Key Finding Four: Administrative Decisions

ANOVA results demonstrate significant differences between KSU and the University of Leeds in relation to the actual participation in administrative decisions (F = 7.369, P = 0.008<0.05), since staff at KSU are less likely to actually participate in such decisions than staff at Leeds. However, staff at KSU are more likely to get involved in such administrative decisions than their counterpart from the University of Leeds (F = 32.038, P = 0.000<0.05).

In the participation area (category), the survey questionnaire results indicate that the actual participation of staff in the recruitment of academic staff at KSU was lower than the participation of staff at the University of Leeds (mean = 1.26 and 2.40), while more staff at KSU wish to desirably participate in such decisions than staff at Leeds (mean = 3.68 and 2.64 respectively). The results of this study are consistent with a study conducted by Mehta et al. (2010) on Indian universities. The study found significant differences between actual and desired participation decisions (administrative) studied on teachers’ participation in decision- making. In general, the study pointed to differences between the actual and desired participation in decision-making to be significant. The results of the study, however, are not supported by the study conducted by Mualuko et al. (2009) who demonstrated no significant difference between the two, actual and desired participation, related to various types of areas such as instructive, distribution of classes, teaching and administration.

Due to a lack of empirical studies on the comparisons between higher educational institutions from different cultures, I tried to link my study results to similar studies. A study conducted by Sukirrno and Siengthai (2010) in their study on Indonesia found that more than half of the lecturers who participated in the study were involved in planning and building the budget of the department, determining teaching schedules, establishing curriculum, hiring new teachers, setting policy on class size, selecting contents of modules and topics to be taught, and teaching techniques. Vught et al. (2009) suggested that higher educational institutions are diverse, and this diversity depends upon several factors such as objectives of the organisation, strategic values and participation of staff in decision-making.

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It can be concluded from the discussion above that there is a power distance between leaders at KSU and their subordinates. According to Bhuian (1998), Saudi Arabia’s power distance ranking was 80, which indicates a high level of inequality of power within organisations. This rank means that leaders separate themselves from the group. Saudi Arabia’s high power distance has an impact on decision-making within organisations. According to Cameron and Quinn (2006), managers in Arab countries generally make their decisions on an autocratic basis, and subordinates are more likely to be silent observers. Cameron and Quinn’s (2006) study is consistent with results of this study, as I observed in the meetings how decisions are made.

5.10 Summary

While summarising the findings from surveys, it was understood that participants sought to be more involved in making decisions in their respective organisations. This conclusion is based on the findings that the desired state always scores higher than the actual state. The range was highest in financial decisions (SD = 1.28), followed by administrative decisions (SD = 1.07). It is important to understand that these findings do not mean that actual involvement is low in any of the categories, as the aggregated means for the categories differ. In relation to participation in research-related decisions, the results showed that participation in contract negotiation for privately funded research accounted for the highest mean (3.25 for actual and 3.75 for desired), while the least participation was for the periodic estimation of the research project budgets of the department (1.31 and 2.54 for actual and desired participation).

Talking about actual participation, participants are mostly involved in ‘teaching related decisions’ as this scores the highest, followed by ‘administrative decisions’. The findings show that academic members of staff are not being involved as much in making ‘financial decisions’. It is quite understandable that the ‘teaching related decisions’ category scores the highest as it relates mostly to the core duties of participants, as most of them practice teaching. However, it is questionable why they are being put in such marginalised positions regarding ‘financial decisions’. Such points will be further discussed in the discussion chapter.

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When comparing the two organisations, it was found that a pattern emerged. Generally, in most instances, lower participation is observed at KSU. Another pattern is that an ample number of participants’ desire to be more involved, which is usually much higher than at Leeds. The results show a very high desire from participants from KSU, and I wonder if this is a reaction from academic members of staff. I mean to say that as they probably were marginalised they wanted to be right in the middle of every decision made in the Faculty. At Leeds, however, participants enjoy more participation and they, to some extent, are not that much in favour of being more involved in making decisions, as this might bring with it some more work duties or responsibilities. The question now is that if participants at KSU enjoyed similar involvement to those at Leeds, would their desire reduce? This may or may not be the case as this is a contextual issue related to the exact context at KSU and Saudi Arabia at large.

The inferential statistics of the ANOVA results show that participants from the University of Leeds are more likely to participate in decision-making within the School at all levels (teaching, research, financial and administrative issues) than their counterparts from KSU. However, the members of staff at KSU are more likely to participate in such decisions than at the University of Leeds.

Finally, this chapter has presented findings from surveys providing quantitative and statistical evidence to conclusions. It has also presented results in a collective manner from both universities and in a comparative manner. The findings have also demonstrated both the actual and desired state of participation in different areas of decision-making with the education departments at both universities. This chapter has answered questions related to academic staff participation in decisions relating to the Education departments at both universities. It was necessary to enquire about why members of staff at KSU have low participation and how they improve this participation. This was also applied to members of staff at the University of Leeds. The next chapter presents the main findings of in-depth interviews conducted with staff from both universities in order to explain emerging findings and patterns from this chapter.

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Chapter Six