Applying the Principles of Organisational Intelligence in University Strategies

Abstract

This article describes the concept of organizational intelligence and its use in higher education system. The examples of the world experience show, that for a long time universities, despite their origin country, were the factor that changed environment, however, globalization changed this process to universities’ disadvantage: there were some new processes going on in the environment, which directly were not reflected in the activity of universities and as a result of this universities gradually turned into isolated systems possessing little connection with the surrounding environment. The state, trying to bring the universities nearer to the requirements of society and market, is changing the manner of financing and, thus, initiating the universities to find their own space within the market. Today this process requires the organization that respects the new management paradigms of community, networks, feedback, self-organization, and learning organizations despite the form of organization (business or public sector organization). Organizations mired in bureaucracy are slow to respond to environmental changes, so organizations must grow far more intelligence to deal with the diverse and simultaneous challenges encountered on a daily basis. The breadth of the gap between what is – and what needs to be – is so great that many leaders conclude their organizations lack the collective intelligence needed to weather the total transformation of the industries or professions they represent. It is supposed that in university as in any other non – profit organization there can be applied the principles of organizational intelligence. In this article organizational intelligence refers to the capacity of an organization as a whole to gather information, to innovate, to generate knowledge, and to act effectively basing on the knowledge it has generated. There are some important aspects of organizational intelligence. One of them is a learning organization. Universities that function as learning organizations in the context of rapid global change are those that have systems and structures that enable staff at all levels to collaboratively and continuously learn and put new learning to use. It is impossible to create organizational intelligence without appropriate leadership. Approaches to leadership that support the development of universities as intelligent and learning organizations find more in common with cultural, collaborative approaches in which teachers are viewed as partners than with the technological, hierarchical, rational planning models. While estimating the possibilities of university to be come an intelligent organization, it should be noticed that it would mean cardinal changes in all the system of higher education. Nevertheless, there exists the probability that some of the universities have got separate qualities of organizational intelligence, which guarantees their competitive superiority. Applying the principles of organizational intelligence university activities are analyzed only from one of number perspectives - strategic one.