Education, Higher--Management

This qualitative study furthers understanding of psychological contract violation experiences as examined through the lens of administrative middle managers in higher education settings. Psychological contract is defined as unstated expectations in the employment relationship which, when violated, results in negative outcomes for employers and employees. In higher education, middle managers are professional staff with titles such as director, associate director, or assistant director across academic and student affairs units. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the meaning of violation experiences for administrative middle managers in higher education settings. This study advanced understanding of post-violation outcomes on participants’ work and future career intentions. This study found that participants’ psychological contract violation experiences had a wounding effect, including negative emotional impacts, feelings of isolation, increased vulnerability, and feelings of responsibility for the violation experience. In addition, participants made sense of their violation experience by focusing on their passion for serving students, the importance of work to their identity, and the responsibility they felt as leaders. Study participants remained in their work settings despite the violation experience and negative impacts. This study resulted in implications for practice for three entities: higher education institutions, administrative middle managers, and professional associations.

This qualitative grounded theory study updated the framework, including a definition, of Appreciative Administration. Bloom et al. (2013) first introduced the concept of Appreciative Education in a New Directions for Student Services article. Appreciative Education’s framework is harnessed by the power of the organizational development theory of Appreciative Inquiry (Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987), the relationship-building theory-to-practice framework of Appreciative Advising (Bloom & Martin, 2002; Bloom et al., 2008), and an Appreciative Mindset. Bloom and McClellan (2016) coined the phrase Appreciative Administration to describe how higher education administrators could lead their organizations by harnessing the power of Appreciative Education. To date, there is no research on how higher education administrators are using Appreciative Education in their administrative practices.
The purpose of this grounded theory study was to examine how higher education administrators infuse the Appreciative Education framework into their daily administrative practices. The study included 21 professionals, who met the following criteria: (1) had at least one full-time person reporting to them; (2) had participated in a formal Appreciative Education training. The experiences of the 21 study participants were captured through semi-structured 60-minute Zoom interviews. Subsequently, eight of the 21 participants participated in a focus group via Zoom to provide feedback on the study’s initial themes and sub-themes. Data was analyzed through three rounds of coding: (1) initial coding, (2) focused coding, and (3) theoretical coding.