Proposal Overview: The Evolution of Institutional Change, ICT Development Policies, and Global Influences: The Case of Higher Education in the Western Balkans
Despite robust policy frameworks and significant international investment, higher education institutions (HEIs) in the Western Balkans (WB) remain digitally underdeveloped. My research addresses this paradox by investigating the institutional, organizational, and individual-level factors that enable digital transformation (DT) in higher education. This project is structured around three empirical studies using a sequential mixed-methods approach and draws on institutional and innovation theory to explore why resistance to change persists, and how digitally innovative pathways can emerge.

Background and Relevance

Digital transformation in HEIs is more than technological adoption; it is an institutional process shaped by governance, organizational culture, and historical legacies. HEIs differ from other sectors due to their decentralized governance, tradition-bound academic norms, and overlapping mandates (education, research, services). These complexities are amplified in the Western Balkans, where despite EU-driven agendas and aid, HEIs struggle with low digital uptake, lack of institutional strategic planning, and path-dependent institutional inertia.

Kosova and Albania serve as comparative cases in this study. While both countries share geographic and cultural traits, they diverge in state formation and educational legacies. This provides an opportunity to examine how historical development shapes institutional responses to digital innovation in higher education. The region’s challenges, resistance to change, limited infrastructure, and fragmented digital strategies, highlight the urgency for evidence-based insights to support policy and institutional reform.

Core Research Questions

What factors hinder institutional innovation in HEIs?

How can institutions shift from resistance to change and move toward digital innovation?

Paper 1: Institutional Path Dependency and Policy Gaps

This paper investigates how past policies and institutional choices shape the current (in)capacity of HEIs to implement digital strategies. Through historical analysis, semi-structured interviews, and focus groups, the study examines whether governance structures and policy mandates have enabled or obstructed DT. Using theories of path dependency and sociological institutionalism, it identifies institutional legacies and self-reinforcing mechanisms that entrench resistance. Preliminary findings suggest that fragmented policy implementation and historical rigidity have limited innovation, despite available resources.

Paper 2: Faculty Engagement and Policy Interventions (RCT)

To test how change occurs at the micro level, the second study uses a 2x2 factorial randomized controlled trial (RCT) involving university faculty. The intervention tests whether digital training and information about institutional digital policies as policy interventions) increase faculty uptake of LMS tools. The study measures behavioral change through LMS log data and surveys. The assumption is that combined interventions (training + policy awareness) significantly improve digital uptake compared to either alone. This paper reframes digital transformation as a policy design challenge, emphasizing the role of institutional signaling in shaping individual behavior.

Paper 3: Benchmarking Innovation and Overcoming Resistance

The final paper investigates how digitally mature HEIs overcome resistance and institutionalize innovation. Using a triangulated approach—case studies, secondary data analysis (e.g., EUA, OECD), and interview-based insights—it identifies governance models, leadership strategies, and enabling conditions (such as CIO roles, dedicated DT units, integration into QA systems) that distinguish digitally resilient institutions. The goal is to develop a benchmark framework tailored to HEIs operating in constrained policy environments.

The first paper focuses on the following question: How do formal and informal institutions condition digital adoption in HEIs? The first paper includes three components: (1) a historical analysis, (2) interviews, and (3) focus groups. The historical analysis includes a review of the institutional framework (see list in Section 4), policy documents, media reports. This review presents the evolution of digital policies. The retrieval of these records involves a systematic search through government portals, ministry web- sites, and national news archives, as well as the use of targeted keyword queries on digital media platforms. The institutional records access strategy involves university websites, internal archives, annual reports, and, where necessary, direct communication with relevant administrative offices. Semi-structured in-depth interviews include 10 to 20 policy and HEI stakeholders (i.e., HEI leadership/faculty/IT and 5 policy and decision-makers). The draft questionnaire for the interviews adopts the International Association ofUniversities Global Survey on Digital Transformation framework (IAO, 2023), which includes sections such as governance, teaching and learning, and support (draft questionnaire in Annex 3.2 of Prospectus submission is under review). Semi-structured interviews provide flexibility and structure, allowing for the control of the interview process and, at the same time, adapting the interview to the flow of the conversation. Focus groups include faculty members, students, and IT staff at the institutional level. There are 18 HEIs in Kosova, comprising seven public universities and 11 private colleges, with a total of approximately 85,000 students and 5,000 academic staff. While in Albania, there are 40 HEIs, comprising 14 public universities and 26 private institutions, with a total of 91,000 students. The extracted samples for the focus groups include: - 2 focus groups with faculty members - 1 focus groups in Kosova (4-6 participants per group). - 1 focus groups in Albania (4-6 participants per group). - 2 focus groups with students. - 1 focus group in Kosova (4-6 participants per group). - 1 focus group in Albania (4-6 participants per group). The focus groups aim to explore perceptions of the digital transformation of their HEI, identify perceived barriers to digital transformation and reasons why, and gain insights into potential incentives and motivators for digital transformation. Based on this, the paper presents a thematic analysis generated through MAXQDA or NVivo, which incorporates auto-coding/AI features, which also inform the design of the interventions (RCT) in Paper 2. The use of an RCT within organizational settings, especially in the WB context, is a novel methodological contribution.

Bringing together the literatures on innovation and institutional change provides a powerful lens for analyzing digital adoption in higher education. Theories of innovation stress the dynamic, cumulative, and systemic nature of technological change, while institutional theories emphasize the patterned, historically embedded, and legitimacy-seeking behaviors of organizations. Digital adoption, therefore, can be conceptualized as both an institutional process, where new technologies are legitimized, routinized, and aligned with existing norms, and an innovative process, where technological and organizational paradigms co-evolve. Nelson and Winter’s (2004) evolutionary theory of economic change bridges these perspectives by treating routines as organizational analogues of individual skills. Just as individual behavior is shaped by tacit knowledge and habitual patterns, organizational routines represent institutionalized capabilities that structure how institutions respond to technological opportunities. Routinization both enables stability and constrains radical innovation, implying that digital transformation depends on the balance between established institutional logics and adaptive capacity. Combining insights from new institutionalism and innovation theory allows for an exploration of how institutional legacies shape the capacity of higher education institutions to absorb, implement, and routinize digital innovations. This integrative framework situates micro-level behaviors (faculty digital uptake) within meso-level institutional processes (policy and implementation) and macro-level structures (national and global technological change

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