Reappraising reengineering

IN 1993 THE PEW FOUNDATION initiated a project to restructure higher education. Adopting the rhetoric of the day, the conveners of the Pew Higher Education Roundtable proclaimed that "a five- to seven-year process designed to reengineer operations can yield a 25 percent reduction in the number of fulltime employees an institution requires." The knights of this roundtable have mostly gone on to tilt at other windmills-especially tenure. Yet the underlying assumption of reengineering-that quantitative and qualitative staff reductions can occur without loss of organizational effectiveness-persists. Is there anything we can learn from industry's experience with reengineering?

According to John Koenig, in "Gurus Leave a Trail of Cliches, Victims," (Orlando Sentinel 1 February 1998, sec. HI), reengineering is just one of the failed fads propelling a profitable consulting industry. "Five years later, 'reengineering' is a dirty word," he says. One survey of corporate executives by the Arthur D. Little consulting firm found that only 16 percent were satisfied with the results of reengineering their companies; 68 percent had run into unexpected problems. In higher education, where faculty have a voice in governance, and where many faculty members have used that voice to condemn reengineering, no one need be surprised. In fact, as early as fall 1993, the AAUP's publication Footnotes reviewed the Pew roundtable arguments for reengineering and concluded that "restructuring is one more in the line of managerial fads, like program budgeting and strategic management, which seek to infuse the academy with managerial values as a remedy for fiscal stress. We do not need restructuring. We need to renew our commitment to quality education."

Speaking of fads, George Keller began his 1983 manifesto, Academic Strategy: The Management Revolution in American Higher Education, with the dire warning: "A specter is haunting higher education: the specter of decline and bankruptcy. Experts predict that between 10 and 30 percent of America's 3,100 colleges and universities will close their doors or merge with other institutions by 1995." The 1997 Higher Education Directory lists 3,681 American colleges and universities-an increase of almost 20 percent since Keller wrote his book. But dire warnings continue unabated.

John Koenig asks why "managers are so eager to embrace" such ideas. In answer, he cites the findings of psychologist Allen Katcher, reported in The Witch Doctors: Making Sense of the Management Gurus: "Nineteen out of twenty [executives] said they feared their subordinates would find out how inadequate they felt." Koenig concludes, "A rapidly changing business environment, populated by unconfident managers, makes a ripe opportunity for anyone proclaiming that he or she has The Answer." Especially, we might add, if the answer furthers managerial authority.

Ernst Benjamin is AA UP associate general secretary and director of research.

Copyright American Association of University Professors May/Jun 1998
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