Organizational Innovation for Continuing Education in Higher Education in Taiwan: The case of the Chinese Culture University

Author: Hsin-Ke Lu, Kuan-Chun Chang, Min-Jen Yan, Peng-Chun Lin

Provenance: International Journal of Continuing Education and Lifelong Learning

Published on 01 May 2016

 

Abstract

Globalization trends and social changes across the world, paving ways for the emergence of learning societies amid an aging demography, have created new challenges for the higher education sector in Taiwan. Institutions scramble to analyze the ecology of the education sector from a wider perspective for a better grasp of its current and future situations, based on which positioning and operation strategies could be devised to meet changing demands. Institutions are, therefore, interested in pursuing organizational innovation initiatives, such as structural innovation enabled by the use of information technology ("IT"), consolidation of teaching resources, effectiveness enhancement and quality assurance, which all help to enhance the overall effectiveness of institutions and their positions in the market as these undertakings make their way into the core strategies of achieving excellence in the provision of higher education. The research project presented in this paper sought to explore how, with the use of IT, universities pursue organizational reform and innovative operation in respect of their continuing education branches, and offer a consolidated discussion of the underlying theories, drawing on the example of the Chinese Culture University which has made organizational innovation an integral part of in its overall strategy. The authors hoped to establish a dialogue between the theories on organizational innovation and the actual case, from which the experience gained can be presented in a way that will be useful to both education innovators in need of a case of reference and researchers on the subject.

 

Keywords

Continuing education, Lifelong learning, Organizational innovation, IT-enabled reform

 

Website

https://search.informit.org/doi/abs/10.3316/informit.143360525086188