Resource Distribution and Centralization Link

The findings show a link between centralization of the decision-making function and the limited state of resources at DWU’s disposal. The experiences of staff at the level of course delivery highlight the tensions around resources, centralization and the service mission of the organization.

When resources are few, organizations such as DWU appeal to volunteer and missionary service ideal to support a state such as PNG to provide an education service. At the level of organizational governance, service as the impetus for work leads to a centralization of authority. The experience of staff suggests this link in the context of DWU. When service in the context of limited resources limits authority over the distribution of scar resources, staff feel powerless to influence a shift in decision-making that distributes resources. Subsequently, DWU staff are often left to depend on the charity from friends and family to secure resources needed to support the delivery of their units.

Anthony, who was recruited from a media profession, finds teaching at university “not so easy” made more challenging by resource constraints. He describes the lengths he often goes to to secure resources. He illustrates the constraints he faces in trying to secure a magazine he needed,

…but as usual, they are telling me there is no money…, not only me, they are telling everyone else… I guess if I have enough money, I [would] subscribe myself to those magazines, which is what I am thinking of doing.

Anthony recounts a time when his colleague, Maurice, when faced with a similar situation, had turned to a family member in Australia to buy, in his case, the cameras their department needed. Maurice confirms the dependence on charity of friends and family further saying that the department had also funded subscription to a relevant journal, with funding sourced from friends in Queensland, Australia. Furthermore, the department had also paid for membership of the Journalism Education Institute of Australia, membership which entitled the department to receive the organization’s journal.

Anthony expresses the frustration associated with resource limitations that confronts him in his work:

… I don’t get everything I want like I explained the situation with the

photography course. …a lot of times I find I have to…look for my own things… sometimes I feel [it’s] a bit unfair because these things should be available. This is the course we said we want to teach, then the university really should be the one responsible in making sure the materials to teach are available. So, we try to help ourselves because that’s the way it is the reality here. …you’ll never be able to teach, so you might as well go out and help yourself.

David in the same department as Anthony and Maurice also refers to the “scarcity” of resources such as journals that he requires to teach. He says it is a situation his

department has struggled with in the four years he has been with the department and the university. Nevertheless, he is grateful that at least his department, unlike some of the others, has Internet access. He suggests that: The problem in our department, I think, is the same in other departments as well where we have problems with material in terms of keeping abreast the latest [knowledge]…. He is yet one more staff

member, who links the problems of provision as associated with resource availability. And yet he is quite accepting of the situation. David explains that his difficulty with securing resources is due to…

the funding aspect of the university. The university does not have the money for the departments to do what they want and get what they want and we cannot expect much. It’s the growing nature of the university …it’s a private institution. We don’t have to expect too much. We have to make do with what we have.

Despite his sympathy, he quickly adds:

No, when it comes to things like the materials that I have to use….there have been one or two courses…two or three courses that I taught during the four years that I’ve been here… It’s just a frustrating experience where you just have no books. I just had to search here and there asking people around and then put something together…like I said earlier on, that is part of a bigger problem in the university. We just don’t have the resources.

David also speaks of his department using personal networks to acquire resources needed to support course delivery. Maurice, one of the few staff members engaged in research, counts himself fortunate that he has access to the relevant and adequate texts and journals for his current research project. Jim is also fortunate to have access to the Internet at home. As a dean, Jim also has Internet access at work. At the time of

data collection, the service was available only to the academic leadership level of the deans. But by 2007, there was not only wider Internet access there as was also wireless access. The university also had subscriptions to academic and scholarly journals and archival data sources such as JSTOR or Journal Storage.

At the time of this research in 2004, Jim was one of a select group of staff members who had access to the Internet and therefore could access some current literature for research purposes. Jim explains:

I…look out on publications that are displayed by organizations at conferences and all that and just a review of their, what you call it, abstract. It helps to …get some idea of what the developments are although the details may not be there but, generally, you get some idea and if you want to search it in.

Lynda, one of the longest serving staff members with eight years with the university, thinks there have been cut backs on journal subscriptions. She says previously there had been subscriptions to journals and magazines, but thinks there have been

reductions in subscriptions. With the new library,

I thought they will be subscribing to new periodicals or magazines, but I, I don’t know. I didn’t have time to update myself there because every time I went there they said: ‘Oh the periodicals are already there, they are still in processing….’ But now when they are cutting costs, I don’t know what happened, there are no more new or update journals. I think the last time I saw the journals in

accountancy in the library was 2002.

Roman, however, sees the issue as not so much related to scarcity but with the use of journals. He thinks that his department has not put to maximum use the available journals. Ronald is sympathetic of the situation and accepts the limitations, much like David as noted earlier. He also suggests that staff maximize use of available

resources.

There are… a lot of things which the library may not have…sometimes when you go to the periodical section, you see a lot of journals also, which if you try to go over them, you will learn a lot about developments taking place in your field like management, marketing and other fields.

Helen as HoD speaks of the state of resources in her department in 2004, a department from which she was rotated to head another in 2005. She thinks her department is

adequately provisioned due in part to the course being funded under the AusAID capacity-building program within the PNG health sector. She explains:

I am only interested in what we’ve got. I like to see for example, in the library you’ve got also the Pacific Economic Review, that is published, I think by one of these universities here in the Pacific and there are also those supplied by World Health Organization…form the economic side also we have the Central Bank of Papua New Guinea that provides the … So, I can not just say enough or not, I just select what I have….

Staff concerns about the level of resources necessary for course provision is supported at the level of the DWU Council as well as external observers. Thomas, a member of the Council, reported at the first meeting of the body in 2004 that he had observed that the general state of collection in the new library was “very old”. He asked to know what plans the university had in place for refurbishing the collection. Denis, the chair, responded saying it would take three years to raise funds from donations to build up the collection. Denis’ response again illustrates the reliance on charity from organizations or individuals to make provision available not only at the level of the departments but also at the university-wide level. As Helen’s mention of AusAID support further illustrates, aid organizations such as AusAID have in a big way come to support DWU in its service to PNG. Not only has the organization supported programs, it has supported DWU in funding key pieces of infrastructure such as the library and the auditorium.

Writing against centralization of decision-making over resource distribution and use, the consultants suggested in 2003 that HoDs be given direct control over their limited budget, in so doing instilling a “sense of urgency for cost savings” as well as

providing them with an “opportunity to make their own prioritization”. Denis, in responding to this suggestion, affirms that textbooks and management of resources are key issues in daily servicing of courses. However, he suggests that the issue is not so much with adequate resource provision but more with how existing levels of provision were managed. He writes that: Heads of Departments do have

[theoretically] an operating budget and some heads manage these better than others. However, even as they forwarded the suggestion, the consultants saw in 2003 the inevitability of centralized control of DWU’s finances recognizing that the limited

availability of cash does not allow expenditure to be approved by someone without direct insight into DWU’s cash position.