Staffs’ Perceptions toward the Quality of Strategic Planning: Empirical Case of an Autonomous University in Thailand

Author(s):

Buratin Khampirat(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

11. Educational Improvement and Quality Assurance

Format:

Paper

Session Information

11 SES 03 A, Quality Assurance in Higher Education

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-08

17:15-18:45

Room:

102.Oktatóterem [C]

Chair:

Buratin Khampirat

Contribution

The rapid change of world and interactions between education environments, the evolution of technology, scientific innovation and economic development have always been important issues in quality management of university systems. This is due to the fact that universities have been increasingly held accountability for measurable outputs, and outcomes (Khampirat, 2013). Furthermore, the impact of global ranking systems and growing competition in higher education institutions (Hazelkorn, 2009; Bagley & Portnoi, 2014), universities have been demanded to demonstrate their productivities, effectiveness, and efficiencies, and have to respond with varieties of measurements and evaluations (Khampirat, 2008). One of the factors ensuring good governance, and quality management is strategic planning (Yelken, Kilic, & Ozdemir, 2012).

The concept of strategic planning began in the context of military, and was applied in business organizations in the 1950s (Lerner, 1999; Yelken, Kilic, & Ozdemir, 2012). By the mid-1960s to mid-1970s, strategic planning was very popular, and widespread in most international enterprises (Mintzberg, 1994; Lerner, 1999). It was originated in university after 1970s, and in other educational institutions since 1980s (Reiger, 1993, as cited in Yelken, Kilic, & Ozdemir, 2012). Chandler (1962) defined strategy as “the determination of the basic long-term goals and objectives of an enterprise, and the adoption of courses of action and the allocation of resources for carrying out these goals.” While Mintzberg (1994) indicated that strategy is a plan, ploy, pattern, position, and perspective; strategy is a process of sensing, analyzing, choosing and acting. Bryson (2004) described strategy as a pattern of purposes, policies, programs, actions, decisions, or resource allocations that define what an organization is, what it does, and why it does it.

Nowadays, strategic planning has become more important (Bryson, 2004) for higher education for its development (Yelken, Kilic, & Ozdemir, 2012), and has been accepted as one of the most important indicators to ensure good governance, and quality assurance activities, within transparency, and based on the results. Also, strategic planing is a management tool and guideline to lead an organization do a better job (Allison & Kaye, 2005) from where it is now to where it would like to be in the next five or ten years (Yelken, Kilic, & Ozdemir, 2012; Bryson, 2004). Strategic planning process is generally associated with a variety of university environments, and can help prepare a university to face emerging challenges such as: increasing demand for higher education concurrent with a decline in government funding, changing student demographics, and a need to compete with the emerging models of higher education while keeping the essence of a traditional comprehensive university (Lerner, 1999).

Therefore, evaluation of strategic planning based on the perceptions of stakeholders is an important issue. The objectives of this study were to compare the perceptions of administrators, faculty members, and supporting staffs toward strategic planning, and to assess the construct validity of the measurement model of the quality of strategic planning, as measured by Baldrige, when applied in an autonomous university in Thailand.

Method

Participants The target population of the present study was in a public autonomous university in Thailand, in which the participants were stratified randomly to reflect the population. The surveys were brought directly to 84 administrators, 145 faculty members, and 119 supporting staffs. Out of the total of 348 questionnaires distributed, 190 were received, representing a response rate of 54.60 %. Of the 190 respondents, 98 (51.58%) were females and 91 (47.89%) males; 86 (45.26%) with doctorate degree, 62 (32.63%) with master’s degree, and 42 (22.11 %) with bachelor’s degree; 94 (49.47%) working at the university for 11-15 years, 52 (27.37%) for 5-10 years, 29 (15.26%) for more than 15 years, and 14 (7.37%) for less than 5 years. Measures The instrument applied in the evaluations of staffs’ perceptions toward quality of strategic planning was questionnaires developed based on the strategic planning questionnaire of Baldrige Education Criteria for Performance Excellence (NIST, 2008; 2012; 2013), with some modifications to comply with the context of Thai higher education (Khampirat, 2009; 2011). Participants rated items in the questionnaire using a 6-point Likert scale. They were in the range of 1 to 6; with “1” indicating “very poor” response and “6” indicating “excellent level perception” response. To assess the internal consistency and reliability, the Cronbach’s alpha was employed. The levels of quality of strategic planning in the Baldrige application guidelines measured by 4 indicators with 12 items: (1) Strategy Development Process (2 items; alpha = .973) (2) Strategic Objectives (3 items; alpha = .873) (3) Action Plan Development and Deployment (5 items; alpha = .850) (4) Performance Projections (2 items; alpha = .680). The Cronbach’s alpha values for the 4 dimensions ranged from .680 to .873, exceeding guidelines for adequate reliability. Data Analysis In the first part, one-way analysis of variance (one-way ANOVA) was performed to test the mean differences between the perceptions of administrators, faculty members and supporting staffs toward the quality of strategic planning in their universities. One-Way ANOVA was also applied to test the research hypothesis that the source of the participants (administrators, faculties, and supporting staffs) would have a significant effect on the reported perceptions of the quality of strategic planning. In the second part, a testing of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted and discussed in detail. Mplus 6.12 statistical package was employed in the evaluations of the goodness-of-fit of the measurement model.

Expected Outcomes

In the first part, the statistical analyses showed that groups have no significant effect on the rating of strategic planning; F(2,187) = 1.39, p = .25. Also, the mean of each indicator, (1) Strategy Development Process (2) Strategic Objectives (3) Action Plan Development and Deployment (4) Performance Projections, revealed no statistically significant difference between the 3 groups. In the second part, the results of second-order CFA indicated that, the proposed model that allowed four error terms to be correlated provides an adequate fit ( χ2= 95.368, df = 48, p = .000). The overall goodness-of-fit of model, measured by the ratio of χ2/df, is 1.99, suggesting that the proposed model fits the data. The other fit indices (RMSEA=.072, 95% C.I. = 0.051-0.093; CFI=, .961; TLI = .947; SRMR =.046) also confirmed that the hypothesized model fits well and, all the standardized factor loadings are statistically significant and salient (Beta > 0.6, p<.000). The parameter estimates indicated that all the four indicators contribute significantly to measurement of the quality of strategic planning. The parameter estimates describing the relationship between each indicators and their items in the first-order model, as well as between each indicators and the quality of strategic planning factor in the second-order model, are all sizeable and significant; the Z-values greater than 2.58 are significant at p<.000. Based on the present statistical analyses, one can conclude that the construct of the measurement model of the quality of strategic planning, as measured by Baldrige Education Criteria for Performance Excellence, is valid, and applicable in an autonomous university in Thailand. As “Strategy Development Process” was confirmed to represent the most important indicator, to achieve an effective, executable strategic plan, stakeholders and university environment must be included in the development process. Other important findings will be discussed in detail in the conference.

References

Allison, M., & Kaye, J. (2005). Strategic planning for nonprofit organizations: A practical guide and workbook (2nd ed.). Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Bagley, S. S., & Portnoi, L. (2014). Setting the stage: Global competition in higher education. New Directions in Higher Education, 2014(168), 5-11. Bryson, J. M. (2004). Strategic planning for public and nonprofit organizations: A guide to strengthening and sustaining organizational achievement (3rd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Wiley. Chandler, A. D. Jr. (1962). Strategy and structure: Chapters in the history of the american industrial enterprise. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hazelkorn, E. (2009) Impact of global rankings on higher education research and the production of knowledge. Unesco Forum on Higher Education, Research and Knowledge, Occasional Paper No. 18. Khampirat, B. (2008, September). Evaluations of employer satisfaction and competencies of graduates: A second-order factor analysis. Paper presented at the 2008 European Conference on Educational Research (ECER), Department of Education, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, 8-12 September 2008. Khampirat, B. (2009, September). Application of Baldrige education criteria on the assessment of an autonomous university in Thailand. Paper presented at the 2009 European Conference on Educational Research (ECER), University of Vienna, Austria, 28-30 September 2009. Khampirat, B. (2011). Analysis of the SUT profile for success foresight. Nakhon Ratchasima: Suranaree University of Technology. Khampirat, B. (2013, June). Test of measurement invariance of graduate skill evaluation model for Thai higher education institution. In D. Smith, A. Jones, & A.-M. Houghton (Eds.), Mobility and Transitions: Learning, Institutions, Global and Social Movements. Proceeding of the 43rd SCUTREA Annual and CRLL Biennial Conference, Glasgow Caledonian University, Scotland, 25-27 June 2013 (pp. 155-161). Glasgow: Glasgow Caledonian University and SCUTREA. Lerner, A. L. (1999). A strategic planning primer for higher education. College of Business Administration and Economics, California State University, Northridge. Retrieved from http://www.fgcu.edu/provost/files/strategic_planning_primer.pdf Mintzberg, H. (1994). The rise and fall of strategy planning. New York: Macmillan, Inc. National Institute of Standards and Technology, United States Department of Commerce. (2008). Baldrige national quality program: Education criteria for performance excellence. Wisconsin: America Society for Quality. National Institute of Standards and Technology, United States Department of Commerce. (2012). 2013 Baldrige Education Criteria. Retrieved from http://www.baldrige21.com/Baldrige_Education_Criteria.htm National Institute of Standards and Technology, United States Department of Commerce. (2013). 2013–2014 Baldrige education criteria for performance excellence. Retrieved from http://www.nist.gov/baldrige/publications/upload/2013-2014_Education_Criteria_Category_and_Item_Commentary.pdf. Yelken, T. Y., Kilic, F., & Ozdemir, C. (2012). The strategic planning (SWOT) analysis outcomes and suggestions according to the students and the lecturers within the distance education system. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, 13(2), 267-276.

Author Information

Buratin Khampirat (presenting / submitting)

Suranaree University of Technology

Institute of Social Technology

Nakhon Ratchasima

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