Uczelnia organizacją w odcieniu turkusu - szansa czy iluzja?

Abstract

After several years of discussions on the future shape of higher education in Poland, both at the systemic and institutional level, on July 20, 2018, “The Law on Higher Education and Science,” from now on referred to as the Law, was enacted. Together with a package of ordinances, this regulation broadened the autonomy of universities in terms of organization and management while substantiating the importance of their accountability. Strengthening the rector’s authority resulted in a change in the perception of universities as dispersed organizations (Weick, 1976) towards compact organizations (Brunsson and Sahlin-Andersson, 2000). The authors noticed that the concept of the university, in line with the letter and spirit of the Law, does not pay due attention to the relations between university employees. Therefore, the article aims to present a proposal to implement the elements of the turquoise organization concept (Laloux, 2015), which is more and more often described in the scientific literature – and at the same time evokes extreme emotions – into an academic institution. The article indicates the unused, in the authors’ opinion, possibilities of organizational and management changes created by the Law and describes selected features of the turquoise organization, relating them to an academic institution. It also compares the characteristics of a traditional university, entrepreneurial, and a university with a shade of turquoise. The research part analyzes interviews with deliberately selected employees of the Gdańsk University of Technology. During individual conversations, they expressed their opinions on new organizational and management solutions proposed by the article’s co-author. In summary, an attempt was made to answer the question formulated in the title.