority in 1995. Once such

issues were resolved the number of students rose 60% (AIEF.

1996b).

247

The value of a strong network of agents is clearly seen in

market downturns. In the Asian currency crisis of 1997 and

1998 numbers at College E steadily rose. A key factor was

that College E had a policy of giving agents commission on

re-enrolments. All payments that students made, not just the

first ones, earned the agents commission. In ‘good times’ this

had meant a smaller profit for the college as student fees had

to be paid out to overseas and local agents – in lean times

however it became even more important for agents to worry

about their ongoing remuneration and in such an

environment agents were more likely to steer students

towards colleges that were perceived as being ‘on the agents

side’.

Over the life of this project educational agencies in Sydney

came in for a sustained campaign of attack in Federal

parliament by Senator Carr, a Labor Senator from Victoria.

Senator Carr’s research listed the many ruses that agents

used to assist students in obtaining or renewing their student

visas. In a tribute to the overhaul of the ELICOS / ELT sector

in the early 1990s however not a single abuse was noted in

the ELT sector with almost all of the alleged misconduct

occurring in the Vocational Education and Training sector.

This campaign continues and considerable pressure exists for

ELT colleges to ensure that they comply with all of the

provisions of relevant DIMA regulations. Senior DIMA

officials were questioned by the Federal Parliament’s

Employment, Workplace Relations and Education Committee

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hearing in mid-2002 over links between the international

education industry and ‘people smuggling’ with DIMA

indicating that more than 6000 overseas students had been

expelled from Australia in the previous 12 months for visa

irregularities (Contractor and Noonan, 2002). In fact most of

these students were attending vocational and pre-university

courses. Unfortunately for the ELT industry, considerable

confusion exists in Senator Carr’s press releases and in

subsequent reporting in the media over the distinction

between ELT colleges and those offering vocational

education.

11.6. The ELT Student Milieu

Students and their families provide the revenue base for

international ELT colleges. Students represent very different

constructs to the entrepreneur and the ELT educator in part

because of the divergent aims each has for them. Much of the

ELT entrepreneur’s work revolves around attracting students

to the college, so that issues such as product placement and

price point are uppermost. “Sell ‘em cheap and pile ‘em high”

is how one ELT entrepreneur explains his marketing

approach.

ELT educators, on the other hand, deal with the students

after the buying decision has been made and more keenly feel

the quality squeeze. It is up to the ELT manager to juggle

these two imperatives and negotiate the means by which

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attracting students and keeping them satisfied do not become

separate and antagonistic aims.

AEI conducted a survey of international students studying in

Australia who finished a course of study in 1999. The

questionnaire covered a wide range of issues including

satisfaction with course, institution, life in Australia, visa

regulations and related matters. The survey found that

around 90% of international students were satisfied or very

satisfied with the quality of education in Australia and with

the quality of the course they were enrolled in, and that more

than 90% of them would either ‘strongly recommend’ or

‘recommend’ studying in Australia to other students in their

home country. These satisfaction levels appear to have

increased on results from similar surveys conducted in 1992

and 1997 (DEST 2002a).

While international students were very satisfied with the

quality of the education delivery and support facilities, the

lowest levels of satisfaction in the survey were for the

opportunity to interact with Australian students (62% were

‘very satisfied’ or ‘satisfied’) and with the quality of this

interaction (72% ‘very satisfied’/’satisfied’). This may in part

explain why many international students see the people

aspect of ELT colleges as critical, in the main valuing colleges

with a friendly, welcoming and supportive feel.

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I’m happy with my college because all the staff are nice [and] the receptionist is friendly and knows my name.

Kim, Student, College A, 1997

A good college should look after students more than mine doesLee, Student, College D, 1999

This is my third college and is the best one because everyone is friendly

Masao, Student, College E, 1999

It is important for ELT managers to successfully

communicate to owners, managers and college staff the

customer lifetime value of students across various stages in

the buying cycle. Students have to be regarded as providing

value to the college at all stages of the buying cycle rather

than solely at point of initial tuition payment. The cycle starts

with the student recognising a need for education abroad.

The first value to the college, in terms of revenue, starts with

the student's decision to enrol at the ELT college and the

payment of initial tuition fees. Students however then enter

the second step of implementation, where they add value to

the college, as they actively participate in college social life,

sharing their diverse personal experiences, cultures and

skills, thus creating a multicultural and international

atmosphere which helps attract further students. There are

opportunities for the college in this phase. A student who is

happy in Sydney and satisfied with the course may decide to

either add on to their existing course by extending the

enrolment period, or take up another course with the college

upon completion of their initial course. After students leave

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the college, their lifetime value goes on in terms of their role

in Australia or their home country, recommending the college

to friends and family. In some cases the value of the

departing student to the college is further increased when

students return to their home country and become agents.

English teaching to overseas students in Australia follows a

wide range of paths and it is very difficult to completely

define all of the goals and purposes of the students especially

those that do not follow traditional academic paths. Many

students have a two or three step progression. They first

complete a General language course to provide them with a

sufficient linguistic attainment in English to commence an

Exam Preparation class. The Exam Preparation classes in

Australia typically prepare students for the UK/Australian

IELTS test of English proficiency (International English

Langauge Testing Service) or less commonly for the US

based TOEFL test (Test of English as a Foreign Language).

Following successful completion of the required language

entry level (an IELTS band score of 6.0 – 6.5 or a TOEFL

score from 550 – 600) students may then enrol in an EAP

(English for Academic Purposes) course to further prepare

them for tertiary study.

Students following these steps are considered ‘normal’ by

many outside the English teaching industry and in

organizations that are of importance to overseas students

coming to Australia such as the Department of Immigration.

At most private colleges however these types of students are

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becoming a minority. Even of the students who intend to

follow this path many, for English language or financial

reasons, do not end up pursuing it in exactly this way. This

has led to growth in many other pathways into tertiary

education; a popular one pursued by universities is the

Foundation Studies program that attempts to cover the High

School syllabus with modifications for overseas students.

Foundation Courses are typically one year in duration and

are frequently offered either by or in conjunction with the

university language schools. Another important pathway that

has emerged in recent years for both Australian and overseas

students is that of vocational study leading into related

university programs.

Unlike many overseas students struggling with university

courses, ELT college students have enough time to begin to

establish a network of Australian friends and employers and

to learn more deeply about the work system and the nature of

Australian society. Non-academic aspects of the educational

experience, however, cause many administrative headaches

for managers in international ELT colleges. A student who is

having problems with their teacher is usually less unhappy

than one who does not like their homestay family. Those who

have trouble with Australian food are likely to be far more

miserable than those who do poorly in a particular course.

Tax forms, illegal employment, sexual harassment and all the

issues of the workplace can intrude on a student’s English

study.

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Effective managers should know and understand their

student clients as well as possible. For ELT managers a keen

awareness of individual students and strong relationships

with them spreads to all other staff within the institution. An

attitude of I’m too busy to spend time with the clients can be

poisonous.

This could almost be a "compare and contrast" exercise. To wit: [Senior ELT managers during the period of the action research] would use first names with the students and know a fair few of them socially. I doubt the New Guard here would be able to put names to more than a half dozen faces, and if seen at the bar on a Friday, keep themselves to themselves. [This] serves to highlight some of the things that really made College E work back then. The students are just as pleasant a bunch as they generally tend to be, but for the first time in my experience they have been directing complaints about management to teachers, and I find myself agreeing with their concerns.

Nathan, College E, 2001

11.7. Action Research at College E: Milieu

As a result of research into organizational milieu and the

observations of milieu at other ELT colleges, at College E

aspects of milieu were part of the action research. From the

commencement of the action research discussions on milieu

issues with owners, teaching and administrative staff

formalised two issues that would benefit both the educational

and the entrepreneurial aims of the college. As with

initiatives in other organizational dimensions the milieu

initiatives aimed to have positive outcomes in both

educational and financial domains.

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The milieu dimension in an ELT college divides into two

broad areas of emphasis. These are issues affecting the

student milieu at the college and those affecting the staff

milieu. The first area was to support the attraction of a broad

cross section of students by nationality to the college and

build a student milieu that assisted in the development of a

student culture that was upbeat, active and enhancing. The

second area was the recognised management task of

attracting and keeping staff who would benefit the

organization.

Two initiatives, one in each area, were implemented within

the milieu dimension. Because of the nature of milieu

implementation and the time frames involved in hiring staff

and building a student body, the milieu initiatives lasted

throughout the action research.

The initiatives were:

Action Research Initiative M1: Action Research

Cycles 1 (July – December 1997), to 6 (January – June

2000): An enforced program to ensure student diversity,

particularly of national groups over the whole college and

in individual classes. Such a program to include the

development of positive incentives such as scholarships,

differential pricing and budget support for the

development of new markets. The program also to include

the ‘negative’ reinforcement of the imposition of a quota

system such that no one nationality could exceed 25% of

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the student body. The overriding aim being to work

towards the development and maintenance of a student

milieu at College E that was likely to produce an upbeat,

active and enhancing culture from the student

perspective.

Action Research Initiative M2: Action Research

Cycles 1 (July – December 1997) to 4 (January – June

1998): Develop a staff milieu likely to support a college

culture that was student centred and focused on student

learning experiences. Hiring to ensure that selection of

staff includes those likely to positively affect the staff

milieu, judging potential development equally with

qualifications and experience. Professional development to

be targeted to each teacher’s personal and professional

interests but also to include a strong emphasis on teacher

awareness of college management issues in all climate

dimensions.

The notion behind the first milieu initiative was that language

learning success and student satisfaction were likely to be

linked to group dynamics among a broad cross section of

students. Many ELT colleges in Sydney, such as College C,

created significant institutional problem by neglecting the

importance of this factor and attracting too many students

from particular countries. In order to implement the first

milieu initiative, therefore, and ensure student diversity, a

range of positive incentives such as scholarships, differential

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pricing and budget support for the development of new

markets were part of the management system at the college.

Such policies led to a range of significant management issues

in this area. In order to broaden the student clientele,

markets had to be developed in a wide range of countries and

regions, not only those that College E had strong links with

due to pre-existing relationships. The second, and more

controversial area, was the institution of differential pricing

structures that would serve to attract students from different

regions to build diverse classes, while avoiding charges of

discrimination that students from country X had to pay more

for their study.

The approach was modelled on that of airline seats. Markets

such as Vietnam that required heavy discounting on tuition

fees had many more conditions attached to their enrolments.

Courses were also packaged with Vocational College courses

at College E to disguise the amount of tuition for each

separate part of the package. Students from markets such as

Korea, which had to be limited, paid higher fees but had

much greater flexibility in the conditions of their enrolments

and in other services such as homestays offered by the

college. The differential pricing continued to be a feature of

College E’s marketing even after the end of the action

research period demonstrating its success in assisting

organizational outcomes.

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A quota system was imposed over the whole college and in

each class at the college such that no one nationality could

exceed 25% of the student body. While this quota system had

significant effects on revenue in the early months of the

college it was ultimately one of the most important reasons

for the continued growth and success of the college. Like

many of the most difficult managerial decisions there was a

short-term sacrifice of revenue for longer-term organizational

gains.

The only exceptions to the quota were at the extremes of the

student learning range so that beginner classes and

Academic English classes at times exceeded the quota. The

most significant difficulty in this area was not offending

agents who frequently requested just one more student be

squeezed in.

While certain actions changed and evolved, the underlying

emphasis of the initiative remained throughout the action

research period. Staff and management systems at the

college also had to ensure that the milieu supported the

development and maintenance of a student culture at College

E that was upbeat, active and enhancing from the student

perspective. Another tool to support this initiative was the

use of scholarships and tuition reduction aimed at retaining

students who by their personality or skills contributed

significantly to the ‘atmosphere’ of classes. This initiative

required management to raise awareness among teachers

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and administration staff of the importance of getting to know

the students who made classes work, and seeing classes as

groups that could be made to be functional and successful,

not only by the actions of the teachers, but also those of key

students.

In 1997 and 1998 a number of discretionary scholarships

were awarded to students of limited financial means who had

proven to be ‘energisers’ of their classes. For example, Yoko,

a 20-year-old Japanese female student, enrolled at College E,

for a single four-week cycle. Yoko was a wonderfully

supportive student interested in everyone and everything and

saw her experiences in Australia as the realisation of a long

held dream. She had the rare ability to motivate a group of

students from within. Her disarming manner and obvious

interest in all the details of other students lives and cultures

ensured that classes of which she was a member flourished –

out of the eight students in her class who had the option to

extend their tuition at College E at the end of that cycle every

single one did.

Yoko was offered tuition at 25% of the regular fees because

of the contribution she had made to the college. She was well

versed in traditional Japanese culture and was asked to give

various culture displays as ‘payment in lieu’. These displays

were so popular that students from other nationalities

arranged similar demonstrations and these informal activities

led to the development of a Culture Day at College E that

became a very successful annual event. With imitation being

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the sincerest form of flattery, the format of College E’s

culture day has since been copied by a number of other ELT

colleges in Sydney.

Student satisfaction is a slippery and awkward construct to

measure. The main indicators used at College E were

marketing staff and agent feedback based on the students

they represented and student extension of courses. While

agent feedback was based primarily on hearsay, rumour and

a limited understanding of educational issues, it still made a

critical difference to the success of the college. Because

students told their friends and their agents that their

experience at College E had been significantly better than at

competitor colleges, enrolments increased rapidly over the

course of the project from 0 in April 1997 to nearly 300 full-

time ELT students by the end of the project.

In order to implement the second initiative in the Milieu

dimension a number of management activities had to occur.

The hiring process at College E was streamlined to ensure

that potential new teachers were informed of hiring decisions

within a day of coming for interviews. All potential teachers

who came for interviews were treated with great courtesy as

their impressions of the college would also be communicated

to outsiders should they not obtain a position at College E.

Similarly short-term staff, such as relief teachers, were

always to be treated with great respect. Teachers who do

relief work at a number of colleges are very important

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sources of information about comparative advantages of

different colleges and can be roving ambassadors for a

successful international ELT college.

Great effort was made at point of hiring to ensure that

selection of staff included those likely to positively affect the

staff milieu. Future growth was seen as more important than

past qualifications and experience in selection of staff, and

newly hired staff were made to feel that their special qualities

ensured selection. Induction was personal and intimate.

The flexibility in the NEAS guidelines for teachers who do not

possess the full range of required qualifications was an

effective motivational tool in some cases. Peta, at College E

for example, was completing a Masters degree and had a

strong intellectual background. She had been a teacher of

deaf students and had various training and life experiences

such as running a large rural property that made her a very

appealing teacher. She was offered a position before she

completed her degree and was always most grateful for being

given a chance.

The importance of constant informal reinforcement of

contributions to the college was also stressed. Recognition

involves praise, being offered additional rights and

responsibilities, challenges, projects and learning

opportunities and getting rid of mechanisms that

communicate mistrust and lack of respect (Field, and Ford,

1995; p.58).

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Teaching staff had to be encouraged to see that the student

experience at College E would be as significant for them in

terms of social and affective domains as educational ones.

This initiative was largely implemented through constant ELT

manager support for staff who ‘went beyond the classroom’.

Functions, excursions and out of class activities were

supported financially and a strong emphasis was placed on

developing social activities for students. Students were

invited to socialise with staff most especially after excursions

and on Fridays after class.

From the very beginning of the college it was stressed that

the college wanted teacher involvement in a whole range of

activities. Teacher attendance at functions, parties,

graduations and so on are extremely important to students.

College E had graduation ceremonies in class time every four

weeks with all teachers present. Structured opportunities for

photo sessions and exchange of addresses were built into

these ceremonies and student performances were

encouraged at them. These graduations became significant

cultural events for the college and became an important

marketing tool.

Students were able to hire black academic gowns for the

graduations. The ceremonies were informal but were an

overwhelmingly popular initiative. Many students, especially

those from East Asia, attach tremendous importance to such

ceremonies for the closure they offer. The chance to have a

formalised time to take photos of, and exchange addresses

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with, other students and teachers was of tremendous value.

The ceremony took one hour out of every hundred teaching

hours so for the 1% loss in teaching time an effective closure

was made. It also made for a great marketing opportunity to

invite guests to the college and had minimal ‘bottom line’

costs and a large number of benefits. Especially appreciated

by the students was the attendance of their class teachers at

such functions. For teachers it was a relief from the constant

pressure to be developing lessons and it became quite a ‘hot’

monthly social occasion.

This initiative was successfully embedded in College life and

became an important ritual in the cultural sense. The

ceremonies are still held:

…at every graduation, I mention every positive comment from students about every teacher I can (and there are still so many) and every mention of the fun and friendly vibe of College E…

James, Teacher, College E, 2001

One valid criticism of educational administrators that is

levelled by opponents is that attempts to be inclusive and

build participatory styles of management are frequently a

disguise for manipulation. The sense of participation is a

veneer to maintain power (such as it is) while followers are

fooled into believing that the old style hierarchical system has

been broken down. To a certain extent this charge is as true

for College E as in other educational institutions. For

example, in 1997 and 1998 the college paid many teachers on

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an hourly rate for four hours teaching per day. The teachers

who performed self-access supervision or other duties in the

afternoon were paid on a daily rate that equalled five hours

pay. This division came to be interpreted by staff as an

equitable arrangement so that those who required higher pay

could work longer hours.

Later investigations by the teachers union however,

suggested to staff that all teachers who were working on

monthly or longer contracts should be paid on the daily rate

whether they had afternoon duties or not. Only written

requests from staff to be paid for shorter hours would be

legally effective. By the time this matter had been

investigated many staff, especially those who had other

outside work commitments, specifically did not want the

extra time commitment imposed. To a certain extent staff had

been manipulated to suit organizational ends. On the other

hand, simple award style conditions frequently do not match

the working situations for all teachers. Certainly since the

implementation of this system there has been a trend at

College E to hire younger and less experienced teachers to

compensate for the increase in the salaries component of the

organization’s budget.

The difficulty of management attempts at manipulating milieu

factors is that it is almost impossible to synthesise genuine

human emotions and relationships. Those with certain types

of dispositions cannot easily be turned from grumpies to

happies. Many staff however are strongly affected by the first

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experiences in an organization and regulate much of their

behaviour based on these early experiences.

Staff initiatives focused on hiring practices and the

importance of team building. Once again affective reasons

were given due place in decisions of hiring. Because the first

three teachers hired each had some reason to be grateful for

the chance to work at the college this key notion became one

of the factors in hiring. Owners, marketing staff and senior

ELT staff agreed that where other factors were equal

positions should be offered not necessarily on the basis of

qualifications and experience but also on factors related to

lifestyle and ability to contribute to the total feel of the

college.

In all but one case of the hirings made under these conditions

the initiative proved a great success. For example one

teacher hired had previously owned an outdoor landscaping

and gardening business. Because of the long hours and hard

physical work involved in such a business Ken brought a

fresh perspective to the work of an ELT instructor, rarely

seeing any imposition when compared to his previous work.

He also was able to get on very well with the large number of

students who were working in labouring jobs in their spare

time and was able to assist in both securing jobs and

ensuring that the students were treated fairly by their

employers.

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Danny, a former storyteller who lived in a small town a

number of hours away from the city, had previously had

trouble attracting the right kind of work because of

restrictions caused by his raising a child by himself and his

out of city location. By working with Danny to ensure that he

could secure employment at College E but retain his lifestyle

the services of a very talented and committed teacher were

obtained.

It is not always possible though, to secure such commitment.

In the case of Ben, a divorced father of four in very dire

economic circumstances an array of personal reasons and an

approach to work relations based on hostility in the past did

not lead to an outpouring of commitment but rather an

attempt to see a more embracing form as management as a

sophisticated capitalist trick. Attempts by staff to change this

point of view had only temporary effects and ultimately Ben

left the organization to work for a lower salary and with many

more restrictions in a more bureaucratised workplace. There

is no doubt that particular types of people become

comfortable even with dysfunction and cannot be easily

motivated to interpret management requests with anything

but suspicion.

Professional development of staff was also important. Rather

than focusing solely on the attainment of extra academic

qualifications the college tried to entice ELT teachers to

undertake courses in computing, marketing and management

offered by the college. ELT teachers who were looking for

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branches in their careers could avail themselves of these

opportunities. Mike, for example, was recruited as an English

teacher but was assisted in developing database skills and

ultimately moved from teaching English to teaching

computing. This gave him the opportunity to develop on-line

ICT materials that ultimately enabled him to obtain a highly

paid position with another organization as a professional

technical writer.

11.8. Conclusion

There are many features of milieu that can be manipulated by

an ELT manager to improve organizational outcomes. Action

research at College E suggests that strategies in the area of

milieu can have positive effects in other organizational

dimensions at international ELT colleges.

The milieu dimension is a reflection of the people who make

up the organization. Organizations however while made up of

people tend to be linked to a place with technology and

artefacts that can also be managed in many ways to bring out

the best in the people and that can demonstrate many

concrete symbols of the culture and structure of the

organization. The technology, artefacts and premises of an

organization relate to the climatic dimension of ecology and it

is to the ecology of international ELT colleges that this

discussion now turns.

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C h a p t e r 1 2

THE ECOLOGY OF INTERNATIONAL ELT COLLEGES

12.1. Introduction

Despite the increasing disintegration of the bounded spaces

of the modernist organization, place remains an essential

element in work organizations. The dimension of

organizational ecology discussed in this chapter includes all

of an organization’s physical and material aspects, including

location, premises, equipment and technology and other

‘physical’ items used to carry out organizational activities.

This chapter discusses the ecology of international ELT

colleges and the implications for ELT managers. It first looks

at the notion of ecology and its relationship to organizational

climate. It then outlines some ecological features of a number

of ELT colleges in Sydney and gives a brief overview of some

of their more significant contrasts. It provides some examples

of the links between ecology and communication flows. It

then briefly discusses ecological change at some ELT colleges

before noting in more detail ecological initiatives at College E

and the relationship of these to structural and cultural

variables at the college. It then concludes with a brief

summary of the chapter.

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12.2. The Relationship between Ecology and


Ecology is the most tangible dimension of organizational

climate and can be a symbolically significant statement of

organizational structure and culture. Ecological variables are

often taken to be indicators of the less tangible features of

organizational hierarchy and cultural imperatives. The extent

to which ecological variables can be manipulated to affect

organizational structures and cultures is hard to quantify but

there is no doubt that ecology can be a concrete expression

of a commitment to particular structural forms and cultural

values.

Organizational culture can have a powerful effect on

decisions that affect the ecology of an international ELT

college. An emphasis on the three cultural themes of

integration, collaboration and client service can provide a

significant basis for ensuring that the ecology of an

international ELT college will reinforce these themes and

assist in the resolution of the competing values of the

discourses of the entrepreneur and the educator.

As noted in Chapter 9 The Structure of Work Organizations,

the basic function of an organization’s structure is to

establish patterns of human interaction that accomplish

organizational tasks. Formal structures such as departments,

teams and divisions, and informal structures such as

friendship groups and people working in close proximity all

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contribute to the system. These formal and informal

groupings are powerful in shaping organizational behaviour.

Aligning ecological variables to maximise formation of

appropriate structure and culture is a tool that can easily be

ignored by ELT managers but it can be extremely effective if

used appropriately. Interaction processes include

communication, motivation, leadership, goal-setting,

coordination, control and evaluation (Owens, 1995; pp. 92-

93). All of these interaction and communication processes

can be assisted or hindered by organizational ecology and

management approaches to it.

It is likely that communal workspaces in an ELT college

would assist in the development of a different culture from

that where each teacher or staff member had a separate

office. The development of strongly collaborative task-based

cultures in organizations that are widely dispersed and

segmented is obviously more difficult than in those where

members are in constant contact.

An organization's culture can be shaped and strongly

influenced by ecological factors, and cultural values and

beliefs are often indicated in ecological ways. Indeed a

frequent recommendation of management consultants to

organizations attempting cultural transformation is to move

to more appropriate premises. For example an internal

'culture assessment study' by Corporate Impacts Consulting

to South Sydney Council strongly argued that the Council's

buildings were responsible for preventing attempts to change

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from a traditional protected environment to a more

contemporary work culture "characterised by flexibility,

empowerment and collaboration." The report blamed the

poor building design and location for producing a lack of

trust between management, employees and the public and

recommended that the Council shift its entire operations

because of the poor design of its building (Wainwright, 1996,

p.3).

12.3. Ecology and International ELT Colleges

ELT college management have to make many ecological

choices at various phases of the college’s development. In the

start up phase crucial ecological decisions determine the look

and feel of the institution. The choice can be made, for

instance, to exude an established look by renting premises

that have a historical look, such as a 19th century bank

building for example, or alternatively make a strength of the

newness of the college and adopt a modern corporate look.

There is no doubt that college premises play an important

role in creating impressions of an institution. One of the most

significant areas of NEAS accreditation inspections for new

colleges is of their premises to determine their suitability for

the teaching of English. Indeed, the Industry Commission

report (1991, p.5) spoke of the emphasis on ecological factors

in the accreditation of ELT colleges but also noted its

limitations:

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Accreditation is essentially intended to indicate that an institution has met or will endeavour to meet, certain quality standards. However there is reason to doubt that quality can be, or indeed, should be, regulated in this way. Regulating inputs such as floor space and library size can never guarantee the quality of the course ultimately provided, and it is a costly process. It may also constrain innovative course design and act as a barrier to competition

Many agents, especially those without backgrounds in

education, form their strongest impressions of a college from

its ecological factors. For new ELT colleges the common

gossip among agents and other third parties about the size

and look of premises can be ‘make or break’ in encouraging

or discouraging recommendations. Indeed in the intangible

domains of service organizations such as ELT, potential

customers tend to rely on the few available tangibles to

provide some indication of the quality of service. Walker

(1999; p.18) notes that an English language student or agent

therefore, may place considerable emphasis on quality of

marketing materials, the physical make-up of the institution,

décor, facilities, furnishing and equipment, facilities such as

the self-access centre, library and student common room, the

physical appearance and dress of the teachers and

administration staff and possibly the look and feel of teaching

materials and certificates and awards. Prentice (1996, p.10)

discusses the importance of design and other ecological

factors in ELT and their relatively under-utilised nature. She

writes that

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In ELT we have to create our own definition in order to focus on our customer’s particular needs. We are highly visual – our students are surrounded by noticeboards, displays, handouts, brochures, pamphlets, etc…

It is obvious that colleges need to be located in places where

students want to come (McGowan, 1996; p.5) and that the

premises are properly outfitted for the clientele. Most of the

ELT colleges discussed here are located in rented or leased

premises that are not purpose built educational buildings. For

many, such ecology is desirable and can lead to important

competitive advantages, such as low infrastructure

maintenance costs, easy organizational renewal and the

marketing advantages of an up-to date 'corporate' look. In

Sydney, in the central business district property recession of

the early 1990s for example, some ELT institutions moved

from unfavourable suburban locations into the ‘business’ end

of the city to take advantage of falling rents. As CBD rents

escalate this trend is reversing.

Many teachers and students have commented how important

it is for their college to be centrally located. The overall

demand for this in the Australian ELT market is evidenced by

the fact that almost all private English colleges in Australia

are concentrated in Sydney and in the Gold Coast/Brisbane

area. Despite attractive price differentials very few colleges

are able to operate successfully in rural settings and the few

that do are attached to regional universities. Within the

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capital cities such as Sydney, various suburbs and the CBD

tend to attract all the ‘action’. In Sydney most colleges are in

the CBD, or at Bondi Junction, a major rail terminus near

Bondi Beach. Colleges that operate in suburbs further afield

have tended to have problems attracting and holding

students and this was one of the reasons for the difficulties

College D experienced in attracting students to a suburban

location.

The nature of ELT institutions has meant that many can move

premises without their institutional character being lost.

Many prominent ELT colleges have moved premises or

relocated during the past decade and it is not seen as

essential to stay in the one place. The fact that accrediting

authorities include provision for adding or moving premises

as a ‘standard’ feature on accreditation documents is another

indicator that the fixed boundaries of the ‘modernist’

organization are less and less influential over international

ELT colleges.

College A, for example, has a very affluent look. It is located

in an office building on top of a fashionable shopping arcade

in the centre of the city. The college has expanded twice

since moving to its current location and moved premises

twice before this. The moves and expansions seem to provide

a tangible feel of success to staff and students rather than

hindrance or inconvenience. From the students point of view

College A’s current location is excellent. It is in the city

centre in the ‘shopping’ part of town. It is close to all the

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major urban transport terminals and is surrounded by an

array of famous tourist landmarks.

There are however a number of internal shortcomings with

the building itself. Colleges cannot usually afford to rent

premium office space and so tend to be in older buildings.

The elevators are very slow and there are no internal stairs,

which tends to make a division between the bulk of the

students and the college administrators. By having students

on a different floor to administration an alienation process

can occur with students removed from the focus of the

college. In many ways though these shortcomings are only

noticed after a student is already well settled at the college.

The leasing of colleges premises in the CBD is not without

difficulties. Service organizations such as colleges can find

opposition from landlords because building owners want

more ‘upmarket tenants’. Colleges can cause difficulties with

owners and other tenants for a number of reasons. Cameron

Algie, Director of Tim Green Commercial Real Estate (SMH,

2001; p.17), lists some of these as: students tend to

congregate at the entrance to premises, they smoke close to

the entrance, they leave rubbish and make noise. For these

reasons Algie suggests colleges will find it increasingly

difficult to find landlords willing to accommodate them. More

serious obstacles for college owners are the increasingly

stringent council requirements over health concerns,

ventilation, zoning and access. The numbers of students who

frequent a college on a daily basis is far in excess of most

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traditional users of corporate buildings, which in turn

increases wear and tear on all services in the building such as

foyers, elevators and common areas thus escalating

outgoings for landlords. Algie suggests that landlords who

lease to private colleges tend to ask for colleges to commit to

long-term leases at above market rentals.

12.4. Ecology and Communication

The ecology of an international ELT college has a significant

impact on management communication functions and

contributes to the overall creation of the climate of the

college. Hammond (2001, p.15) notes the importance of

communication between departments at ELT colleges, as well

as the fact that too often senior management intrude in the

communication flow to the detriment of the organization.

Bowers (1999, pp.3-4), in summarising a discussion on

management issues at the 1998 IATEFL conference, suggests

that organizational communication from a management

perspective can be arranged into the areas of sociating

(social functions such as greetings, wishing happy birthday,

etc.), organising (such as staff meetings, non-confrontational

seating arrangements) directing (official notices,

performance targets, codes of practice) presenting (annual

reports and accounts, prospectus, promotional video, briefing

material, technical proposals) eliciting (suggestion box, open

day, bulleting board) responding (FAQs, open staff meetings)

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and evaluating (appraisal systems, course reviews, feedback

questionnaires).

The sociating function of management is frequently

undervalued in the world of work. Phatic communication, the

term used to describe communication with little or no

significant content that greases the social wheels (such as

How are you? Nice weather we’re having, etc) is an essential

feature of human relationships. Ecological layouts that

prevent the regular run of sociating can create tension and

hostility. Social contact begins with these types of greetings

and they are often a stress-free way to steer conversations to

areas of significance that would otherwise be awkward to

broach.

The organization of staff is generally the communication

pattern that receives the greatest in-awareness planning

attention because it is the way that many managers see their

activities. All colleges in this project had effective systems of

staff meetings and distribution of information although the

colleges with more clearly hierarchical structures had less

oral contact between senior college managers and others. In

the area of directing the layout of noticeboards, most

managers gave little thought to where staff spend their time.

At College E the simple initiative of putting teaching

noticeboards above the photocopier where every ELT teacher

would spend 10 – 20 minutes a day created a significantly

greater awareness of notices than at other similar colleges.

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Information such as evacuation procedures is often posted

willy-nilly on the day before an inspection and then left to fall

off the walls until next year’s inspection. One innovative idea

at College C was to have students undergoing ICT training to

produce the fire evacuation notices and diagrams. Because

they were individuated and were produced by students from

similar countries to the ELT students more attention was paid

to them and they became a part of the classroom rather than

an ugly appendage.

Each of the colleges made some effort to have presentation

material available in the foyer of the college. College B,

perhaps because of its affinity with Japan made very effective

use of these presentation materials. Due to space restrictions

the large photocopier was moved to the foyer – this had the

effect of removing the formality of the area and having

potential clients and students entering and leaving the

college being able to interact with teachers. While some

teachers did not enjoy the added burden of attention after

class hours, in general it contributed to the intimacy of

College B and was an ecological initiative worth copying. At

College E common photocopy facilities for teachers and

students had a similar result.

Eliciting information in traditional ways did not seem to work

effectively in any of the ELT colleges, a combination of

language and cultural difficulties made the eliciting of all but

practical information quite difficult. Student noticeboards

generate items of interest to students, such as share

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accommodation and cheap mobile phone or Internet deals,

but little in the way of information that is of use to the ELT

manager.

Copies of inspection reports were placed on staff

noticeboards at College A and the idea was implemented at

College E. There is an advantage to making staff aware of the

inspection system and being able to see the results especially

when there are words of praise for the overall quality of the

institution. For many in ELT, especially younger teaching

staff, there is little basis for comparison and a team of

inspectors who comment that the college was successful in

achieving its mission can be of considerable importance.

One of the features of many workplaces is the rigidly held

views of territoriality and the desire of many to have office

space as an indicator of their status. While this may satisfy

the ego demands of managers, and help get them

contributing, it is likely that the enclosed office prevents the

informal, spontaneous communication that is so essential for

an organization’s success. The more that ELT managers can

be in places where ‘spontaneous’ communication happens the

less likely it is that serious management problems will

develop. Informal conversations with teachers, students and

administration staff are like smoke detectors – they are

effective warning tools should problems be developing.

The area near the photocopiers is a busy place in most

colleges. In one sense the copier is simply a resource that is

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used by administration staff, teachers and managers to make

duplicated copies of material for marketing, student records,

or teaching notes. Because there are frequently delays using

the machines – paper jams, toner replacement and lack of

user knowledge however waits and queues develop. The

copier becomes an important socialising place, perhaps a

focus for office gossip, an area where work information is

exchanged. There is often a conversational stimulus to

discuss the material to be copied so that the ELT manager

may say “Oh I’ve just finished this submission on our new

English for High Schools course” while looking at a teacher’s

lesson materials for that day with the intermediate class.

Small tinkering with the relatively minor matter of

photocopying arrangements may have much larger

organizational effects changing the way organizational

members see themselves. There are notable variations in

social distance and hierarchy between ELT colleges where

teachers do their own copying compared to those with copy

assistants who frequently come to be held in lower status.

Likewise colleges that allow staff to make as many copies as

they want compared to those that place restriction; those that

allow students to make copies freely compared to those that

charge a fee; those that allow students to use the same

machines as staff compared to those who don’t. In general

terms the more this potentially rich zone of organizational

interaction is proscribed and controlled the less valuable it

becomes as a means of meaningful communication exchange.

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Two years after opening College E implemented a change

from allowing students free copying bound only by Australian

copyright laws to one where the students had to pay using a

student only machine that was located in a different room.

This had a noticeable effect on increasing the social distance

between staff and students. The efficiency advantages were

considerable but they came at the expense of greater

connection with the clients.

The placing of pictures on the wall after social functions is

another effective ecological tool for the college. For example,

at College A on the day after Halloween, all of the students

were milling round the noticeboard outside the staff room to

see the photos of the previous day’s social event. The

tradition of putting the photos on the board creates a kind of

bonding as the teachers and the students share ‘memories’ of

events that have been important in creating the culture. The

spontaneity of having to look at something increases the

chances of communication – the business of the ELT college.

As in many other areas of teaching, displays on walls and

noticeboards around the college can also be effective. English

language students frequently produce work for display in

their classes and for social activities. Some ELT managers

prefer to keep the displays to ‘liven the place up’. This has

advantages but work with a clear calendar focus needs to be

monitored. At College C, for example, seeing the evidence of

the Valentine’s Day festivities in October simply gave more

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an impression of negligence rather than a fun-filled, activity

crammed social calendar.

Each year College E holds a Culture Day where student

national groups are given a budget to plan a display and food

and drink from their own culture. The day produces a great

buzz of activity, as there are over thirty nationalities and

cultures represented. Consulates and Embassies supported

the event and students themselves were quite competitive as

to who had the best display and tastiest food. For a small

outlay the college had an astonishing multicultural look and

the displays were kept for three weeks afterward. Each year

in the weeks after Culture Day at College E, there were

noticeable increases in local enrolments from students who

visited the college and saw the displays and photos on the

walls. Many agents commented how striking the alteration to

the usual look of the college was, and the impact that it made

on themselves and their clients.

As noted above, the layout of a college has particular effects

on the type of informal communication that can be central to

the creation of organizational culture. The creation of zones

of communication between the different dimensions of a

college – administration, management, teaching and students

can have a significant impact.

At College A for example behind the reception area is an

array of copy machines that all staff and students at the

college have access to. On the wall behind the machines is a

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display board for photos of student events. This area allows

for a heavy flow of informal communication and allows

frequent contact between all members of the organization.

On the other hand the offices of Principal, Registrar and

Directors of Studies are all separate and across the corridors

from the teaching staff rooms which creates a strong feel of

having to ‘make an appointment’ to discuss issues with ‘the

boss’.

At College B though, the staff room in 1996 led into the

Principal’s office. In order for the Principal to access copy

machines, coffee facilities, go to the washroom and so on he

had to walk through the staff room, providing a greater

chance that problems can be raised informally, in turn

leading to minimisation of conflict. By 1999, due to

expansion, this layout at College B was changed and the

Principal’s office was moved to a different floor. This has had

the noted effect of increasing management distance and

increasing the difficulties of management – staff

communication.

At College C the layout erected enormous barriers to

management-staff communication. All senior ELT and

Administrative management offices were at the back of the

college with their own kitchen, washrooms and copiers. This

meant that there was virtually no way to ‘run into’ the

managers for anyone on staff and is perhaps one explanation

for the greater staff communication difficulties at College C

and the sorts of discontent that led to a disgruntled former

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employee going to a Sydney current affairs program about

irregularities at the college.

At College E, with the benefit of closely examining these

three different patterns of layout for ELT management, it was

decided in the initial premises to combine some of the

features of College A and College B. The Principals office was

sited in the teachers’ staffroom with a meeting room that

could be used for private discussions (or as a small

conference room) next door. The Financial Controller and

Registrar shared an office next to reception with an open

entry arrangement so that it would be possible to greet those

inside from reception.

Both offices were located between the elevators and the

students’ computer rooms where all students could go to and

so would be able to see senior staff in informal ways. Staff,

agents and students themselves frequently commented on

how appealing this layout was. It certainly assisted in the

early success of College E.

The ecology of an organization can also impact on its ability

to be an organization that learns. While there is no particular

physical layout that of necessity produces a learning

organization, some thought has to go into workplace design

to ensure that the chances of the workplace becoming a

learning one occur. Perhaps the most significant aspect of

ecology for assisting learning organization is the chances of

interaction especially among those who may have different

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divisional responsibilities for similar clients. In small colleges

and educational institutions this may be the amount of

contact between those who work in the administrative and

teaching areas of the college. Frequently the workplace is

designed so that educators are effectively screened off from

administrative areas of the college; consequently teachers do

not understand the administrative aspects of their workplace,

while administrators rarely venture into teaching areas of the

college.

Student to student communication is also vital for ELT

managers to think of in the ecological audits of their college.

Free access to computers, printers, fax machines and

photocopiers such as existed at College A and College E

encourages students to see the organization as their home or

drop in centre and helps end the dilemma of ‘nowhere to go’.

Computer labs, as well as providing traditional educational

support and communication facilities over the Internet, also

fulfil a social role for students. A glance at any of the non-

teaching computer labs at College E would usually reveal a

lab nearly full of people either sending e-mail to their friends,

reading their country’s newspaper in their own language or

downloading pages of movie stars or similar. Activity logs of

Internet use showed that less than one in 20 sites visited in

1998 was a business or education related site.

Nevertheless the computer labs offered a semi-educational

activity within the college for international students who

were often lonely and alienated. They saw and see the college

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as a refuge while they find their feet. It is perhaps taking over

from the libraries of a previous age and indeed students from

South Korea often commented that the computer labs at

College E fulfilled a similar function to libraries in their

country where students would go as much to socialise as to

learn.

12.5. Ecological Change

Changes in other climatic dimensions lead to ecological

change. Colleges expand and contract, leases expire,

different courses are offered, staff numbers grow and many

other factors lead to need for ecological change. New ELT

colleges that need to project a strongly client focused image

can, after periods of strong growth, look more inward at their

internal procedures and see how ecological changes that

have costs as well as benefits can be rationally implemented.

Ecology is a contingent variable and getting the balance right

is an important management skill.

Further choices in premises occur when opportunities

through growth or contraction of student numbers present

opportunities to move or expand premises. Often in

successful colleges there is a need to acquire space as similar

as possible to the original to maintain the same look and feel

to the institution. For smaller ELT colleges other factors such

as distance become important because it is expensive to

duplicate many facilities and to have twin management or

administration systems across multi-campuses. Even the

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largest ELT colleges can move with impunity and apart from

the notification that is needed not too many problems arise -

indeed as colleges often move because they are becoming

financially better off, and because the move is to a better

premises, then all involved are actually welcoming of the

move.

The systems of ecological change are often implemented top

down so that people in the college are only aware of the

ecological change as it is being implemented. Discussions of

ecological change can often involve the most senior

managers first, who have to be aware of the costs and

dimensions of the project and then the next layer of

management who may have to be involved in decisions on

layout, and then finally operational staff who may decide such

matters as the location of furniture within rooms.

After eight months of operations at College E there was

already discussion of the need for new or expanded premises.

Despite the difficulties of being ‘full’ staff in the organization

had the very strong impression of organizational success.

There was a sense that future expansion of place meant

expansion and growth. So while at College E in the few

months after opening the primary ecological imperative had

been to ‘fill the space’ within a few months the problem had

changed to one ecological pressure:

Numbers are growing steadily - we now have about 50 English students and 200 business students. New problems now arise as the pressure on classroom space becomes apparent. It is

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interesting that we have now moved into a new phase where rather than being too 'empty' being the problem it is now that it is too full. Various small technical problems like air-conditioning not working in a classroom also become more of a problem now that there are no spare classrooms.

Action Research Notes Nov 1997

Expansion, which is the next ecological phase of a successful

college though, creates its own set of management dilemmas.

This is evidenced in the action research notes in mid-1998

Stresses and strains are again beginning to appear at the ecological level. The current premises is full to capacity and so we again have to find some extra space - it will be hard to manage the new annexe however we arrange it - it is not clear how students can have breaks, how staff can be inducted and assisted etc…

Action Research Notes June 1998

In the case of College E the promise of expanded premises

proved somewhat better than the reality. A host of logistical

issues are involved in the fitout of a new work premises. A

move or an expansion of a successful college involves the

attempt to replicate features of one location that may

themselves have been imposed by constraints.

Frequently external environmental factors can provide the

impetus for ecological change. Management frequently view

these types of pressures as threats to the established order of

the organization and yet they can be strong opportunities as

well. College A, for instance, was initially affiliated with

another college and shared premises and facilities with it.

The affiliate college was a victim of the 1990 upheavals in the

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then ELICOS industry and was finally taken over by a much

larger ELT organization. As soon as the takeover was

complete College A was instructed to ‘pack their bags’ and

find alternative accommodation.

At that time the owners and managers of College A thought it

was a devastating blow. With little experience in commercial

real estate and no expertise in premises selection they had a

very tight 2-month deadline to finalise leasing details on a

new college. Close to despair they finally decided to fitout a

new floor above one of downtown Sydney’s premier shopping

arcades. At the time the arcade was looking to refurbish its

entire seven floors and was anxious to attract the first few

tenants who would fitout their floors to enable other

prospective tenants to see what could be done with the

space. The fitout period took three months. During this time

College A had to operate from another floor in the building

that had a very cheap-looking 1960’s office partitioning fitout.

The owners thought that their predominantly Asian students

would be horrified by the temporary premises, but had no

real alternatives other than to complete the move and hope

that the promise of better facilities in the near future would

appease the students. Far from being dissatisfied with the

temporary accommodation though, the students loved it.

Many referred to its comfortable lived in feel and the fact

that there were small study rooms where they could chat in

small groups rather than the usual large cafeteria/common

room configuration of most colleges. Many of the students

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from the People’s Republic of China commented that the

décor reminded them of corporate facilities back in PRC.

Indeed when the time came to move to the brand new

beautifully fitted-out premises two floors above, many of the

students were sorry to be leaving their ‘home’. Getting

ecology right is complex management skill!

12.6. Action Research at College E: Ecology

As a result of research into organizational ecology and the

observations of ecology at other ELT colleges, at College E

ecological initiatives were incorporated into the action

research. At the commencement of the action research,

discussions on ecology with teaching staff showed little

awareness of ecology except within the classroom where

types of furniture and classroom layout were an area of

strong interest.

Chairs/desks in the classroom should be easy to move and preferably the teacher should have a chair on wheels to "spin" between groups.

Katherine, Action Research Cycle 1, College E, 1997

Teaching and non-teaching staff were happy though to

experiment with changes to more usual ecological settings.

The Action Research cycles in 1997 and 1998 emphasised, in

tandem with the other climate initiatives, the attempt to

reduce barriers across the organization to encourage

integration of activities, collaboration among staff and a

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greater focus on clients. This meant reducing the physical

boundaries between teaching and administration staff,

between teaching staff and students, between management

and staff and between management and students.

These areas of emphasis led to two concrete initiatives. These

were:

Action Research Initiative E1: Action Research


June 1998): Management not be physically separated

from staff except for meetings that had to be private for

reasons of confidentiality.

Action Research Initiative E2: Action Research


June 1998): Workspaces to be mixed and an ‘open

classroom’ policy to be implemented.

An open classroom policy was suggested where outsiders

were welcome to classrooms and could be authorized by the

teacher concerned without any need for permission from

management. Owners of the college were particularly

supportive of this measure because many potential English

college students like to have a first hand experience of the

college and class by having a ‘trial lesson’. In many colleges

this can cause friction with teaching staff who do not

welcome the regular intrusion of unknown students into their

class. The explication of the measure within a framework of

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open classrooms and combined with the ability of teachers to

also feel welcome in each other’s classrooms was a win-win

result. Teachers in training for ELT such as those doing

TEFLA certificate courses were also welcome to observe and

assist in lessons.

In order to implement Ecology Initiative 1 a meeting room

was created with conference table and chairs. This room was

located between teaching staff rooms, administration,

reception and marketing offices so that any who needed a

confidential meeting could use the facility but at other times

work would be in communal spaces. The Executive Manager

of the college also reserved a private office as he conducted

other businesses as well as College E. While the request was

reasonable it did limit the absolute commitment to this

principle.

Many routine management tasks such as preparing

documents, assembling material for accreditation authorities,

developing courses and dealing with student requests for

consideration in areas such as poor attendance or academic

performance did not suffer from this open approach and

many teaching staff were able to acquire management and

counselling skills by an osmosis process. The extra advantage

of this was that the day-to-day accumulation of operational

details was easily disseminated among staff.

In order to implement Ecology Initiative 2, teachers of

English, Business and Computing courses all mixed in

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different staffrooms and marketing, administration and

reception staff easily mixed over two offices and the

reception area. At first teaching staff and administration staff

were able to share workspaces but after the first phase of the

action research finished the division of teaching staff and

administration staff recommenced. One initiative that

spontaneously grew out of this experience though, was that a

‘women’s group’ of one Business teacher, one English

teacher, the deputy Principal, the Registrar, the Bursar and

the Chief Receptionist who all met once a week for a few

hours to discuss issues affecting their work at the college as

well as chat about personal issues. The official meeting was

then followed by a long lunch. While the intended means of

avoiding separation of line and support staff did not last

much beyond its experimentation period, in many ways this

group helped achieve its intended effect of avoiding

horizontal miscommunications at the college.

Debate about separate offices for managers was a fairly

constant feature of discussion throughout the action research

period. A concrete symbol of the end of management

experimentation was the building of separate offices for the

new ELT managers in the middle of 2001.

…a wall has literally been erected in the staffroom and (the new Principal, the ELT DoS and the Business DoS) all have their own little offices. It is so good that they are not in our space any longer. Their personalities are not conducive to an open-plan staffroom…. They are pure and simple, fish with big chips on their shoulders.

(James, Teacher, College E, 2001)

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and

...newer staff cannot believe how strongly we supported the idea of all staff in together in ‘the old days’, just goes to show that even the soundest of management principles can f… up if people are assholes.

(David, Teacher, College E, 2001)

The underlying aim of an ELT college’s ecology should be

that, within its limitations and constraints, it works to support

the development of the college’s structure, culture and

milieu. Its members should see it as a positive feature of the

organization and a reflection of the other dimensions of the

organization.

12.7. Conclusion

The label ecology can be used to cover the place and the

physical attributes of a work organization. This includes the

premises, its location, the fitout, the furniture, the resources

and the layout of the workplace. Issues that arise as to where

people spend their time and why certain places are attractive

or unattractive are important managerial concerns in

understanding ELT colleges and their dynamics.

This chapter has discussed the ecology of international ELT

colleges and some ELT management implications. It looked at

the notion of ecology and its relationship to organizational

structure and culture. It then outlined the premises and

locations of a number of ELT colleges in Sydney and gave a

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brief overview of some of their more significant ecological

contrasts. It gave some examples of the links between

ecology and communication flows. It then briefly reviewed

ecological change at some ELT colleges before noting in

more detail ecological changes at College E.

There are many ecological features that can be manipulated

by an ELT manager to improve organizational outcomes.

Action research at College E suggests some strategies that

can be used in the area of ecology and some of the effects

these had on other structural and cultural variables at the

college. The success of these strategies may offer direction to

ELT managers in similar situations.

It is to the cultural variables of ELT colleges and their

management that this study now turns.

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C h a p t e r 1 3

THE CULTURE OF WORK ORGANIZATIONS

13.1. Introduction

This chapter defines organizational culture for the purposes

of this discussion, then outlines some of the observable

features and behaviours of organizational cultures and the

connections between an organization's culture and its

structure, milieu and environment. A framework of analysis

that can be used as a classificatory and descriptive tool in

ethnographic research into ELT colleges is then suggested.

The chapter explores some of the implications of research

into organizational culture for international ELT colleges and

argues that an understanding of an organization's culture is

an important factor in the analysis of its educational and

entrepreneurial outcomes.

13.2. The Concept of Culture

In the social scientific literature the study of symbols and

symbolic forms has generally embraced the concept of

culture. Despite the enormous difficulties of ascertaining a

precise definition of culture and the manipulation or

management of symbolic forms, few analysts would disagree

that the concept is crucial in the understanding of social

scientific phenomenon. The concept of culture as a focus of

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study has a long background and this has led to divergent

investigations into 'culture' based on varying interpretations

of the notion. Before discussing the cultures of a number of

international ELT colleges in Australia the construct of

culture must be examined and defined.

Thompson (1992, pp.123 - 162) distinguishes four basic

senses of culture. Firstly the classical conception of culture

as a process of spiritual or intellectual development which

figured in the discussions of culture among German

philosophers and historians during the eighteenth and

nineteenth centuries; secondly the anthropological notion of

culture which Thompson terms the descriptive conception

which refers to the array of values, conventions, customs,

beliefs and habits of particular cultural grouping and the

later symbolic conception which focuses on the use of

symbolism as a cultural phenomena to transmit

understanding and to maintain cultural patterns. The fourth

sense that Thompson identifies builds on the symbolic

conception but takes more account of the structured social

relations within which symbols and symbolic action are

embedded. Thompson refers to this as the structural

conception of culture. The structural conception of culture

means that cultural phenomena:

may be understood as symbolic forms in structured contexts; and cultural analysis may be construed as the study of the meaningful constitution and social contextualization of symbolic forms.

(Thompson, 1992; p. 123).

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The classical conception of culture is of little relevance for

this study except in as much as it serves as a reminder of the

debate between prescription and description, relativism and

universalism, that underlies all social scientific research.

Identifying particular cultural activities as more or less

desirable, as higher or lower is an activity that assumes the

possibility of objective universal criteria of comparison. The

early universalist prescriptions of organizational cultural

theorists have been jolted by the failure to identify ready

made cultures that can be universally applied and notions of

'fit' or suitability to local conditions have prove awkward

when generalised across sectors.

The descriptive conception of culture has grown from the

works of the anthropologists and cultural historians who

were concerned with the ethnography of non-European

societies. This descriptive conception can include all variation

between human groups except perhaps for physiological

ones. This conception of culture has been criticised,

therefore, as being too broad and too vague becoming more

extensive than anthropology itself.

These problems with the descriptive conception of culture

within anthropological circles led to the development of the

symbolic conception of culture. The symbolic conception

argues that culture refers to symbolling - the peculiarly

human mental ability that allows events and phenomena to be

seen as a web of significance that has been spun by humans

themselves. Analysis based on this conception seeks to:

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make sense of actions and expressions, to specify the meaning they have for the actors whose actions they are, and, in so doing, to venture some suggestions, some contestable considerations about the [group] of which these actions and expressions are part

(Thomspon, 1992: p.132).

According to Schein (1985, p.50) for example, culture is a

group’s solutions to its basic problems of survival and

adaptation to the external environment and the integration of

its internal processes to ensure the group's continuity of

survival and adaptation. This broad view of culture can be

used to describe the behaviours and beliefs of any group from

a club or gang through to an ethnic or national group.

The chief difficulty with this approach to culture is that it

gives insufficient attention to the role of power and social

conflict within which cultural phenomena are embedded. If

cultural phenomena are expressions of power relations that

either sustain existing social orders or disrupt them to form

new social patterns, then there is difficulty with laying undue

emphasis on a neutral 'meaning', rather than on a more

individuated interpretation of conflicting meanings according

to the divergent meanings that cultural phenomena may have

for different individuals according to their different

circumstances, resources and opportunities.

In order to analyse and discuss the organizational cultures

that are the focus of this area of the study then, there is a

need for a more contextually embracing method of culture

that can include the contextualisation of social phenomena

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and the structured social contexts within which cultural

phenomena are produced transmitted and received. This

study adopts Thompson’s (1992, p.123) notion of the

structural conception of culture, which emphasises the

symbolic character of cultural phenomena and the

embedding of such phenomena in structured social contexts.

13.3. Organizational Culture

Whenever a person comes into contact with an organization

from a football club to a school to a work organization it is

apparent that they also come into contact with a variety of

rules and norms, stories about what goes on, various policies

and procedures, jargon, formal documents, insider jokes,

unusual rituals and varied tasks. It is because members of

each organization are able to interpret the meanings of such

phenomena in a fuller way than non-members that has led to

the idea that organizations have 'cultures'.

Alvesson (1993, p.1) however, notes that organizational

culture is studied by researchers from a wide variety of

disciplines including management, communication, sociology,

anthropology, psychology and folklore with research

orientations ranging from the positivistic to the interpretive

and post-modernist.

This variety leads to a wide range of research purposes,

interests, points of focus and philosophical foundations of

inquiry in the field and makes it extremely difficult to view

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organizational culture as a single, well defined, coherent area

of study. The differing research purposes and philosophical

foundations also make the precise definition of culture an

area of intense dispute. There can be a real difficulty in

disentangling the ‘organizational culture’ of management and

organization theory from the concept of culture used by

anthropologists because organizational studies, as studies of

groups or cultures, are based either explicitly or implicitly on

anthropological paradigms (Gamst, 1989, pp. 12 - 19).

Traditional organizational research has been criticised as

being based on outmoded anthropological perspectives, such

as structural-functional or configurationist views that fail to

explore “multiple native views” (Gregory, 1983), and even in

anthropology culture has no fixed or broadly agreed meaning.

In fact the whole notion of culture and the 'culture paradigm'

is a central feature of debate in recent anthropology.

Organizational cultures are neither monolithic not entirely

cohesive and each member's beliefs, values, memories and

experiences of cultural phenomena will vary. Nevertheless

regular interpretive patterns and configurations can be

discerned in each organization and allow organizational

culture to be discussed.

According to Tagiuri's model of organizational climate, the

culture of an organization is the dimension of the

organization that refers to its values, belief systems, norms

and ways of thinking, which come to characterise the people

in the organization. The cultural dimension includes the often

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unseen, almost unconscious, forces that comprise the

symbolic side of organizations and help to shape and

reinforce human behaviour in them. This dimension is

frequently described as “…the way we do things around

here”. The link between climate and culture is strong and in

many ways difficult to clearly demarcate. In particular there

are strong and recurring links with the structures.

When describing and comparing the cultures of different

organizations it is important for the ethnographic researcher

to try to indicate how items of ecology, milieu and

organizational structure interact with the particular

organizational culture. Indeed it is this dynamic relationship

of the different facets of the organization that ethnography is

most usefully able to illuminate in comparison with

traditional experimental or survey research.

The term ‘organizational culture’ became an area of

specialised interest in academic literature following

Pettigrew’s (1979) article On studying organizational cultures

and the work of Charles Handy. Pettigrew's article paved the

way for later research on cultural phenomena in

organizations by legitimising it as a concept worthy of

investigation. He defined organizational culture as the system

of generally and collectively accepted meanings, which

operate for a certain group on a certain occasion (Pettigrew,

1979, p.579). Pettigrew emphasised the concept of the

symbol and introduced notions such as the role of language,

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ideology, belief, ritual and myth in organizational life

(Hofstede, Neuijen, Ohayv, & Sanders, 1990; Alvesson &

Berg (1992).

There has been an increasing research interest in

organizational cultures since the early 1980’s (Alvesson,

1993; p.3). There is now a huge body of literature on the

culture of organizations and how their customs and traditions

influence the behaviour of their members. The various

models and approaches to organizational theory emphasise

different aspects of organizational and management

structure, however, and no model of organizational culture

can possibly map all the relevant phenomena.

While research into organizational culture pre-dates the

corporate culture boom of recent years, since 1980 a broader

and more consistent interest in it has emerged. It is probable

that when the impact of Japanese economic success began to

be noticed in other OECD countries, many western managers

felt that Japanese success may have been linked to their

corporate cultures. This suggested to many researchers that

the concept of organizational culture required further

investigation (Alvesson, 1993, pp.3-4). Thus, research interest

in organizational culture accelerated and in the early 1980s

Ouchi's (1981) book titled Theory Z and Peters & Waterman's

(1982) volume In Search of Excellence were both best-selling

works that explored the effects of culture and values on

corporate performance. Peters & Waterman, Ouchi and Deal

& Kennedy all define organizational culture functionally

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seeing it as a system of shared values and beliefs that

interact with the people, structures and control mechanisms

in an organization to produce the norms of behaviour in that

particular organization. All these writers view shared values

as "what is important", beliefs as "what is thought to be true"

and norms of behaviour as "how things are done around

here" (Owens, 1995; p.81).

While organizational culture was a concept ‘waiting to be

discovered’ it may also be that changes in the economies of

OECD countries and the growth of a more systemic analysis

of work interactions have made organizational cultures more

visible. The trend away from mass production industries to

those, such as ELT, that are based on service and information

also mean there are now many more organizations where

cooperation is more important than compliance.

Organizational culture, therefore, is now accepted as a very

real and observable feature of organizational life. It can be

best understood as a collection of solutions to the problems

that are typically faced by an organization, solutions that

have worked consistently and are therefore taught to new

members of the organization as a correct way to frame,

understand and perceive the problems that the organization

typically faces. As the organizational culture develops over

time it shapes assumptions about such deep culture notions

as truth, humanity and normality. In some senses it is a

cognitive patterning device - a way of structuring thought in

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order to increase certainty and predictability so that meaning

can be created and enhanced.

The shifting emphasis in writings on management and

administration away from the traditional focus on 'hard'

issues such as management systems, schemes, devices and

structures towards 'soft' issues such as culture reflects the

notion that hard issues can distract organizational leaders

from their real goals. Two basic elements of managerial

success are creating pride in the organization and

enthusiasm for its works, both of which are ultimately

cultural phenomena. At bottom effective management for

superior performance requires an organization to take

exceptional care of its clients or customers and to constantly

innovate.

This emphasis touches on three areas of concern in

organizational culture for international ELT colleges. These

are integration of activities and organizational goals,

collaboration among organizational members and a focus on

service and care of clients as the core mission of the college.

13.4. Describing Organizational Cultures

While organizational culture is an awkward and controversial

area of research it is a vital difference between organizations

and an important ‘real world’ indicator of what makes a

particular organization an identifiable entity. Hofstede,

Neuijen, Ohayv & Sanders (1990) developed an analytical

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framework of organizational cultures for their study of

organizational cultures in Denmark and Holland. Their

framework sees organizational cultures as consisting of

specific symbols, heroes, rituals and values that only

‘insiders’ in a particular organization can readily identify and

respond to. They see each of these levels of an organization’s

culture as being identifiable through practices that are

observable by, although less than fully meaningful to,

outsiders. Their model is reproduced in Figure 12.1.

Figure 12.1: Analytical Framework of Organizational Culture (based on Hofstede, Neuijen, Ohayv & Sanders, 1990)

In order to try to identify, describe and compare the

organizational cultures of the ELT institutions examined in

this research project the above framework was used to

gather and organize data. While there are obvious theoretical

problems associated with overly simplistic models of

organizational cultures it would appear that in comparing

organizations that are involved in similar fields of activity an

analytical framework such as that described above is a useful

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comparative and descriptive tool. It can help to focus the

researcher on relevant phenomena and enable comparison

between different ELT colleges to occur. It also works as an

organizing principle in recording and writing up research

data.

For the purposes of this framework symbols are seen as the

most easily retrievable pieces of data about an organization.

They are the words, gestures, pictures or objects that carry a

particular meaning within a culture and are often not readily

comprehensible to outsiders. Heroes are persons alive or

dead, real or imaginary who possess characteristics highly

prized in the culture and who thus serve as models for

behaviour. These people personify the culture's values and

provide tangible role models for others.

Rituals are collective activities that are technically

superfluous but are socially essential within a culture -

activities that are largely carried out for their own sake. It is

possible to further distinguish between the systematic and

programmed routines of day-to-day organizational life and

the orchestrated or extravagant aspects, which are

sometimes, termed 'ceremonies'.

The practices relating to these symbols, heroes and rituals

can be observed by outsiders but the meaning of such

practices lies in the way they are perceived by the insiders.

Penetrating this network effectively can aid a researcher in

understanding what is really going on. Learning about the

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cultural network and the practices relating to the

organization's symbols, heroes and rituals assists in

identifying the values which are the core of any

organizational culture. These deep values inform all other

organizational activities and may be seen through the

outward manifestations and practices of the members of a

particular cultural grouping.

Organizational culture can be inferred by observing

behaviour, but it is not the study of the behaviour but rather

of the system of knowledge, values and beliefs that gives rise

to the behaviour. The following chapter examines how college

practices in the culture areas of integration of work tasks and

organizational goals, collaboration among organizational

members and a focus on service and client care are enhanced

or inhibited by various symbols, rituals, heroes and values of

the organizations concerned.

13.5. Organizational Culture and Organizational

Effectiveness

Organizational effectiveness, while a common real world

basis of comparison between organizations, presents

tremendous theoretical problems. In this research project

when comment is made about organizational effectiveness it

is considered from a managerial perspective and is a

combination of organizational goal attainment and system

resource acquisition. Organizational effectiveness can

obviously be viewed very differently by other stakeholders in

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an educational organization such as teachers (who may focus

more on 'needs satisfaction' of staff) or students (who may

focus on the appropriateness of instruction for their

individual goals). One of the advantages of the ethnographic

approach is that these perspectives can also be illuminated

and allowed some 'voice' in the data.

Nevertheless much of the research interest in organizational

cultures stems from the hypothesis that culture is an

important variable in organizational effectiveness and that

certain types of organizational cultures are more likely to

lead to effective organizational outcomes than others. It is

possible to take either a positive or a negative view of the link

between organizational culture and effectiveness. The

positive or tool view of culture sees it as offensive, something

to be used by management to improve effectiveness. The

negative or trap view of culture sees it as defensive - a

possible impediment to the attainment of organizational goals

such as financial profit and stakeholder satisfaction.

Many writers have argued that there are close links between

organizational culture and organizational change. Indeed

managing culture is frequently equated with changing

culture and the improvement of organizational performance

is frequently seen as a matter of achieving planned cultural

change. One possible reason why organizational culture has

such an impact on performance and life chances of

organizations is because when choices must be made,

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organizational values become, at least for most members of

an organization, an indispensable guide in making them.

Kanter (1983) in her analysis of culture and climate in a

number of US corporations found that pride in the

organization and a focus on successful organizational

outcomes seemed to correlate with the level of integration of

the organization. Holistic thinking combined with a

questioning of traditional practice seemed in Kanter’s wide-

ranging study to be significant cultural factors. Segmentation

on the other hand, where organizational members are

isolated and mandated to focus solely on their particular

corner of operations may make it difficult for members to feel

a sense of belonging or pride in their organization.

An emphasis on integration, belonging and participation can

assist in achieving both increased profitability and increased

educational quality satisfying both entrepreneurial and

educational prerogatives. Effective outcomes for ELT colleges

are more likely for colleges that have a culture of belonging

to the whole organization and one where members feel a

sense of responsibility for overall success rather than simply

being commissioned for one specific task.

Senge (in O’Neil, 1995: p.21) has noted that educational

institutions can suffer the twin cultural disadvantages of

being stratified but with people at most levels seeing

themselves as holding very little power. He argues that one

characteristic of an organization that has a low ability to

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learn is that people at all levels feel ‘disempowered’ – the

general mood being that one does not have any leverage with

which to make any difference. This problem of fragmentation

and disempowerment is a sign of a weak organizational

culture and one that proactive ELT managers need to inhibit.

The second cultural construct that would seem of importance

in international ELT colleges is that of collaboration.

Hargreaves (1994, pp.244 - 245) speaks of cultures of

collaboration in education. He sees collaboration becoming a

kind of metaparadigm of educational and organisational

change. He sees collaboration as one of the most promising

metapardigms of the postmodern age as a device for

articulating and integrating principles of action, planning

culture, development, organization and research. He argues

that some of the reasons supporting the positive effects of

collaborative work cultures are that they provide moral

support, strengthening the resolve of organizational members

and allowing vulnerabilities to be shared. Collaboration also

contributes to improvements in efficiency through a

reduction or elimination of duplication and redundancy.

Collaboration is likely to improve prospects of the college

remaining effective by encouraging a degree of risk taking

and a greater diversity in educational strategies. Managers in

a collaborative organization are likely to avoid overload

because of some sharing of the burden of decision-making. A

further advantage is likely to accrue to the college as a whole

because of a narrowing of the difference of time perspectives

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between administrators and teachers. A greater unity of time

perspective also assists in reconciling the event orientation of

teachers with the process orientation of managers. (For

further discussion of event orientation and process

orientation see Chapter 15).

Hargreaves (1994a, p247 ff) also notes some of the problems

of collaboration including that it can be comfortable and

complacent, confined to the least controversial areas of

teachers’ work consolidating rather than challenging

traditional practice. It can also be terribly conformist leading

to groupthink and suppressing individuality and can be a

contrived administrative device that can be used to suppress

effective change. It seems important that collaboration is not

seen as being located within a division of an organization

where all members are responsible for a similar task but

rather across organizational divisions so that the

collaboration is for the organization.

The third cultural area that may impact positively on

organizational outcomes for ELT colleges is that of a focus on

service. Walker (2000, pp.23-33) has argued that ELT

practitioners have largely located their activities within

education and linguistics but that the underlying commercial

nature of many ELT operations also makes their activities

similar to those of other front-line service providers. They

share a range of communicative, interpersonal and

reflective/analytical skills with others in front line service

provision. ELT teachers are largely responsible for the quality

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of the core operation of their colleges and under the right

conditions can create considerable competitive advantage.

13.6. The Relationship between Organizational Culture

and Climate

While all four dimensions in Tagiuri's model obviously play an

important role in determining the performance of an

organization, organizational culture has come to be seen by

many researchers as the most significant of the four

dimensions in defining the character and quality of the

climate of an organization (Owens, 1995: p.80). In the 1980s

business and management writers such as Deal and Kennedy

(1982) strenuously argued the urgent need for organizational

leaders to understand the power of organizational culture.

They suggested that the creation and cultivation of effective

organizational cultures was the chief variable in determining

organizational outcomes.

Organizational culture is often intuitively felt to be a critical

aspect of organizational climate. The ‘feel’ of a college may

well be related to ecological or milieu features but the

organizational culture is often responsible for emphasising or

bringing about such features. As Owens (1995, p.82) points

out, when studying organizational culture:

...one looks at the artefacts and technology that people use and one listens to what they say and observes what they do in an effort to discover the patterns of thoughts, beliefs and values that they use in making sense of the everyday events that they experience. Thus organizational culture is the study of the

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wellsprings from which the values and characteristics of an organization arise.

One of the reasons that organizational culture is of interest in

management research is that it seems to be an area that

offers leverage to the manager to bring about more effective

outcomes for an organization.

Organizational culture is the patterning of the social

structure, the patterning of communication/interaction and

the group expectations that come to distinguish and define

particular organizations. Such 'culture' is not a completely

static or unitary entity and it can be realised through multiple

identities and levels, both formal and informal, reflecting the

fact that organizations are frequently worlds "locked in a war

of meanings" (Hamada, 1994, p.10).

The transition from modernist to postmodernist organizations

brought about by rapid social and economic change has

demanded and will demand deep changes and adjustments in

attitudes. Owens (1995, p.207) points out that such changes

that touch on the central core of assumptions and structures

of an organization are far more difficult to achieve than

simple behavioural changes. Reworking this central core of

assumptions and structures involves significant adjustments

in the organization's culture. For this reason organizational

culture is frequently identified as a significant area of

leverage in organizational change.

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For those who wish to change and improve their

organizations, however, the question is to what extent the

organization's culture can be consciously altered and

manipulated to produce desired outcomes. In the narrow

managerial view of culture, culture is something an

organization 'has' which can be easily tampered with to

improve performance. The broader anthropological view of

culture, though, which sees culture as something an

organization 'is', suggests that deep changes to

organizational cultures may be far more difficult than is

usually thought (Anthony, 1994, p.28).

The two differing views of organizational culture lead to

distinct and often conflicting commentaries in research data.

Occasionally the two become confused so that the

'inspirational view' of an organization's culture, how

managers of the organization wish the organization's

members and the public viewed them, is taken to be the real

culture of the organization even when there are big

differences between this espoused corporate culture and the

'real' one. Analyses of the influence of organizational culture

on organizational change have usually focused on changes in

this idealized management version of culture. Ethnographic

studies of organizations need to get 'underneath' the

management view of the organization's culture to reveal the

tensions between the idealised and the actual culture of the

organization.

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Nevertheless the drive to manage culture springs from the

possibility of using its evident strength and its ability to

influence behaviour and relationships so as to harness an as

yet minimally tapped organizational resource. From a

management perspective the aim should be to bring the

meaning given to the organization by its members ever closer

to the view that the organization or its leaders takes of itself.

The, perhaps unreachable, goal is that the organizational

culture ultimately does become synonymous with the

idealised 'corporate' one (Anthony, 1994 p.48).

13.7. Conclusion

This chapter has examined the construct of organizational

culture and some of the difficulties involved in investigations

of the cultures of work organizations. It has outlined the

frameworks used in both investigations into work cultures of

ELT colleges and of the relationship between culture and

other aspects of an ELT college’s climate.

The framework of Hofstede, Neuijen, Ohayv & Sanders was

used to guide data collection in the area of ELT college

cultures in the following chapter. Three cultural themes,

those of integration, collaboration and service have been

identified in this study as being of significance in the

enhancement of organizational effectiveness in an

international ELT college. While recognising the theoretical

difficulties involved in the use of cultural constructs,

organizational culture at international ELT colleges is likely

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to be a significant variable influencing organizational

effectiveness.

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C h a p t e r 1 4

THE CULTURE OF INTERNATIONAL ELT COLLEGES

14.1. Introduction

Organizational culture is the least tangible dimension of

organizational climate and yet it is likely to have a powerful

effect on the other dimensions and on the overall climate of

an international ELT college. It is argued throughout this

work that an emphasis on the three cultural themes of

integration, collaboration and client service can have positive

repercussions throughout an international ELT college and

influence its vision and values drawn from differing

discourses, its organizational structure, its milieu and its

ecology.

Richards (2001, pp.374 – 377) has identified organizational

culture as a primary institutional factor affecting quality

language teaching in ELT colleges. The discussion in the

previous chapter highlighted, however, some of the

difficulties that arise in the discussion and analysis of

organizational culture. Nevertheless it is a concept with

significant real world consequences, and one that instinct and

intuition, along with research, indicate as a vital area of

concern for ELT managers.

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This chapter examines the organizational cultures at

international ELT colleges and considers them in relation to

the theory discussed in the previous chapter. It describes

some cultural initiatives that took place at College E and their

effect on the organizational culture of that college. The

argument is made that a strong in-awareness focus on the

creation and maintenance of an integrated and service

oriented organizational culture with a collaborative approach

to work tasks is an essential and achievable ELT management

aim.

14.2. Integration

Organizational cultures obviously vary in intensity and

strength. White, Martin, Stimson & Hodge (1991, p.17) in one

of the central practical books on ELT management argue that

ELT colleges with a strong sense of mission, effective

leadership, committed staff and students and a strong base of

social support will be more likely to succeed.

Integration was identified in the previous chapter as being a

significant aspect of organizational culture that is likely to

impact upon organizational performance in ELT. Where

management strategies, teaching styles and underlying

organizational culture are in harmony they can reinforce each

other, whereas when management strategies and teaching

styles clash, teachers and managers are likely to experience

conflict and difficulties, negatively influencing their work and

their relationships with each other and with their clients. ELT

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managers, in their bridging role between the operational and

the administrative arms of their colleges, can work to

integrate consistent values from the classroom to the

reception desk to the managing director’s office.

Such integration needs to be kept in-awareness and

continuously reinforced at all levels or else a drift to

balkanisation can occur. This need for a constant hands-on

implementation of integration values and strategies was

noted by Learning Organization theorist Peter Senge in an

interview about educational institutions as learning

organizations. Senge (in O’Neil, 1995, p.22) noted that in

many cases even organizations that have worked to produce

and implement a vision have it undermined by making the

vision an ‘event’ rather than a ‘process’. Going off to write a

vision statement and then going back to work is pointless.

The production of shared visions, the creation of a field of

shared meaning that is likely to produce a deep sense of trust

and mutual understanding, and its integration across an

organization takes a long time and involves a lot of reflection

and a great deal of listening and communication. In Senge’s

opinion 20 – 40% of management time ‘forever’ needs to be

spent on working to get people to reflect on and articulate

what it is they’re really trying to create and keeping a focus

on the whole organization working together.

Senge’s work on learning organizations is one meta-strategy

that bridges the discourses of the entrepreneur and the

educator. It is, at heart, a strategy of organizational

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integration, staff collaboration and a clear focus on clients.

Many of the principles outlined in learning organization

descriptions are focused on integration and the cultural

dimension. One definition of a learning organization is a

…group of people pursuing common purposes (individual purposes as well) with a collective commitment to regularly weighing the value of those purposes, modifying them when that makes sense, and continuously developing more effective and efficient ways of accomplishing those purposes

(Leithwood, Jantzi & Steinbach, 1995; p.231)

A work culture of integration allows a greater degree of

organizational learning. Argyris and Schön (1978, p.353),

argue that organizational learning is a process of the sharing

and modification of assumptions shaped by cultural means.

They suggest that organizational learning is related to all

other aspects of an enterprise but that if no conscious effort

is made to direct and integrate learning across the

organization the learning will be haphazard and ultimately

directionless. As well as haphazard learning Argyris and

Schön identify the concepts of single loop or goal-based

learning and double loop learning in organizational contexts.

This notion has become a central idea in later writings on the

learning organization. Argyris and Schön (1978, pp.2-3)

define single loop, goal-based learning as learning content;

that is the acquisition of a greater amount of knowledge

relating to the solution of a familiar problem. It is

thermostatic, detecting when it is too hot or too cold and then

responding by turning the heat on or off. If an error is

detected and then corrected allowing the organization to

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carry on its present policies or achieve present objectives,

then that error detection and correction process is single loop

learning. Double loop learning, on the other hand, involves

learning about processes, and thus questions and challenges

the fundamental assumptions under which organizational

transactions are occurring. Double loop learning involves

reflections upon an organization's underlying values and

norms and leads to the modification of those that are

unsuitable. Double loop learning occurs when error is

detected and corrected in ways that involve the modification

of an organization's underlying norms, policies and

objectives.

Handy (1991, p.56) also makes a distinction between the

learning required to solve a particular problem and the habit

of learning to examine the processes that lead to such

problems occurring so that they can be avoided. While

learning, especially for educators, has very positive and

powerful connotations Argyris and Schön (1978, p.353) are

careful to note that organizational learning can also be

dysfunctional. Learning is an 'amoral' process and certain

kinds of learning and change such as deterioration or

learning how to deceive and manipulate are negative.

The notion of the learning organization has become a popular

organizational and management concept over the last

decade. Field and Ford describe the concept thus:

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The learning organization … sees knowledge as the primary resource and learning as the key tool to obtain it. In this sense knowledge is not theories and technical abstractions but a living mixture of information and concepts combined with the understanding necessary to apply them to the analysis and solution of problems, planning and prediction. In order to obtain maximum benefit from this the organization and the employees need to be effective at learning. Part of this learning is the recognition of the need for integrated approaches and the understanding that no strategy is sufficient by itself. … what is important is getting the right combination of strategies

(Field & Ford, 1995: pp.4-5)

Most educational organizations have reasonable levels of

support for individual learning but not enough for

organizational learning. In many cases the knowledge that

the organization really needs to improve is too fragmented

and piecemeal to be utilised effectively (O’Neill, 1995: pp20-

22). Analyses of entrepreneurial businesses suggest that they

require less up-front planning and more implementation

analysis and double loop learning than is typically practised

in larger or public sector organizations. Survival often

depends on a combination of creativity and a "superior

capacity for execution". This ability to execute creative ideas

quickly and successfully requires integrating action and

analysis in a process that resembles constant action research

(Rist & Joyce, 1995; pp.127-131). The combination of typical

‘educator’ learning with that of typical ‘entrepreneur’

learning is, therefore likely to be more beneficial to an

organization than either one alone.

Improvements in integration of financial and educational

matters can improve organizational outcomes. At none of the

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colleges in this study except College E did teaching staff have

even remote ideas of the pricing of the courses they were

teaching. While most ELT teachers perceive that this is

something for ‘administration’ a simple understanding of

course fees and advantages and disadvantages in such

factors as long and short term enrolment can assist

tremendously in attracting students to the college, advising

them once they are there and in understanding the overall

operation of the college.

In non-financial areas too, integration can easily produce

improved outcomes. College D for example had Australian

students studying in the same institution as the international

ELT students. Little thought or effort was given to

procedures that could improve the learning experiences of

both groups even though contact with young Australians is,

according to data on international students collected by AEI

(DEST, 2002a), the area of least satisfaction for international

students in Australia. College B, on the other hand, made use

of the limited opportunities for mixing the international

students with the Australians learning Japanese in the

evenings at the college. The promotion and support of events

that encouraged such mixing was an important feature of

college life for many of the international students at the

college.

Integration of activities also extends to documentation and

external inspections of the college. In some colleges the

requirements of the NEAS and its annual inspections are

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seen as a kind of flaming hoop that needs to be leaped

through once a year and then forgotten. Systems do not get

put in place that can satisfy regulatory requirements and

practices are allowed to develop that have to be covered up

or disguised at inspection time. At College C for example the

accreditation requirements were perceived as having a lack

of relevance to day-to-day operations, so much so that a

consultant had to be brought in to assist the Director of

Studies in completing annual accreditation returns. Most of

the elements required, though, were sound commercial and

educational items and would have required little management

effort to integrate into routine college practice. A reluctance

on the part of owners of the college to work more

collaboratively with the ELT management and staff, and a

tendency to make abrupt policy decisions without sufficient

consultation, suggest that a lack of commitment to

integration was responsible for these difficulties.

Integration strategies can also be useful across educational

arms of a college. College A and College C each had

vocational and English colleges on the same premises. There

was some management level awareness of the need for

greater integration to increase collaboration between the two

areas. Teaching staff, however, saw a strong difference

between the two divisions and without active programs to

ensure integration both colleges ended up with divided staff

rooms and areas of conflict between their ELT and vocational

operations. Part of the difficulty was that many ELT

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practitioners had a view of vocational courses as more

‘serious’ and academic, while in return vocational college

staff saw the ELT teachers with, often, better teaching skills

and a more creative and innovative approach to classroom

practice. Differences in hours and expectations also caused

resentment.

At College A, for example, two teachers of business

communication had less qualifications and experience than

the English teachers but were employed full-time with a very

light workload. The English teachers resented the distinction:

It would have been more bearable if either of them were really qualified and then you could think, “Well one day I'll be able to bludge like that,” but the fact that they were barely qualified to teach made things really irritating.

Gloria, Teacher, College A, 1997

College A may have been able to avoid this point of

contention if it had offered the teaching of courses in

Business Communication to English teachers who had a

background in the area or perhaps by restructuring the

Business Communication modules of the vocational courses

to increase their teaching workload.

It is not only integration among organizational members that

is a key feature of a sound organizational culture; ELT

managers themselves have to think holistically. An emphasis

on a culture of integration allows solutions to organizational

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problems to be taken in wholes, not parts, by college

management.

14.3. Collaboration

There is a palpable feel to a thriving work organization. The

slings and arrows are just as present, the tensions and

discoursal contradictions never completely disappear, but

there is a sense that we shall overcome, that no problem is

insurmountable, that one works to solve difficulties not to be

ground down by them. In such an atmosphere people can

grow and experiment rather than shrink within themselves.

In person dependent service industries such as ELT the

creation of this feeling may be vital.

One concept in the area of organizational culture that may

assist in the development of such a feel is that of

collaboration. As the etymology of the word suggests,

collaboration is simply working together with others for a

common purpose. It is the sense that all in the organization

are collaborators, pulling together that it likely to contribute

to a strong positive work culture with consequent impact on

organizational outcomes. It is linked to and grows from an

integrated approach to organizational activities but it focuses

on the people within the organization and their spirit of

cooperation and common purpose with each other.

The management of culture springs from an understanding of

the symbols, heroes, rituals and values of the organization all

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of which underpin the ongoing practices of organizational

members. Managers have to be initiators and creators of

some of the symbols, rituals and values but also need to

encourage other organizational members to be ‘heroes’ to

allow the culture to flourish. In fact a successful manager

should be able to eventually remain in the background with

the development and increasing confidence of organizational

members who take on the role of heroes. Over time, as staff

are inculcated into the organization, they take on the ethos of

the college and many are keen to further its values. Such

organizational members have to be encouraged. In such

cases the ELT manager may still need to fine tune proposals,

ensure that they align with other organizational goals,

perhaps contribute on budgetary matters and an

understanding of implementation of more complex initiatives,

but allow experimentation and a chance for organizational

members to grow the college and contribute to its value.

Collaboration contributes to improvements in efficiency

through a reduction or elimination of duplication and

redundancy. International ELT colleges become repositories

of enormous amounts of data and records. In many colleges

by default these records become dispersed and do not feed

back into decision-making. Even with the advent of

computerised record keeping few colleges are able to

systematically use their records to assist college

development. Keeping academic, financial and feedback

records in one physical location and on one linked database is

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a simple but effective collaborative strategy. Data mining for

links, such as that between student progress and re-

enrolment, can provide valuable information for college

marketing. Simple monitoring of student feedback can

suggest which teachers need extra attention or support.

Ecological factors can be used to assist in the development of

collaborative cultures. Communal workspaces and open plan

offices allow more collaborative cultures to develop than

those where each small group of teachers and administrators

have separate offices. Among teaching staff the sharing of

lessons and resources, timetables that share classes between

teachers, work tasks that involve teachers in collaboration to

produce common exams or to team-teach for particular

projects, all serve to reinforce collaboration and break down

the isolation of the classroom.

Collaboration influences the way decisions get made. At

College A, for example, a style of informal discussion-based

decision-making in place of formal minuted meetings and

decisions by committee led to an enormous advantage in the

speed of decision-making. The possibilities of mistakes,

where a single owner makes the decisions, are avoided as

well as the time delays of formal committee decision-making.

Trivial items can become symbols laden with cultural

meaning for good and ill. Two particular symbols that seem to

vary across different international ELT colleges in Australia

are those relating to dress standards of teaching staff and the

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management of and access to resources within the college.

Restricted access to photocopiers, for example, can cause

staff resentment out of all proportion to the cost savings. Hal

had taught at another college in Sydney before commencing

work at College E. He frequently denigrated his former

college. Thus:

I did some work at College H. Absolutely awful. All men had to wear ties, which was silly enough, but there was a photocopier that required a code before copying could be done. I spent a week there before [an ELT manager] finally got a code sorted out for me. For that week I couldn’t even make a single copy at the college and none of the other teachers would tell me theirs or let me use theirs as the number of copies they could make was so restricted they had none to spare. As I said, awful!

Hal, Teacher College E, 1998

The lease of a photocopier is a fixed resource. Most leasing

arrangements work out to approximately 5c per copy.

Reducing the number of copies in a college by 100000 per

year (nearly 2000 per week) still only works out to a ‘saving’

of $3000 - $5000 or the average cost of one twelve month

student enrolment. For the extra stress on teaching staff, the

reduced service to students and the possible damage to the

college’s long-term reputation by ex-teachers criticising the

college the savings in this area are highly suspect. It is

difficult to see this strategy being implemented in ELT

colleges with collaborative approaches to decision-making

and thought given to the organization wide consequences of

such decisions.

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Humour is increasingly discussed as a sign of heath for both

managers and organizations generally. Rodger (2002, p.8)

lists a sense of humour as one of the most significant features

of a good ELT manager and the ability to promote humour

and share in it as a significant management task. It is

important to teachers, too. John, a teacher at College E in

discussing some changes at the institution in 2001

commented that because of an increasing formality at the

workplace:

…the staff grew sadder and more restless, teaching began to decline, and nobody sang songs in the office, not even me! It was so sad, and the 'older' staff began to reminisce…

John, Teacher, College E, 2001

Humour can be exclusive as well as inclusive, though, and the

use of humour as a bonding agent can be problematic.

Managers have to be careful because those who don’t

appreciate the humour often do not feel they have the power

to voice their feelings and in many organizations it becomes

obvious that if you want to ‘get ahead’ you need to accept the

prevailing sense of humour.

The relationship of management to staff is significant in

producing a collaborative culture. Written communication as

a record of communication is an essential feature of modern

organizations but in order for collaborative cultures to work

management has to spend a great deal of time

communicating orally. People simply do not respond to

printed exhortations as they do to information imparted by

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oral increments and a ‘talking’ route to understanding. The

bureaucratic board structure of College D, for example,

slowed the flow of information both ways and delayed an

effective response to many organizational issues affecting the

college.

An appreciation of staff and generosity of treatment also

assist in developing collaborative work cultures and also as

an effective way of ensuring compliance. At College A, for

example, one morning a teacher rang to say that she had just

missed her bus and would be considerably late. The Principal,

who took the call, responded that it was no problem, just

jump in a taxi and the company would reimburse her on

arrival. The teacher started to argue that she had no money

on her, “Don’t worry,” responded the Principal, “Just keep the

meter running downstairs and come up to the college to get

the money. Tell the taxi driver to ring the college if there is

any difficulty.” It was probable that the teacher’s ‘excuse’

was not entirely honest. Whatever its veracity it would be

difficult to be aggressive or feel slighted by an offer of

generosity. The teacher was at the college shortly after the

phone call.

Ultimately the most important advantage of collaboration

may be that described by Hargreaves (1994, p.245) as

situated certainty. Ignorance and certainty are both problems

for educational management. Collaboration can assist all

organizational members in using professional and

experiential judgements, not as irrefutable scientific truths,

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but as situated certainties, a type of professional wisdom or

collective best guess to help guide the college forward.

14.4. The Development of a Client Service Culture

Collaboration is used above to refer to the relationship

between staff members. However the notion of collaboration

needs to flow through to the students as clients of an

international ELT college. Highly collaborative work cultures

in ELT colleges are likely to encourage the third area of

cultural advantage for ELT colleges - the development and

promotion of a client service culture – ensuring the college is

highly responsive to and caring of its clients.

ELT colleges have to focus on the development and

maintenance of a service culture. Client service is the service

provided in support of the organization’s core activities and

includes such features as reducing anxiety, increasing

awareness, understanding and responding to individual

difference, answering questions, dealing promptly with

payment and other issues, handling and resolving complaints,

responding swiftly to feedback, attending to students’

problems outside the college, giving specific advice and

providing recommendations. Although education is a service

industry, in traditional educational institutions clients have

frequently been relatively powerless stakeholders. Students

at schools and universities may have little say over

curriculum, timetabling or patterns of interaction within

institutions because more powerful stakeholders such as

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government, educator bodies and community groups have

greater influence.

Most international ELT colleges, on the other hand, do not

rely for their income on government funding or community

grants. In order to continue operations individual clients have

to be sufficiently satisfied with the ELT college to continue to

pay tuition and other fees. The fact that it makes sounds

financial sense is evidenced by the high rate of word of mouth

recommendations to study at particular colleges. Data

gathered by the EA a decade ago indicated that more than

40% of students got their information to study in Australia by

word of mouth (EA, 1991, p.47) and a further 8% received

information from a teacher who presumably had also had

personal contact with Australia. This importance of the word

of mouth value of an educational experience is one little

utilised bridge between the entrepreneurial and educational

worlds. It makes sound financial and organizational sense to

satisfy clients because they are the primary marketing

channels in a service industry such as ELT. A focus on client

service as an in-awareness part of an organization’s culture is

essential to build relationships with clients. An attention to

client service across an international ELT college can

significantly improve word of mouth recommendations to

study at the college and consequently lead to an increase in

student enrolments. Attention to client service should be an

integral feature of their management.

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The appropriate level of client service is not always easy to

determine. Clients hold differing expectations about level of

service and have a range of tolerance for the service they

ultimately receive. They have a hoped for or desired service,

which is the ‘wished for’ level of performance. At the other

end of the range they have a notion of adequate service, the

minimum standard of service they will accept. In between

these two levels is a zone of tolerance within which the

service of the organization does not make much impact either

positively or negatively.

Most ELT colleges provide service within this zone of

tolerance. Their student clients are receiving more or less

what they expected for the price they are paying. For

advantage to accrue to the college through a focus on client

service, however, the goal has to be to exceed the client’s

desired level of service. Searching for ways to please clients

without significant costs to the organization can be an

enormously productive activity. At College E client feedback

consistently indicated that simple, relatively inexpensive

aspects of college life were considered most valuable by

students. Access to teaching staff outside class time, a

willingness by teachers to socialise with students, college

assistance with work and tax matters and an atmosphere of

friendliness were highly important. Likewise there was an

ongoing appreciation of being recognised by the Principal

and other ELT managers by name. Making the effort to learn

the names of as many students in the college as possible and

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greeting and chatting to them at every opportunity can

improve enrolment rates as efficiently as a high profile

marketing campaign.

The notion of client service, therefore, needs to be inculcated

within the college. Traditional thinking sees managers on top

and the responsibility of subordinates to obey the commands

from ‘above’. The organizational structure suggested in

Chapter 10 of the fronted organigram sees managers as

involved in the provision of service to their staff who are, in

turn, engaged in serving the organization’s clients.

Traditionally ELT practitioners have seen their work activities

as primarily educational and linguistic but the underlying

commercial nature of many ELT operations also makes their

activities essentially that of front-line service providers.

The flow of this idea of service spreads from staff to students

and on to potential students. The provision of responsible

advice is an important aspect of service delivery. If the

college does not currently offer a course in business English

it makes no sense to misinform a potential student and then

‘trap’ them, an unfortunately all too common practice at the

‘bottom of the food chain’ of ELT. One of the ironies of

ensuring that marketing and counselling staff adopt an

‘honesty is the best policy’ approach is that many students

who ask for advice and are told that the college absolutely

can not meet their stated educational needs either

subsequently enrol or recommend the college to friends

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because they have been so impressed with the honesty of the

information.

At College A virtually no active external recruitment was

done and no advertising or mass-market strategies were

adopted. Few new agents were allowed to represent the

college and commission payments to current agents were

below industry averages. Marketing material was simply

photocopied and had none of the high gloss brochures and

expensive videos common in the industry. Virtually the entire

student body had been recruited by word of mouth. An

overriding ethos had developed that the needs of the students

were an absolute priority and that marketing in its traditional

sense of advertising and overseas promotion was an

expensive waste of resources. Savings could then be utilised

to give a strong sense of generosity to students.

Walker (2000, pp.30 – 32) argues that key services

management themes should characterise the management of

ELT colleges and that the professional development of

teachers should not be confined to pedagogical issues but

should also include elements of services theory and practice.

One of the cultural initiatives that took place at College E and

discussed in the following section was to try to implement

such a program of improved services practice.

A client service culture extends to decisions on staffing and

hiring. From the student point of view many other factors

besides the qualifications and experience indicated in

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teaching awards affect their perception of teacher

performance.

Significant opportunities to provide outstanding client service

also exist for educational organizations when clients join the

organization to commence study, when they change status

within the college and upon departure. First impressions are

vital and frequently commence well before the student begins

a course. How the college deals with enrolment and provision

of advice can provide opportunities to demonstrate the

centrality or otherwise of client service to the organization.

The formality or informality of a reception desk can also be

an important cultural tool. In general most people are

pleasantly surprised to be greeted warmly and spontaneously

and extroverted, friendly receptionists are very valuable

employees in an international ELT college.

College parties mark the growth and success of an

international ELT college. Few ELT colleges see the

marketing potential in such occasions and frequently do not

even encourage staff to attend seeing them as a ‘student’

occasion. At College A the annual party was fully paid for by

the college and has always been a large affair. Anyone who

was connected with the college could come and students

were allowed to bring their friends. Many such friends

subsequently joined the college or kept it in mind to

recommend to their friends.

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Even the dress code of a college needs to be seen through the

lens of client service. What are the clients looking for? What

is their hope or expectation of the ELT teachers? The point is

not that one particular dress style or another is superior, only

that it is a recognised point of difference and should be

decided from the client perspective. Clothes have an

important symbolic role in all cultures and organizations.

Many teachers interviewed saw management as ‘suits’ and

the wearing of business clothes, suits or ties as a badge of

dishonour or selling out.

Whatever the view of staff though, it should be the students’

view that matters. At College E client and agent feedback

suggested that ‘smart casual’ dress was the most desirable.

There was an expectation that the Principal, however, would

wear a suit or formal business clothes and this was shared by

all the other Principals interviewed. Directors of Studies on

the other differed in their approach. At College A the two

English DOS’s had very different dress styles and yet both

easily blended in. The first DOS, a women, dressed very

elaborately and formally and on days such as inspection visits

was dressed far more glamorously than would be expected in

Australian business situations. The second DOS had a

background in the theatre and communications industry and

had a far more casual style of dress. He initially made an

attempt to conform to business attire and wear a suit and tie

but within a month he dressed very casually.

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Interviews revealed a predilection for those in supervisory

positions to dress one level ‘above’ their staff. Thus if the

teachers wear casual clothes, the DOS should wear smart

casual ones, the teachers smart casual the DOS a tie or

business clothes, the teaches business clothes the DOS a suit

and so on. The DOS at College B however saw the wearing of

different clothes from teaching staff as a distancing device

and had worked hard to convince the Director that it was not

necessary for an ELT college to project an overly corporate

image despite the director’s experience dealing with

corporate classes in Japan.

Only the clients can determine whether teachers should dress

informally to match the expectations of students who want

their teachers to break the authoritarian teacher stereotype,

or project a more serious and formal image through the

wearing of business clothes.

Access to equipment such as computers and copiers also

needs to be seen through a client service lens. Are students

part of a college family, in which case everything in the

college is theirs to access? Are they guests who have to be

provided with special privileges? Are they valued clients who

should be given access to resources that they might

commonly need but will be restricted from private parts of

the college or those reserved for staff? Or are they cattle to

be herded appropriately and denied access to any but the

most basic of college resources? The last seems to be the

default position in many international ELT colleges.

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A similar issue occurs with the level of bureaucracy and form

filling. If every appointment and every request has to be

accompanied by a bureaucratic process clients can become

restive and unhappy. All paperwork makes sense in isolation

but a focus on integration and a client service perspective

can keep controls on the overall level of paperwork with

which a student needs to contend.

As noted in Chapter 8, excursions and college activities are

also a transmitter of cultural signals about the college. The

deletion of excursion activities from College C had a negative

impact on their business, especially with a loss of working

holiday students from the college and ultimately a greater

concentration of students of one nationality. This in turn led

to an increase in the problem of attracting students because

of the increasing dominance of one nationality group.

Excursions and co-curricular activities are also an important

way to bond teachers and students in more natural settings

than classrooms, which by the very nature inhibit the

development of such relationships. Nathan, a teacher at

College E contrasted two management views of excursions:

The emphasis on excursions and staff-student bonding that existed at that time was fantastic and takes on even more significance now, given its unfortunate absence from today's College E. The management now seems to be directing its energies away from social events, and indeed, away from student welfare on the whole. Excursions seem to be regarded as teachers having a "bludge", and recently it was proposed that they been done away with. They are still part of College E life, but are given extremely low priority. The situation in 98/99

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was so good partly because we were encouraged to share our experiences of Sydney and its environs with the students….

Nathan, Teacher, College E, 2001

Final impressions are also powerful and maintaining this

dimension ‘in – awareness’ provides leverage for ELT

managers. Much that hasn’t worked in a client’s experience

can be wiped away by highly positive final impressions and

nostalgia. Care and effort for graduation ceremonies for

students and staff farewells that honour departing staff, fully

noting contributions and the many friends made should be

concerns of all good ELT managers. Former staff and

students often unknowingly market the college and when

satisfied with their work and study experiences can provide

valuable first-hand endorsement of its operations.

14.5. Action Research at College E: Culture

As a result of research into organizational culture and the

observations of culture at other ELT colleges, at College E

several cultural initiatives were implemented through action

research. Discussions on organizational culture, and a

sharing in its creation and development with teaching and

other staff, were a prominent feature of organizational life at

College E.

The underlying culture was intended to resolve the tensions

that exist in ELT based on the recognition that people in the

organization differed in terms of some of their fundamental

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value systems. The underlying premise was that a functional

and inclusive resolution of these differences needed to be

worked at and that a common ground for ongoing action

could be found that would be perceived as being in the

interests of most organizational members. The key cultural

themes of integration, collaboration and client service

provided a basis for these cultural initiatives.

The primary cultural goal was to develop an integrated

organization with a culture of collaboration that had a strong

focus on service to clients. The initiatives on integration were

linked with those in structure and ecology in the attempt to

reduce barriers across the organization. Milieu initiatives

also assisted in reinforcing collaboration goals. The three

initiatives in the cultural dimension were:

Action Research Initiative C1: Action Research Cycles

#1 (July – December 1997) to #6 (January – June 2000):

That the culture of the college encourage integration and

unity of operation while recognising the diversity of views

and work tasks and that the college encourage an in-

awareness development of organizational culture.



That the college develop a collaborative work culture both

within areas such as teaching and administration and

between functional areas.

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That the organization have a core commitment to clients and

client service. This commitment had to apply both to front-

line staff who are in constant contact with students, as well

as to management in their dealings with both students and

staff.

In order to implement the first organizational culture

initiative several related measures were undertaken. Initially

the planning for the college envisaged strong linkages

between the English College and the Vocational College with

hiring of senior staff to emphasise candidates with skills and

understanding of both areas. The Principal, Executive

Director and Financial Controller shared a commitment to

integration and the need for collaborative decision-making.

An in-awareness focus on organizational culture involved

consciousness-raising achieved through ongoing discussions

both inside and outside the organization. Staff room

discussions, formal meetings, regular chats at the pub, input

into college activities and assistance with formal study

assessments for organizational members undertaking Master

Degree studies into education, marketing and management

and Certificate studies in workplace training all encouraged

this development of an in-awareness focus on organizational

culture. Issues such as the sharing of classes were justified

by explication of improvements in collaboration among

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teachers; relations between management and staff about the

importance of integration and collaboration and treatment of

students, agents and visitors to the college that of the

importance of clients

In order to implement the second organizational culture

initiative several steps were undertaken. The first was to try

to meet and interview as many applicants for teaching

positions at the college as possible. Right from the interview

stage staff were made to feel that it was a people-focused

college. The marketing materials for the college had the

recurring themes of warm, friendly, exciting and

multicultural and these were emphasised as significant

values. It was emphasised that the college viewed ability to

perform, produce quality outputs and deliver client

satisfaction as more significant than controls on entry such as

levels of professional qualifications.

Timetabling was used to assist in the development of a

collaborative approach to work. At College E the courses

were structured over a five-day week. One teacher would be

responsible for a class for three days and another teacher

would be responsible for the same class for two days. This

meant that each full-time teacher shared a class with two

other teachers and some thought was given by ELT

management to pairing and grouping teachers to further

encourage collaboration. Simple professional development

activities such as a lesson of the week noticeboard and brief

sessions where every teacher had two minutes to show and

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tell their best lesson also assisted in the encouragement of a

collaborative culture.

An appreciation of staff and generosity of treatment also

assist in developing collaborative work cultures. One of the

first teachers at College E who left because of immigration

difficulties for her husband was given a substantial cash gift

on departure. Her contribution to the college and unfailing

positive approach despite a range of personal and financial

difficulties had been tangibly appreciated. The flow on of

goodwill to college owners in such circumstances cannot be

ignored. In my own case receiving a substantial sum in gift

vouchers on the birth of my second child inculcated an extra

loyalty and bond to the organization – not because of the

extra remuneration but simply because it indicated a

generosity of spirit and an appreciation of one’s contribution

to the organization. The fact that such acts transcend the

awards and contracts and daily whirl of business and are

absolutely voluntary makes them doubly appealing on a

human level.

Teachers value the sharing of lessons and resources and this

was instituted in various ways. Timetabling meant that

teachers had to share classes and levels and that schemes of

work and lesson materials had to be prepared collaboratively.

Testing procedures for end of cycle promotion of students

also had to be done across classes and levels so that teams of

teachers had to develop tests and discuss results together.

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Grading of tests and standardisation of results also

encouraged collaboration among teaching staff.

In order to implement the third organizational culture

initiative a number of steps were taken. Walker (2000, pp.30

– 32) argues that key services management themes should

characterise the management of ELT colleges and that the

professional development of teachers should not be confined

to pedagogical issues but should also include elements of

services theory and practice. Professional development

sessions were held that included feedback from students and

agents on teacher performance. The balance between

delivering long-term educational outcomes for students as

well as short-term enjoyment of classes was discussed and

debated. The issue was never entirely resolved but the

process of reflection on this important area was in itself

significant.

Management approaches to students were made more visible

than is usual in ELT. Senior ELT managers at most colleges

spend much of their day dealing with students and their

difficulties. By working in shared spaces and demonstrating

to teachers the level of responsiveness to students that was

expected at College E, teachers could be helped to acquire a

service ethic. Staff room discussion regularly focused on the

importance of students and their positive impressions to the

ongoing health of the college. Staff meetings emphasised that

satisfying clients was most important and that ‘pleasing the

boss’ and ‘pleasing the client’ should never conflict.

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At College E, for example, in early 1998 some students from

the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Japan came for a

visit. These students were accompanied by their English

instructor from Japan who was interested in seeing the

operations of several ELT colleges in Australia at first hand.

The Ministry is a conservative body with deep pockets and

the students had typically undertaken their studies at

Sydney’s most established and expensive colleges. The

Ministry wanted first class service whatever the cost.

At two of these ‘high quality’ colleges the group had been

lectured by the most senior ELT manager on the reputation of

the particular college, the outstanding nature of the course

programs, the qualifications and experience of the ELT staff

and many other virtues. The Ministry instructor later

informed me that at both of these colleges the senior ELT

manager had issued him stern warnings about even visiting

College E as it was at that time a very new college operating

under provisional NEAS accreditation and had not developed

a strong brand name or reputation.

When the group came to College E I knew that it was unlikely

they would want to study at such a new college. A few

teachers at the college talked to the students and their

instructor about their studies, about their hope for their life

in Sydney and similar topics handling the occasion in the

manner of effective ELT teachers – a minimum of teacher talk

time and a maximum amount of student led discussion. These

high profile trainee diplomats commented at the time that it

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was so nice to be listened to and have the chance to discuss

their feelings. Each of the students subsequently enrolled for

expensive private courses at College E.

A key point was that these students were about to commence

masters degree courses and the assumption made by the

other colleges was that they would automatically require

academic English courses. In fact the students had very high

levels of academic reading and writing skills and were most

concerned about conversational and oral skills development

practice. The incident underscores the importance of early

impressions and a focus on the client rather than the

organization.

Many aspects of life at College E sprung from a client focus.

The graduation ceremonies mentioned in the action research

initiatives at College E in Chapter 11 Milieu sprang from

student desires for a more formal recognition of course

completion. Ceremonies and rituals such as Culture Day and

international picnics likewise grew from student and teacher

initiatives.

The above initiatives did for much of the action research

period produce a successful and tangibly vibrant

organizational culture. Many visitors to the college from both

within and outside the profession commented upon this from

the Minister of Education for Slovakia, to instructors from the

Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Principals and

Directors of Studies at other colleges who had heard things

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‘on the grapevine’, to the steady stream of agents and

prospective students.

As with the action research initiatives in other organizational

dimensions a lack of fixing these cultural initiatives to the

organization led to a reduction in emphasis after the

conclusion of the action research. Even though the culture

had helped the college to grow and succeed in quite difficult

years, once the action research was complete and changes in

key management occurred, many of the cultural features of

life at College E were eroded. The practices became more

identified with particular ‘heroes’ of an earlier era and did

not institute themselves effectively.

Culture can also deliver relief from other organizational and

logistical shortcomings. For much of 1998 and 1999 College

E was crowded to capacity. For much of that time ELT

management saw this as a negative feature of the college and

were concerned that maximum class sizes would deter

enrolments. In retrospect it would seem that a type of

organization culture ‘buzz’ was at work. The fact that the

college was crowded had a similar effect to that in the

nightclub or restaurant industries – everyone wants to be at

the one that is ‘happening’ and there was little apparent

fallout from what could have been a very negative aspect of

study at the college.

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14.6. Conclusion

The core task of the ELT managers is to take responsibility

for the ongoing health and success of the college. It falls to

ELT managers to work hard to develop a culture that assists

the college in traversing the pressures of competing

discourses, the turbulent environment and a wide range of

organizational climate factors. This chapter has discussed the

organizational cultures of international ELT colleges and

described some cultural initiatives that took place at College

E. The chapter has argued that an in-awareness focus on the

creation and maintenance of an integrated, collaborative and

service oriented organizational culture is an essential and

achievable ELT management task but that difficulties can

arise in the fixing of such cultural efforts into long-term

organizational procedures.

Organizational culture does matter in ELT and there are

many cultural features that can be developed and

manipulated by ELT managers to improve organizational

outcomes. Balkanised cultures that reflect traditional

structures can hinder ELT organizations and prevent them

attaining their goals. The development of cultures that can

satisfy both entrepreneurial and educational aims, without

compulsion for either to shed their core values or worldviews,

is an important management and leadership task. Action

research at College E suggests some strategies in the area of

culture that assisted in the development of a successful

college. Such strategies may offer direction to ELT managers

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in similar situations. On the other hand their ephemeral

nature, and links to a particular management team at a

particular stage in the College’s development, indicate the

difficulty of overly-generalised solutions in the dimension of

organizational culture.

Despite many shared environmental constraints international

ELT colleges can have important differences in cultures

among the different institutions. Ongoing managerial effort in

the development of a strong, integrated organizational

culture with a sense of collaboration and an emphasis on the

service components of the organization affects all other

organizational dimensions and activities. Nathan, a teacher

from College E recalls:

Firstly, a few words about my experience at College E in [1998 and 1999]. The Principal-staff-student relationship was what made it for me. College E at that time was the most fulfilling place I have ever worked at, mainly in terms of the friendliness engendered by [senior ELT managers], and which was also evident in just about everyone else who worked there. I felt welcome from Day One, and also felt the freedom to plan lessons with the aim of encompassing not only language, but culture and current affairs as well. If I have not yet thanked [senior ELT managers] in so many words for having provided us with that atmosphere, then this is an opportunity for me to do so. It was good. Really good.

College E as it was provided an object lesson in working in a co-operative, friendly environment. Teachers were able to concentrate on their students and feel secure in their occupational environment.

Nathan, Teacher, College E, 2001

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ELT managers, it would seem, have much to do. The

following chapter discusses some of the character and

practices of ELT managers and develops a model of ELT

management that may provide a useful managerial

framework based on the analysis presented thus far.

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C h a p t e r 1 5

THE ELT MANAGER

15.1. Introduction

This chapter profiles ELT managers in international colleges

and examines the choices with which they are typically

confronted. It first looks at the personal attributes of ELT

managers. It then examines teacher perceptions of ELT

managers. It outlines a simple model that shows the

possibilities for ELT managers when gearing the organization

to respond to the pressures on organizational values and

vision brought about by the competing discourses of the

industry. It discusses ELT manager strategies in dimensions

of organizational climate that were implemented through

action research at College E before concluding with a brief

summary.

15.2. ELT Managers

Like other forms of management (see Willis 1985, p.139),

ELT management is susceptible to interruption, superficiality

of treatment and shifts of location – all of which contribute to

a general discontinuity of work. It is a people-centred job

demanding interpersonal competence. Much of it may be

‘invisible’ to other people in the organization and lacking in

personal feedback. It involves a holistic perspective that

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tends to be at a variance with the more parochial frame of

reference held by other organizational members. It requires

‘boundary-spanning’ and links with the relative uncertainty of

the organization’s environment. It has as its core

communication, which is both interpersonal and

informational, depends on human relationships and the fast

and effective flow of information. Finally it calls for an

involvement in the work organization that makes for

difficulties in preparing people for the job and imposes

stressful conditions upon the manager

After a discussion forum on management issues at the

IATEFL conference in 1998, a range of international ELT

managers concluded that the best ELT managers, like the

best teachers, have a certain indefinable factor about them,

which is a mixture of intellectual calibre and of personal

persuasiveness. Management skill is frequently realised in a

strong ability to communicate, but it is in fact a much deeper

and more fundamental skill set (Bowers, 1999, p.4).

It is near impossible to provide perfect solutions to the wide

variety of roles and functions that the ELT manager has to

address. The international ELT manager in Australia, such as

the Principal Administrator or the Director of Studies is

responsible to NEAS for the content and quality of the ELT

courses as well as to DIMA for the overall compliance of

students with their visa conditions. The ELT manager is

primarily responsible for maintaining the motivation of

teachers and marketing staff and for much of the

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maintenance of the network of agents and industry contacts

who provide valuable services to the college. Other

relationships, such as those with the photocopier repair and

air-conditioning service personnel also play an important

role! ELT managers have to remain abreast of industry

information in order to ensure the organization remains

aligned with the outside environment. They also have to

communicate relevant parts of this information to staff.

Effective ELT managers also need to be entrepreneurial,

searching for future opportunities for the college. They must

respond to disturbances and allocate resources appropriately.

They frequently have to represent the organization externally

as well as be responsible for internal negotiations of staff

conditions.

Many of these roles and functions correspond to those

outlined for general managerial work. Unlike those involved

in general management, however, ELT managers usually

remain more closely aligned to the ELT world through which

they’ve grown and it is uncommon for ELT managers to

transfer from educational management to management in

non-education areas or industries.

Most ELT managers move into management from teaching

and have usually been promoted to their positions due to

their success as classroom practitioners (Fowle, 2000, p.16;

Gore, 2002; p.3). One important motivator for the ‘jump’ into

ELT management can be life changes brought about by

marriage or children. A number of teachers interviewed in

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this study who were about to get married or have children,

spoke of the necessity of finding either managerial positions

within ELT or changing careers to gain greater employment

stability for the raising of a family. There is perhaps a sense

that the career outcomes of an ELT manager are more stable

than those of the ELT teacher.

Because most ELT managers come into the position from

teaching backgrounds, and many play both teaching and

managerial roles concurrently, they can continue to judge

themselves more by the criteria of 'good teacher' than by that

of 'good manager'. Good teachers may attempt to minimize

conflict, even if good managers may find it a necessary tool to

improve performance. Good teachers may try to 'keep

everyone happy' whereas good managers may need to treat

people justly and come down hard on those who are

damaging the effectiveness of the institution.

A survey form in the October 1991 issue of the ELT

Management newsletter was distributed to members of the

SIG and readers of the newsletter. The survey was broad and

exploratory trying to "tap into issues and feelings" which

were important to ELT managers (Griffiths, 1991). A range of

ELT managers such as principals, directors of studies, course

directors, heads of department, senior teachers and teacher

trainers completed the survey. The survey found that,

although there was no clear 'route' to becoming a manager or

senior manager in ELT, all managers came from a teaching

background. The survey also found that most ELT managers

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agreed on the need for financial management training and

that senior ELT managers' main functions - personnel

management and financial management - were two quite

different areas requiring completely different sets of skills.

Most ELT managers saw their strong qualities as a natural

aptitude for organizing and dedication to work and their

weak qualities as being a lack of delegation and over-

compromising (Greenland and Griffiths, 1992: p.13; Griffiths,

1993: p.6).

'Over-compromising' and a 'lack of delegation' may well be

one of the consequences of teachers becoming managers.

The zones that arise in educational institutions can lock ELT

managers into a system of "soft" and "hard" rules similar to

those outlined by Lortie (1969). The ELT manager may see

issues of finance and accounts as "hard" and therefore

subject to the ‘entrepreneurial logic of costs and efficiency

whereas such items as curriculum and instruction, which are

difficult to visualise in such a way, are "soft". Wajnryb (1993;

pp.56-62) has shown the effects of mitigation in supervisory

discourse in ELT contexts; mitigation that may initially save

'face' for teachers but may ultimately lead to future

management problems if the mitigated criticism has not been

clearly communicated. The rights of teachers, can readily

become overemphasised in such situations, while the rights

of less powerful but vital stakeholders may be conveniently

overlooked, leading to an overall decline in the organizational

effectiveness of the institution.

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The two most common texts for ELT managers (White,

Martin, Stimson and Hodge, 1991; Impey and Underhill,

1994) both stress the need for ELT managers to create focus

and work toward common causes in order to produce that

warm and friendly atmosphere that is widely admired in

educational writing. Lynn (1996) however, based on work by

Stacey (1992, 1993) and Pascale (1990), points out that this

can also result in the lack of contention and individuality that

breed creativity. Lynn (1996, p.86) notes:

As teachers we are often deeply committed to the establishment of a non-threatening, warm, environment in our classrooms in order to nurture the emerging confidence and skills of our learners. Whilst I am not in any way contesting this philosophy for teaching, a considerable body of research and opinion in management argues that a similarly relaxed environment will not produce the tension or contention vital to a vibrant and innovative organization - and in today's competitive ELT environment, innovative attitudes are essential.

Clarkson and Lodge (1999, p.23) argue that most ELT

managers have moved into the position from teaching

because of success as teachers. The first steps in to

management often commence with the taking on of academic

management tasks such as placement testing, exam

coordination and resource management. From there, ELT

managers take increasing responsibility for areas such as

staffing, budgeting and marketing of the college. Gore (2002,

p.3) notes that most ELT managers come from a teaching

background and have no management training and then

develop through a combination of experience, trial and error

and possibly some short management courses – a very

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precise outline of the professional experiences of this ELT

manager! Often, experienced teachers who are promoted to

become inexperienced managers learn the vital skills of

personnel management, budgeting, marketing and

forecasting by default (Underhill, 1989; p.2). They end up

isolated in management roles with little or no specific

preparation or training (Johnston, 1989: p.3; Leather, 1989:

p.3).

Charles (1993, p.11) has questioned whether it is a valid

expectation that teachers should 'rise above' the classroom

and take their place in the management structure of ELT

organizations. He argues that by seeing management as

'promotion' ELT may be accepting a career structure that is

conceptually flawed. While there is obviously some transfer of

skills between the two functions, especially in the area of

communication skills, being a skilled classroom teacher does

not provide the full range of skills required to become a

successful educational manager (Fowle, 2000; p.18). The

acquisition of good management skills in areas such as

finance, administration, marketing and office skills is

haphazard especially when compared to management

training and development in other fields (Gore, 2002, p.3).

One significant change in outlook that occurs with the

transition to ELT management is much closer alignment with

the organization. ELT teachers work in an occupation that

offers an unusual level of mobility. Changes from one

workplace to another, even across countries, is far less

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difficult than in most other professions and is indeed a prime

motivator for new entrants to the industry. For ELT managers

on the other hand, their fortunes become more entwined with

their organization. It is a more stable appointment. Unlike

teachers who are frequently hired on contracts, ELT

managers in Australia are almost always full-time employees

with negotiated salary packages. Salary awards in ELT in

Australia provide allowances for lower level ELT managers,

such as coordinators and senior teachers, but Directors of

Studies and Principals have no proscribed conditions. As such

their compensation and work conditions are strongly related

to the health and success of their institutions.

There is little published biodata on ELT managers in

Australia. A previous study by the author (Keaney 1994,

pp.43 - 48) found the mean age of the 44 ELT managers

surveyed was 38 years and ranged range from 24 to 58 years.

They had an average of slightly less than 10 years ELT

teaching experience and about four years of ELT

management experience. They had been in their current

position for an average of two and a half years and only 5%

had been in their current position for more than seven years.

ELT managers had a wide range of qualifications but all came

from teaching or educational backgrounds. Only one

respondent had traditional management or financial

qualifications (an MBA) but 34% of the managers surveyed

had a Masters degree or higher in a language or education

field and a further 30% had postgraduate ELT qualifications

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or RSA diplomas in TEFLA. ELT managers interviewed in the

current study were also primarily in their 30s and 40s with

similar levels of teaching and management experience noted

above. None had traditional financial or management

qualifications even though all were involved in making

budgeting and financial decisions.

ELT management can be a tough job. The ELT manager at

College A spoke of often having a sick feeling in the stomach

on a Sunday evening starting to think about the return to

work on Monday. Even at a college that was financially

successful and where staff and students relations seemed

most amicable there were many hidden stresses to the job.

The ELT manager at College C spoke of the awful personal

strain on trying to find resolutions for so many small but

intractable problems. Paying customers demand a high level

of service and the human nature of ELT teaching staff can

make getting high performing teachers in front of every class

every day a difficult task. ELT colleges have few if any

reserve teachers or activities and so sudden illness or

departure of staff can create tremendous short-term

difficulties. Good communication requires time, and repeated

interruptions to work because of small but urgent problems is

an ongoing feature of ELT management.

It is precisely because there are pressures and difficulties

though that the role of the ELT manager exists. Ultimately

the ELT manager has to accept the responsibilities of the

leader. Owens (1995, p.130) notes that:

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… leadership involves mobilizing resources, including human and intellectual resources … so as to arouse, engage and satisfy the motives of others. Therefore vision building is not always a placid process but often requires engagement with different world views of people in the group, different temperaments different personal agendas, different levels of understanding, different hopes and aspirations, different pedagogical approaches to the future…(the educational manager) must have developed a clearly thought out position from which to unhesitatingly and convincingly contribute to the discussion.

Leadership can be a difficult step to take and many who want

to become leaders are unsuited for the role. College staff

however put a high value on ELT managers who can lead

rather than merely manage. Effective leadership is

appreciated and is a very human reward of management.

James at College E looks back nostalgically to the time of the

action research at College E:

Sometimes I don't know if I idealise my first 2 years here, but so many others do too…or maybe it's just a fierce loyalty we have as educators and people to an institute that for a long time put our interests and skills first…not sure… but we miss you.

James, Teacher, College E, 2001

15.3. Teacher Perceptions of ELT Managers

Research into English language teaching has concerned itself

largely with teaching removed from its context. This

professional distancing has certain advantages but it creates

ambiguity for the ELT manager in assessing their role and

responsibilities. There is scepticism towards management

throughout the ELT profession. Such antipathy to ELT

managers is a relatively enduring characteristic of many

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teachers, and can be a severe disadvantage for ELT

managers to overcome. Teachers usually hold ELT managers

in low regard:

I have realised that I have spent many years at many colleges and one constant with the odd exception is definitely incompetent management

Derek, Teacher, College E, 2000

Meanwhile Forth (1998, pp.22-23) notes that:

It is not uncommon to find perceptions of management among teachers who have worked in the industry for a while which seem to indicate the belief that management is self-serving, that it operates in a kind of closed world with its own mission and has nothing to do with human relationships or the messy business of teaching.

Many language teachers often appear to have a folkloric model of management in their minds that management is invariably calculating and rational. Teachers often view managers as systematic, ‘hard-nosed’, ‘win-win’, ‘big brain’ sort of people instead of a more real picture of managers who are engaged in a mess of fragmented activities with constant interruptions and unanticipated meetings and demands…

A tongue in cheek website for ELT teachers provides a guide

for the various types of ELT managers. According to the site

such managers are either lazy, and hands off spending all

their time sitting in front of the computer emailing friends

and playing computer games, snide, hyperactive power-

crazed martinets, a Mommy Dearest-type whose executive

spouses simply want them out of the house, sex-craved

maniacs whose sole motivation for working in ELT is to make

out with students, Afflicted Ones who carry a general air of

misery and feel abused by the job, the staff and the students,

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Menopausal Nutcases (of both genders) who scream, rant

and rave to demonstrate power, Jolly Hockey Sticks who

overvalue excursions and sports days while ignoring the

educational focus of the college and finally a dream ELT

manager who:

…is helpful, friendly and kind. When it (ELT managers have been neutered according to the site) must have faculty meetings, it keeps them short and serves food. It listens to your problems and genuinely seems to care. Sometimes, it even solves them.

Personally it has a good sense of humour, a sense of proportion and an ability to bend the rules when it is the only sensible option.

It defends the teachers against students and management. It makes sure school equipment actually functions and that you can find materials. The only problem with this DOS is that, like Santa and the Tooth Fairy, it does not exist….

Henry (2002, p.5)

15.4. Vision and Values

Somekh (1996, pp.5-6), after listing some of the tensions

within ELT organizations, concludes that the primary tension

relates to the main aim of the college, and whether it is to

succeed as an educational institution or as a business. This

study argues that these two aims need not be regarded as

mutually exclusive. They need to be seen as forces that must

both be successfully harnessed for the college to succeed.

The ELT manager has to allow values developed from the

discourse of the educator to be modified by insights from the

value system of the entrepreneur. In turn it is also the

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responsibility of the ELT manager to persuade owners and

top financial managers that it is in their interests to

accommodate, if not embrace, the values that educators hold

in regard that are likely to lead to the long-term financial and

educational success of the institution.

The turbulence of the international ELT environment, the

complexity and globalisation of international ELT operations,

the postmodern employment and organizational structures of

many ELT colleges and a range of other climatic factors come

to overwhelm many ELT managers. In such situations the

vision guiding the activities of the college and the values that

support this vision become essential.

Turner and Crawford (1992, p.2) note that organizations

…create and sustain value for their stakeholders in two ways. The first is through the effectiveness with which they manage current operations. The second is the way they change over time, dealing with new circumstances in ways that are value creating.

The ability to manage these two aims is complex, as

frequently the strategies that maximise stakeholder value

now are different from, and even antagonistic to, those

needed to develop future options for growth. Some of the

disconnection that ELT managers can bring to their work

may be caused by maintaining an ‘event’ orientation towards

the college’s activities. This focuses on efficiency or doing

things right without questioning their underlying need or

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worth. It is a focus on managing current operations.

Entrepreneurial thinking, on the other hand, shifts the

orientation to one that focuses on the cycles and patterns of

events rather than only on a particular event in the cycle. It

looks to effectiveness or doing the right things and the

creation of future value. A retreat by an ELT manager into

efficiency – aiming only to ‘do’ allocated tasks right and run

things smoothly – while ignoring effectiveness or ensuring

that the right ‘things’ are being done, is likely to cause

difficulties for the manager and the college.

ELT managers must focus on the dynamic complexity of their

organizations as well as on the detail complexity. Dynamic

complexity and the linkage to revenue creating stakeholders

of the organization have been the traditional area of focus of

the entrepreneur. ELT managers who move into the area

from teaching may find that the detail complexity, which has

traditionally been the area of concern of the educator, is the

more ‘natural’ and appealing set of work tasks to embrace

and may build a Chinese wall around such tasks.

It is apparent that ELT management in general is not yet

highly respected by staff in the industry. Hargreaves (1994,

p.248) notes that education is facing demands by the

previously unheard to be given a voice. There is an extensive

and increasing demand to reconstruct intimacy, warmth and

localisation of aims so that work patterns are more

meaningful and self-determining. ELT managers have to find

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a new path that combines a trust in people with a trust in

processes.

Bureaucratic approaches to organizations and those that

emphasize the human dimensions of organization exist side

by side. The creation of impersonal processes to address

most issues of concern can be a successful management

strategy in larger organizations but can also lead to

resentment and isolation. It is a strategy that has in the past

corresponded to some of the values of the educator perhaps

because it is aligned with the management of the large state

school and university systems. In recent times thought many

educators are becoming increasingly alienated from it.

Human approaches based on a trust in people can be very

effective in small to medium enterprises but they have to be

accompanied by a strong commitment on both sides to

complying with undertakings and large amounts of time have

to be spent on induction and ongoing communication. It is a

strategy that corresponds to many of the values of the

entrepreneur. Its great disadvantage has always been that

people can allow personal bias, favouritism and flawed

hunches to play a dominant role in their decisions and when

completely unchecked can lead organizations into immense

difficulties.

Skilled judgement by ELT managers is needed to reconcile

the two types of approach. Many colleges are over-regulated,

producing unnecessary alienation of both students and staff.

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More routine matters and those that are likely to reoccur

frequently need to be handled through ‘process’ and less

frequent disturbances and exceptions can be handled

through personal relationships. Managers who use the ‘rules’

to defend inefficient or unfair practices are likely to be held

in low regard by staff and clients.

A simple model of the competing pressures of educational

and entrepreneurial values can be a broad guide to ELT

manager behaviour. In many ways the values of the

entrepreneur are a guide to the development of the college

over time, its change strategies and the linkages between

activities and tasks. The educational values, on the other

hand, need to be uppermost in the awareness of the clients of

the college and the outcomes it delivers for them. The overall

experience students have at the college, the trust that

regulatory authorities and agents can have in the college to

deliver its ELT product well, and the overall focus of college

life need to be underwritten by these values.

The way forward is to allow the competing pressures of

educational and entrepreneurial values to balance. Colleges

that focus too much on the educational and product quality

aspects take serious medium term risks that changes to

market conditions or actions of aggressive competitors will

threaten their existence. On the other hand colleges that

skew their activities too far in the entrepreneurial direction

take the severe short term risk that they will not satisfy

regulators as to their educational quality and the medium and

369

long term risk that they ‘screw’ students, staff and other

stakeholders.

The relationship may be demonstrated graphically as follows:

Entrepreneurial Values Dynamic ComplexityEffectivenessPattern OrientationTrust in peopleOpportunityDoing the right thingProfit

Quality

Educational ValuesDetail Complexity

EfficiencyEvent Orientation

Trust in processesAccountability

Doing things rightQuality

Profitability

Figure 15.1The relationship between quality and profit.

Entrepreneurial values push towards increasing college

profitability while educational values push towards increasing

educational quality. The ELT managers in a college have to

ensure that the balance between the two is maintained.

Increases in quality without corresponding increases in profit

will lead to a loss of financial capacity while increases in

profit without corresponding increases in quality of product

and service will harm the life chances of the organization.

IdealDirection

IntegrationCollaborationClient Service

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15.5. Climate and the ELT Manager

There is a need for an ELT manager to understand the

various dimensions of the organization’s climate and to

ensure that proactive management strategies exist in each

dimension. Such strategies have to reinforce rather than

undermine each other. At College E 11 simple initiatives

linked across the four climate dimensions had many positive

educational and financial outcomes for the college. The

initiatives are summarised in the table below:

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Structure Ecology Milieu Culture

Integration

S2. Limited barriers

E1.No physical separation of management

C1. Emphasis on integration and in-awareness development of organizational culture

Collaboration

S3. In awareness understanding for staff of management tasks

E2. Mixed workspaces. Open classrooms

C2. Development of a culture of collaboration

ClientService

S1.Fronted organigram andclient focus

M1. Student diversity

M2. Attraction of client focused staff

C3. Culture of client service

Table 15.1Summary of Action Research Initiatives at College E

At College E effort was made to have those in client contact

including administration and teaching staff seen as the most

crucial in the organization with those ‘behind’ in

management playing support roles to ensure the

effectiveness of those ‘in front’. Quality was seen primarily

from the point of view of client satisfaction. Barriers between

staff were discouraged to prevent ‘balkanisation’.

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Management decisions on structure were explicit and

communicated to all employees. Staff had the opportunity to

witness managers in action, so that they could question them

about their activities and decisions and ultimately learn

management skills on the job.

There was an enforced program to ensure student diversity,

particularly of national groups over the whole college and in

individual classes. The program included positive incentives

such as scholarships, differential pricing and budget support

for new markets as well as negative reinforcement in the

form of a quota system with no nationality allowed to exceed

25% of the total. Hiring and staff development aimed to

obtain and retain staff most likely to support a college culture

that was student centred and focused on student learning

experiences. Management was not physically separated from

staff. Workspaces were mixed and an open classroom policy

was maintained

Effort was made to develop a work culture that encouraged

diversity of views but with an overall unity of operation. Staff

were made to feel certain that satisfying clients was their

prime task. Finally the college encouraged an in-awareness

development of organizational culture trying to have a sense

of intimacy and spontaneity that is frequently lacking in work

organizations.

Of course there are many other possible management

initiatives that could be added to this list. The action research

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at College E did not involve intensive curriculum reform or

renewal, for example, even though in more established

colleges this would obviously be a favoured area of activity.

ELT managers who do not hold equity in an international ELT

college must convince owners that they are committed to the

ultimate financial success of the college. Developing a history

of commitment to decisions that maximise the equity returns

to owners without compromising staff loyalty or student

educational experiences is a powerful means for ELT

managers to gain the trust of all stakeholders. In this area a

personal reconciliation of the values of the educator and the

entrepreneur needs to be made. ELT managers who can

communicate owner paradigms through their own resolution

of the competing discourses can frame other staff members’

understanding of the organizational realities and constraints.

In many cases the stress that owners are put under is poorly

communicated to organizational members who don’t see the

immense financial and legal responsibilities taken on by

company directors. Bankruptcy and loss of personal assets is

not a risk of the employee and many poor or seemingly

haphazard decisions taken by college owners are the result of

financial stresses.

A sound understanding of financial matters can also assist.

Educators and other employees, for example, often poorly

understand cash flow. The need for resources to be allocated

on a cash flow basis so that the spread of outgoings is even

throughout the year can lead to significant improvements in

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college life. Understanding the real costs of equipment and

staffing is another area that ELT managers need to grasp.

Paying a librarian $40000 per year to ensure that a few

thousand dollars of books do not go missing is not a sound

commercial decision. Employing staff without any thought

given to their relative pay scales or on-costs is another area

where conflict can arise through limited financial

understanding by the ELT manager. A focus on the core goals

of the college and the constant communication of them

throughout the college are essential. It is ultimately the ELT

manager’s role to ensure that this focus is maintained.

15.6. Conclusion

ELT managers are often held in low regard by their staff.

Improvements in management performance and in the

esteem in which managers are held probably lie in developing

a clearer sense of personal and professional values, followed

by the ability to then implement these values across

organizational dimensions. ELT managers need to understand

and reconcile the entrepreneurial and educational

imperatives that buffet the direction of their colleges. They

need to develop strategies that demonstrate a commitment to

the future of their college, and ensure that the

implementation of such strategies satisfies financial goals

without seriously compromising educational ones.

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C h a p t e r 1 6

CONCLUSION

16.1. Introduction

Management is a very human activity. Decisions affect

people, and their costs and benefits are of concern to all

stakeholders in an organization. Finding managerial solutions

that offer the greatest good to the greatest number without

compromising the core values of the organization is as much

art as science. Impey and Underhill (1994, p. viii) stress that

successful management is not an academic discipline.

Ultimately management activities and tasks take place in real

time in the real world and offer a lack of time for reflection

and the attainment of complete information upon which to

base decisions.

Over the life of this research project the notion that the

management world ‘outside’ the classroom is a significant

arbiter of ELT practice has become increasingly recognised

by educators and researchers. Savage (1996, pp.24 – 27) has

argued that while there is a vast array of information on

general management and educational administration there is

a lack of research and application of this theory to

management practices in ELT centres. Walker (1998, pp.30 –

39) has noted the lack of research into ELT management in

376

general and its services management in particular. In a later

article Walker (2000, pp.23 – 33) argues that ELT managers

must ensure that their ELT instructors focus as much on the

services elements of ELT provision as on pedagogical issues.

Clark (1999: p.31) writes:

If we continue to focus exclusively on the classroom as the locus for change, our efforts will surely fail, and teachers will increasingly become the scapegoats for what are, in fact, systemic problems.

Even Jack Richards (2001, p.410) one of the most influential

applied linguists in the area of ELT principles and

pedagogical practice over the last two decades has recently

argued that the narrow focus of research into ELT, which has

focused on teaching methods and techniques, has to be

broadened to include an understanding of the context of ELT

and the institutions within which it is conducted. Richards

notes that principles of effective institutional management

identified in other settings need to be applied to ELT.

The introduction to this study noted that ELT managers in

Australia saw little correlation between their perceptions of

their work performance and of their organization’s

effectiveness; in other words ELT managers did not judge

their own work performance by its effect on organizational

outcomes. A mix of environmental, climate and discoursal

factors was proposed as the likely explanation for this. The

current study has suggested that strategies may be available

377

to ameliorate each of these inhibitors to efficient and

effective ELT management.

This study has explored three primary areas of concern for

effective ELT management. These were: i) environmental

factors, ii) problems of values and vision arising from a clash

of discourses and iii) climate factors including organizational

structure, milieu, ecology and culture. Some management

initiatives in the area of organizational climate were put in

place through an action research project at one international

ELT college and the outcomes of these initiatives were

discussed.

16.2. Environment

The turbulent environment of international ELT can lead

managers to feel that they can have little control over it. The

international ELT environment exhibits the paradoxical

trends of Postmodernity. As the reach of even small work

organizations becomes progressively more global,

organizations are pressured to increasingly segment,

differentiate and personalise themselves. ELT colleges on the

one hand are drawing their educational clients from a vast

range of countries, yet on the other, are becoming increasing

specialised in order to cater to various market 'niches'.

In such circumstances absolute managerial control over the

intensely unpredictable environment of ELT is an elusive

goal. Managers are unable to build walls against the surging

378

currents of the external environment. The skilful manager

has to be more a surfer using the currents and tides to best

advantage than a King Canute attempting to hold the tide at

bay. The surfer retains control and direction despite the

unpredictable forces. The aim is not to go against the surging

waves, but to understand the environment so that

organizational direction and purpose can be attained.

16.3. Discourse Resolution

From an anthropological perspective each organization is “a

world locked in a war of meanings” (Hamada, 1994: p.10)

and in international ELT colleges this ‘war of meanings’ has

largely been realised as a conflict between entrepreneurial

and educational values. This study has argued that

international ELT colleges are likely to be organizations in

which key players differ in terms of the fundamental value

systems that bring meaning to their work. The argument has

been made that managers in international ELT colleges need

to search for solutions that use the values and insights of

both the educator and the entrepreneur and, as far as

possible, allow this resolution to permeate through the

organization.

Because most ELT managers come into the position from

teaching backgrounds, and many play both teaching and

managerial roles concurrently, they must avoid judging

themselves simply by the values of the educator. The view

that managerial responsibility stops at the division between

379

teaching and marketing, or educational and financial matters,

is unlikely to lead to organizational success.

ELT managers in international colleges need to find working

resolutions between the values and insights of the educator

and the entrepreneur. The limiting feature of any discourse is

that its interpretive power creates blind spots in perception.

A particular discourse simultaneously enables and inhibits

perception. A discourse provides a framework to make sense

of input but it is this very framework that limits what is

perceived. The beliefs and perceptions that underlie the

discourse of the educator and of the entrepreneur form

paradigms and it is these internally held paradigms that drive

behaviour.

An ability to develop a mental set that embraces both value

systems and can use points of difference as analytical or

interpretive tools would seem an important one for ELT

managers to acquire. Managers require a holistic view of

operations if they are to attain organizational success. Impey

and Underhill (1994, pp.vii – viii) in their ELT management

text emphasise that the different aspects of management

such as personnel, finance and promotion are merely

different facets of an overall whole and not fundamental

divisions. They note:

Successful management is not only indivisible, it positively looks for the interconnections, between education and finance for example, or between personnel and marketing, and it looks for ways to exploit them.

Impey and Underhill (1994, p.viii)

380

It would seem that a key task for ELT managers, therefore, is

to develop a pragmatic basis for functionality for all

organizational members. Organizational members have to be

enabled to function on a common ground, not through

managerial coercion, but through the development of

consensus on key organizational matters. The difficulties in

developing such a functional solution across various

organizational dimensions is a complex task and likely to be

fraught with many disappointments. The personal and

professional price of failure however is high, leading to a

view that the owners are the enemy:

The problem in most private sector centres is that the top management (owners) are motivated by exclusively commercial (profit-centred) considerations. Staff (especially senior managerial staff – who have no financial interest in the centre) are overworked, underpaid and under-resourced. Educational quality is irrelevant. Staff training, development and happiness are irrelevant. Profit is everything. It is a business, not an educational institution. We sell language education, but it could as easily be cars, cakes or paper cups. ELT centre owners are industrial relations and human relations dinosaurs. Their creed is greed. Staff exist to be exploited. Students have only a dollar value. As Principal and DoS I do not have the time nor (this is important) the support from the Directors (owners) to perform any one aspect of my job well. Consequently everything is very poor quality. ….

ELT College Principal/DoS (1993)

16.4. Climate

The external environment and the competing discourses are

pressures outside, around and beneath the daily operations of

the international ELT college. The organizational climate,

consisting of its milieu, ecology, structure and culture are the

381

variables that ELT managers can manage and manipulate and

combine to help create a thriving college.

Colleges where only those at the top with actual equity or

financial control have any power to influence events may

develop problems with staff that negatively affect the quality

of students’ experience. Organizational cultures that focus on

limits and punishments probably act to reduce the value of an

ELT college. Ecological symbols that emphasis stratification

and strictly marked territories can allow problems to fester

and innovation to wither. Mismanagement of staff and

student milieu or reactively accepting ‘whatever comes

along’, leaves to luck an area of organizational life that can

and should be managed.

Of course most management difficulties are contingent on a

range of variables that make fixed, off-the-shelf solutions for

organizational difficulties very rare. Satisfactory resolutions

of management dilemmas are contingent upon the total

situation and are also contingent upon all the relevant

variables applying at that particular time and place. Each

difficulty or challenge can only be regarded as one instance

of a class or type of problem and principles and guidelines

can only be established for the general class of problems, not

for each specific instance.

In each individual case though, there are right and wrong

approaches. A blend of judgement, experience,

communication skills and luck is needed to make a sufficient

382

number of correct decisions and implement a critical mass of

suitable policies to make the ELT college’s climate one most

likely to lead to success.

383

Entrepreneur Values Educator Values

Dynamic Complexity Detail Complexity

Profit Quality

Effectiveness Efficiency

Pattern Orientation Event Orientation

Trust in people Trust in processes

Opportunity Accountability

Client as resource Client as beneficiary

Improvedfinancial

outcomes

Improvededucationaloutcomes

Figure 16.1Reconciliation of ELT educator and entrepreneurial values

INTEGRATIONOF

OPERATIONSAND

STRATEGIES

COLLABORATION

AMONGSTAFF

FOCUSON

CLIENT SERVICE

384

16.5. Action Research

The aim of action research, as noted in Chapter 2, is to solve

specific problems within the organization by developing

specific actions. The action and the research are linked and

are repeated in cycles until the particular problem is

resolved.

The action research project reported here had a tremendous

value for the participants and this researcher. The possibility

to shape organizational outcomes is intriguing for many in

ELT who have rarely been allowed a voice in the direction of

their organizations. The close linkage between particular

problems and solutions during this project though, limited the

effects of many of the initiatives after the project was

complete. Many of the features of the action research became

too closely linked with the character and style of the

management team at the time of the project. With changes to

this team, significant features were altered, and while

particular aspects remain, most of the initiatives came to be

seen as belonging to an ‘era’ rather than as fundamental

characteristics of the college.

Some of the action research in this study may seem limited to

those who view such research from a different perspective.

Gore and Zeichner (1995, p.206) note that

Action research, as a methodology for social scientific research and social change has historically been linked to a language of ‘democracy’ and ‘transformation’. …the power of emancipatory action research can be seen to lie in its connection to critical social science…it is precisely these connections which

385

contribute to its ‘dangers’ (as)… perhaps in the name of optimism and simplicity tends towards rather universalised notions of oppression and emancipation.

Class, gender and race formations, which are frequently the

issues in larger research contexts, are muted in this study.

On the other hand, the action research project was

meaningful to participants and genuinely proceeded from the

particular concerns of those who were involved. The

individuals who owned, worked or studied at College E

during the course of the action research could feel the

difference that such a project makes. The fact that most

participants in the action research now look back on those

times rather nostalgically is, perhaps, a very human indicator

of the significance of the project. The growth and success of

the college in the years that the research took place would

also seem to confirm its value.

16.6. Simply the Best

The aim of this study has been to use ethnographic methods

to gain a fuller insight into international ELT colleges and

examine some of the factors that enhance or interfere with

the management and attainment of their educational and

organizational goals.

Black (2001, p.11) notes that over the course of his career in

ELT management various owner-managed operations have

had a variety of organizational outcomes – one is currently in

receivership, one has grown steadily but with great staffing

386

unrest and constant compromise and one seems to have

stagnated by resting on its former reputation. None of these

long-term outcomes seems particularly desirable. A similar

range of outcomes exists for the colleges analysed here. By

mid 2002 one had closed down, one was suffering serious

reductions in student numbers and was on the verge of

receivership, one had been taken over by a large ELT college

‘chain’ and two were still operating successfully and

independently.

The expertise of the effective ELT manager should enable the

ELT college to experience steady growth to an optimum size

with a motivated group of staff and a constantly improving

educational and service reputation. Pre-packaged answers to

enable such an outcome are as difficult to develop as they

would be for other types of organizations. The search for

such solutions though, is important. The insights gained, and

the attainment of even partial answers, are themselves likely

to improve organizational outcomes.

More than a quarter of a century ago, Mintzberg (1975, p.58)

noted that manager effectiveness is significantly influenced

by their insight into their own work, and that performance

depends on how well a manager understands and responds to

the pressures and dilemmas of the job. Those of us involved

in ELT management must remember that it is precisely

because there are pressures and dilemmas that the role of

the manager exists.

387

In the conclusion to my previous study in ELT management I wrote:

One of the barriers to research in ELT management is the multi-disciplinary nature of the field. This makes choice of discourse style and nature of assumptions more problematic than other areas of applied linguistics and educational administration research. My recommendation to those who feel that research in the ELT management field is too vulnerable to criticism for incorrect assumptions, inaccurate constructs or careless analysis procedures however, is to push on …. I have the strong suspicion, after more than a decade of English language teaching and management experience in five countries and ten institutions, that aspects of ELT management will ultimately be shown to have far more impact on, and relevance to, the effective teaching and learning of second and foreign languages in the classrooms of real world institutions than the mountains of second language acquisition research, teaching methodology research and learning behaviour research that have so far dominated the ELT research agenda.

(Keaney 1994: p. 73)

After another eight years, two more countries and five more

institutions the words are still appropriate. Few ELT

professionals or students discuss or even remember the

college that had the finest ELT methodology, the college that

had the best tea-making facilities, the one with the most

colourful brochures or websites, the one that had the best

pension plan or the one that had the biggest library. All

however, talk about and remember the best Principal or

Director of Studies they ever had.

And while many of the solutions to ELT management

dilemmas remain uncertain, perhaps this is a not

unreasonable guide through the myriad confusions of

environmental turbulence, discoursal value clashes and

organizational climate factors to which every ELT manager

388

can aspire… to be, and to be remembered as, simply the best

ELT manager that your college owners, your staff and your

students will ever have.

389

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APPENDIX A

Interview and Observation Guide

Structure1. Organigram2. Which jobs/roles/tasks have the most power?3. Which have the least power?4. Who gives permission for what?5. Who controls financial aspects of organization?6. Extent of agreement with their decisions?7. Who talks to whom on a typical day? Socially? Work related?8. Content of conversations?9. Organization of hiring and firing?10.Feelings towards owners/managers/ELT managers of organization?11. Which areas are they particularly reasonable?12. Which areas are they particularly unreasonable?13. Changes in the last month? Six months? Year? Five years?14.If you were running this organization what changes would you make to

the organization's structure?15. Other?

Ecology1. Locations, rooms and facilities?2. Suitability/adequacy/etc for purposes of organization?3. Shortcomings?4. Best features?5. Aspects/areas that students/teachers/managers/owners particularly

like?6. Aspects/areas that students/teachers/managers/owners feel proud of?7. Aspects/areas that students/teachers/managers/owners particularly

dislike?8. Technology of organization?9. Which technological features are particularly important to which

stakeholders?10.Which technological features are irrelevant to which stakeholders?11. Which technological features could be used more effectively?

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12. Which ones are unnecessary?13. Changes in the last month? Six months? Year? Five years? 14. Other?

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Milieu1. People?2. Backgrounds?3. Satisfaction levels?4. Motivating and demotivating elements of organization/tasks?5. Is it the job itself you like/dislike or is there elements of the

organization that you like/dislike?6. Pay and conditions comparison to other institutions and to other

industries?7. Overall morale?8. Sorts of people this organization deals with on a professional basis

(agents, inspectors, etc.)?9. Would you recommend/Have you recommended this organization to

friends/relatives to work in? To study at? Why? Why not?10. Other?

Culture1. Norms?2. Belief systems?3. Values?4. Significant historical events in the organization and their implications?5. The impact of organizational heroes on contemporary thinking?6. The influence of traditions and organizational myths?7. Special terms or workplace slang that only insiders would understand?8. Type of people most likely to make a fast career or do well?9. Kind of people who would enjoy working here?10. Meaningful persons for this organization?11. Periodic meetings?12. Events celebrated in this organization?13. Types of things people like to see happening here?14. Biggest mistakes a person can make here?15. Type of work problems that might keep you awake at night?16. Any special ways of treating each other?17. Organizational culture? How has it evolved?18. How appropriate for the institution’s goals?19. Responds how effectively to changes in the organizational

environment?20. Visible beliefs? If so, what are they?21.Do people in the organization know these beliefs? If so, who? How

many?22. How do these beliefs affect day-to-day business?

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23. How are the beliefs communicated to the organization?24. Are the beliefs reinforced? How?25. How would you characterise the performance of the college?26. Other

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APPENDIX B

Sample Interview Sheet and Analysis

Organization Situation Participant DateCollege A Interview #1 Francis, DOS 10/10/96

THEME KEY

D = DISCOURSEMn = MANAGEMENTS = STRUCTUREM = MILIEUE = ECOLOGYC = CULTUREO = OTHER

Theme Key Concept Comment / Quote

Mn Tension 1. Has learned a lot and likes the direct culture but still frustrated and “unempowered” by it in many ways"

D/C Opposition 2. 2 different cultures - teacher culture and the business culture - why are they so anathematic to each other?

M Time in org 3. Started working for College A in Feb 1995

M Time in org 4. Been there almost two years

C/E Boundaries 5. Knows that College A was a breakaway from another org - "there was a lot of politics involved and some "ill-will" about resources such as the database but wouldn't know which orgs and personally doesn’t bear any resentments

S/C Type 6. Imagines College A was small and cosy 5 years ago

C Techniques 7. Everyone acted on their instincts

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C/S Structure 8. Had a family atmosphere that has passed now - directors talk nostalgically about the days when there were very few students

D/C Opposition 9. Healthy disrespect of what is labelled "academia" this is used derogatorily to refer to a range of matters including structures, formality and the hypocrisy of 'edubabble'

S Type 10. College A has completely resisted a formalisation of structures or staff - eg how staff given contracts because the model was the family companies and everything was trust based on people's good will and understanding

C Heroes 11. This culture is overall a positive - helps develop a unique feel - this comes from financial controller who derides things that are taken seriously by the teachers - always taking the piss " make money and have a good time" completely without respect for many values that others take seriously

S/C Problems 12. For some teachers this work culture is a problem - people who want to know about their rights and conditions

M/C Problems 13. Especially a problem for people who have worked in other places and had their expectations built there and define things in terms of an employer/employee relationship

S/M Problems 14. Some of these people have questioned things and when that happens they feel threatened

D/C Tension 15. Came to College A from the opposite kind of work culture which was bureaucracy gone mad - uni set up where person in charge of program was totally "form-driven" –

C/M Contrast 16. Sister has since left and is working for a uni program where most of the teachers are 'degreed' but not qualified in the area - her sister has even been asked to teach on the teacher training program

S/C Contrast 17. When she came to College A contrast was great - autonomy was wonderful up to a point but she felt insecure about what to do? - looking for a little bit of guidance

Mn Motivation to change to ELT management

18. Came from a teaching job, done ELT teaching for 10 years husband looking after baby and studying so need better position- script for employment was completely different

Mn Style 19. If she owned her own college she would do things in a very similar way but encourage a little more regularity and dependence

C Power 20. College A is somewhat "feudal" - not comfortable with negotiation comfortable as part of a system

C Planning 21. Everything at College A is ad hoc

325

M Heroes 22. At College A definition of good employee is one who is like minded

M/C Heroes 23. Heroes are those who are "light, fresh, humorous, understanding accepting and are happy"

M Heroes (anti) 24. Moaners or whingers are come down on heavily

Mn 25. Attitude of management is that "we have been good to them so they should be good back"

M 26. The teachers are given casual salary but with benefits of full-time position

C Divisions 27. At times has been resentment - problem of two colleges see computer teachers supervising lab sessions or business teachers with flexible curriculum offered occasionally no students - but English teachers need to always be teaching - but principal and financial controller strongly indicated that vocational college was integral to success of English college

M Salaries and recognition

28. Tension that everyone gets the same money with no recognition for different levels (eg someone with no qualifications earns the same as one woman who had five degrees) just have to explain to teachers that that’s the way it is

S Structure 29. Advantages are that there is no strong hierarchy and everyone feels equal and so no one sees anyone as on top –

S Structure 30. Also realises that as dos she is not on top of teachers

S/C Power 31. Definitely sees herself as part of the system but the owners have the real control and the final say

Mn Business vs education

32. Used to want owners to toe certain lines eg teacher contract as demanded by NEAS including no food in classrooms, no smoking, dress code - she copied a contract that she had had at a university college - but Principal and owners didn't want a bar of it so she decided to go with the flow and adopt a laissez faire attitude

O 33. No core text for teaching purposes

C Vision 34. Owners don’t want their college to become like other colleges

326

M/C Client focus 35. Very focused on student welfare and the need for them to have a good time in Sydney and feel comfortable in the college - all their efforts are focussed on the students that they have "love the one you’re with" –“ don't spend money on some unknown potential student in a far away country printing up glossy brochures for them to read”, “put all your efforts into the students you have and ensure that they build the colleges reputation”

Mn Techniques 36. New DOS will change the culture of the English college - he's got good ideas - but he's going to have a moment of reckoning like she did

Mn Vision 37. College A has no strong planning or vision for the future which can be seen in the building’s evolution - everything happens ad hoc and is unplanned

D Clash of values 38. There is healthy cynicism about what education is - they see it from a business point of view which helps the business but makes some education decisions hard

Mn Future 39. Doubts whether it can go on forever this way

Mn Feelings 40. Feeling of living on tenterhooks

Mn Techniques 41. She's seen problems with records and document handling

M Client focus 42. The college gives students a good structure and doesn't try to rip them off

E Client focus 43. The facilities include putting the students first - it sounds cliché but most other places don't

M 44. Would not like the school to get too big

M 45. College was best when it was 70 - 80 students - now 160 students - it could get to 300 students

E Problems 46. Admin problems such as database that couldn't print out classlists – principal didn't see the need to upgrade

E Problems 47. Problems getting enough materials and resources compared to social things

E Value clash 48. Gym easy to get - educational facilities not (eg had to buy books in self access at auction)

M/C Communication 49. Unique the way people get involved with networks of gossip

Mn Techniques 50. Principal as an administrator has a most unusual manner

327

S/C Values 51. Owners have the most influence leading to fights about traditional things - they support anything that's fun

Mn Feelings 52. Sometimes very stressful – have sick feeling on Sunday night thinking about work – sounds crazy when everything here is pretty good but there’s always a million small problems

D Value clash 53. Business and educational culture clash

D Value clash 54. Business vs tourism vs education

E Value clash 55. Strongly argued for the acquisition of new learning materials (eg readers) for library, owners converted room into a gym students and agents liked it but showed domination of owners view – although it was used and enjoyed by a lot of students

M Heroes 56. Star teacher is IELTS teacher – could work anywhere but likes happy-go-lucky style at College A, agents often put students here especially for her IELTS classes

E Premises look and location

57. College has very affluent look – even NEAS inspectors commented on that and location is perfect right in heart of city

E Communication 58. Always tries to inform staff about what’s going on eg copies of inspection approvals on noticeboard, conferences etc

Mn Marketing 59. Virtually no external marketing but still heaps of students

C Rituals 60. Annual party and Christmas party are very important started doing pantomimes as well and these are becoming big all these events are free to students and friends

328

APPENDIX C

Profile of Informants

Phase III

# Position College

Nationality M/F

Age

ELT

Exp1 Principal A UK/Aust M 48 02 Principal B Aust M 45 93 Principal C Korean/Aust M 44 04 Principal D Aust M 51 05 Director of Studies A Sri Lanka/Aust F 38 126 Director of Studies A Aust M 54 157 Director of Studies B Aust F 40 138 Director of Studies D Aust F 46 129 Director of Studies C Aust M 45 1110

Senior Teacher C Portugese/Aust

M 34 7

11

Senior Teacher C UK/Aust M 36 8

12

Senior Teacher A Aust F 52 15

13

Senior Teacher B Aust M 27 3

14

Senior Teacher D Aust F 37 9

15

Teacher A Aust F 26 2

16

Teacher B Aust M 29 4

17

Teacher B Aust F 50 8

18

Teacher A UK/Aust F 33 6

19

Teacher B Aust F 41 8

20

Teacher A Aust M 49 7

21

Teacher B UK F 28 3

22

Teacher C Aust M 30 4

23


329

24

Teacher A UK/Aust M 40 5

25


26


27

Teacher C Aust F 49 8

28

Teacher C Aust F 36 3

29


30


31

Teacher C UK/Aust M 29 4

32

Teacher D US/Aust M 56 2

33

Teacher D Aut/Aust F 69 5

34

Teacher A UK/Aust F 46 3

35

Teacher B Aust M 27 4

36

Administrative Worker

C Aust F 32 n/a

37


B Aust M 26 n/a

38


B Aust F 38 n/a

39


B Aust M 39 n/a

40


A Chinese F 34 n/a

41


A Aust F 39 n/a

42


B Aust F 19 n/a

43


A UK/Aust F 32 n/a

44


B Japanese F 30 n/a

45


C Indonesian F 38 n/a

46



47


D Aust F 24 n/a

330

48


B Japanese F 19 n/a

49



50


B NZ M 48 n/a

51


C Korean F 23 n/a

52


D Aust F 21 n/a

53


B Aust F 26 n/a

54


C Taiwanese F 28 n/a

55

Student A Taiwanese F 23 n/a

56

Student C Thai F 22 n/a

57

Student D Korean M 26 n/a

58

Student D Korean F 21 n/a

59

Student A Japanese F 21 n/a

60

Student C Brazilian M 47 n/a

61

Student A Chinese M 29 n/a

62

Student D Slovak M 31 n/a

63

Student C Indonesian M 24 n/a

64

Student C Indonesian F 23 n/a

65

Student C Korean M 26 n/a

66

Student C Slovak M 24 n/a

67

Student B Korean F 20 n/a

68

Student B Japanese M 21 n/a

69

Student B Taiwanese M 22 n/a

70

Student B Japanese F 21 n/a

71


331

72


73

Student C Thai F 20 n/a

74

Student A Thai F 24 n/a

75

Student D Korean F 26 n/a

76

Student C German F 34 n/a

77

Student A Czech F 31 n/a

78

Student A Czech M 29 n/a

79

Student B Slovak M 26 n/a

80

Student B Malaysian M 22 n/a

81

Student B Indonesian F 21 n/a

332

Phase IV Action Research

# Position College

Nationality M/F

Age

ELT Exp

1 Owner E Korean/Aust M 42 02 Owner E Indonesian/

AustF 37 0

3 Principal E Aust M 39 134 Director of Student

AffairsE Aust F 33 8

5 Director of Studies E Aust M 29 56 Assistant DOS E Greek/Aust M 54 157 Teacher E Aust M 40 88 Teacher E US M 51 39 Teacher E UK/Aust M 28 510

Teacher E Aust M 30 2

11

Teacher E UK/Aust M 27 4

12

Teacher E UK F 26 3

13


14

Teacher E Aust F 50 2

15


16

Teacher E UK F 41 5

17

Teacher E UK M 30 8

18


19

Teacher E Irish F 27 4

20


21

Teacher E Irish F 26 3

22

Teacher E UK F 29 5

23

Teacher E UK F 50 4

24

Teacher E UK F 33 9

2 Teacher E Aust M 26 2

333

526


27


28

Teacher E NZ M 36 5

29


30


31


32

Teacher E UK F 3

33

Administrative Worker E Japanese F 32 n/a

34

Administrative Worker E Slovak M 26 n/a

35

Administrative Worker E Thai F 38 n/a

36

Administrative Worker E Aust M 39 n/a

37

Administrative Worker E Aust F 19 n/a

38

Administrative Worker E Aust F 27 n/a

39

Administrative Worker E NZ F 23 n/a

40

Administrative Worker E Indonesian F 26 n/a

41

Student E Chinese F 23 n/a

42

Student E Korean F 22 n/a

43

Student E Japanese F 21 n/a

44

Student E Slovak M 47 n/a

45

Student E Czech M 29 n/a

46

Student E Japanese F 20 n/a

47

Student E Korean M 21 n/a

48

Student E Indonesian M 22 n/a

4 Student E Thai F 20 n/a

334

950

Student E Thai F 24 n/a

51

Student E Columbian F 23 n/a

52

Student E Thai M 25 n/a

53

Student E Taiwanese F 23 n/a

54

Student E Indonesian F 22 n/a

55

Student E Indonesian M 24 n/a

56

Student E Columbian F 22 n/a

57

Student E Brazilian M 19 n/a

58

Student E Russian M 27 n/a

59

Student E Slovak F 26 n/a

60

Student E Slovak M 26 n/a

61

Student E Czech F 24 n/a

62

Student E Japanese M 29 n/a

63

Student E Korean M 26 n/a

64

Student E Japanese M 25 n/a

65

Student E Korean F 23 n/a

66

Student E Indonesian F 21 n/a

67

Student E Thai F 19 n/a

68


69

Student E Chinese M 21 n/a

70


335

336

Documents

Thesis 2002