The curriculum change process: Participants, strategies, and tactics

Abstract

This investigation focuses on the participants, strategies, and tactics involved in the curriculum change process in higher education. Using the exploratory case study approach in three accredited graduate schools of business, the study identifies and describes the roles of two groups of participants: internals, (faculty, administration, students), and externals (trustees, alumni, community leaders, unions). Two basic strategies, the empirical rational and the power coercive, are found to be important approaches to curriculum change. A typology of factors is used to describe the specific methods used to implement (or resist) curriculum change. It was expected that the participants, strategies, and tactics involved in the curriculum change process in graduate schools of business would be unique. The findings suggest that strategies and tactics employed in higher education are quite similar to those employed in other organizations with respect to the process of change.