Higher education in Lebanon: Management cultures and their impact on performance outcomes

Abstract

This research study takes a close look at the higher education system in Lebanon. It attempts to identify the principal management cultures in seven institutes of higher education each adopting a different educational system---American, French, Egyptian and Lebanese. McNay's quartet of collegium, bureaucracy, corporation and enterprise was used as a main reference, with positioning on the model determined by the two dimensions of policy definition and control over implementation each defined as either 'loose' or 'tight'. The study describes and analyzes the organisational structures of the institutions in an attempt to determine the characteristics of the power and authority relationships of each culture and the modes of decision-making. The research study further investigates the degree of academic and institutional autonomy, the measures of accountability and the mechanisms of internal and external scrutiny adopted by the institutes.

While McNay's typology serves as a base to begin to categorise the management cultures of these institutes, no neat categorisation emerged from the combination of the various data sources used in the study. Elements of all four cultures exist in all universities, with dominance for features of the bureaucratic and the corporate cultures. Factors such as the degree of secularisation of the institutions and their cultural origins, whether Lebanese, Arab or Western, seem to impact on institutional culture and are manifested in a distinctive personalised mode of management that emphasises control, power and loyalty, which are deep seated cultural traits of the people of Lebanon and the region.

In evaluating the changing environment of higher education, student views on 'quality' are also important. The study highlights the differences between institutional types in relation to student performance outputs based on students' perceptions of their overall educational experience such as teaching and learning experiences. Students in all institutions expressed satisfaction with the education they were receiving; however students in American patterned universities seemed to be exposed to a more liberal form.