BETWEEN CHAOS AND CONTROL: CREATING HIGH-PERFORMANCE CULTURES IN UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES

The economy of the 21st century requires individuals who are skilled at analyzing problems from an interdisciplinary perspective, generating innovative ideas and thinking creatively. Higher education institutions are attempting to respond to this challenge by launching creative campus initiatives. The hallmarks of these initiatives include increasing opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration, cross-cultural exchanges, internationalization, and the integration of the arts into the curriculum and campus life.

The introduction of creative campus initiatives into the traditional discipline-based university and college structures represents a management challenge, since these initiatives tear down the barriers and walls between and among disciplines and structure knowledge dissemination in new ways. Higher education administrators are being asked to rapidly develop knowledge and skills in innovation management: They need to be able to assess an institution’s capacity to absorb and integrate this type of innovation, to establish appropriate organizational structures supporting creative campus initiatives, and to promote norms and values of high-performance cultures. Understanding the tools, techniques and processes of innovation management in business, can assist higher education administrators to successfully master these tasks. Drawing upon principles of effective innovation management utilized by such corporate leaders as IDEO, 3M and Research in Motion, the paper will develop a blueprint to successfully launch creative campus initiatives in academia and promote their long-term sustainability.