Change management in Higher Education: a New Perspective

Universities need to operate a transition from the common ‘traditional’ settings towards an education that contributes to a sustainable social change by preparing students to be change agents who care for others and for the well-being of society. We designed an interpretative qualitative approach using the unique case study of a Jesuit University, based on interviews with leaders of and participants to volunteering initiatives driven by that university. The objective of the study was to identify the drivers of change of the outreach model in higher education and analyze if the Jesuit way of doing things, or Jesuit tradition, is an effective tool to drive the change in universities. Five key drivers of change were identified (communication, participation, sharing, empathy and reflexivity), all in line with the characteristics of the Jesuit tradition. Both empathy and reflexivity are drivers of change, which were not cited in previous works on change management and may be considered as the study’s added value to the conceptual framework. The results of this study need to be confirmed on a larger sample of participants and would be enriched by a benchmarking work on Jesuit-led outreach bodies.