ECAR Publishes Study on Information Technology Investment and Business Process Performance in Higher Education

The EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research (ECAR) has just released a study of the performance of business processes in higher education. Written by Robert B. Kvavik and Philip J. Goldstein with John Voloudakis, the ECAR study Good Enough! Information Technology Investment and Business Process Performance in Higher Education catalogs the perspectives of IT and other leaders at more than 350 U.S. and Canadian colleges and universities on the complex relationship between IT investments, campus culture and leadership, and other factors and the performance of key institutional financial, student, and human resource processes. Good Enough! finds that many higher education processes perform only adequately or satisfactorily, and that in many cases institutions with self-described “adequate” processes do not plan to change them. These findings corroborate the subjective impressions that trustees, regulators, and others have that colleges and universities lag behind the leading sectors of the economy in the performance of business processes.

Good Enough! goes beyond the initial observations about the performance of higher education business processes by viewing process performance as a portfolio management problem. Using a simple two-factor predictive framework, the study’s authors predicted that processes with strategic promise (or reach) would outperform other processes, especially when the potential for resistance to process change was low or moderate. In fact, the data provided by survey respondents about process performance conformed closely to this prediction.

Good Enough! concludes that higher education decision makers are in fact making rational process portfolio investment decisions by engaging in behavior identified by Nobel Prize winner Herbert Simon as “satisficing.” According to Simon, satisficing is the rational behavior of decision makers working in conditions of “bounded rationality” wherein outcomes that are adequate—or good enough—are preferred to superior outcomes that may come at unknown or unacceptably high costs. In essence, the study Good Enough! reveals that mundane, nonstrategic processes are often allowed to perform “adequately” to allow larger investments of financial and political capital to be made in processes that directly impact customers (students) or other perceived strategic areas of institutional concern.

Good Enough! reveals survey respondents’ beliefs that while IT investments do in fact contribute in material and positive ways to the performance of higher education processes, this contribution is part of a complex conjunction of conditions related to institutional leadership, culture, employee participation, and so forth. Good Enough’s core findings are amplified in two case studies that detail process management issues at Iowa State University and at The City University of New York (CUNY) and Brooklyn College.

Additionally, a summary of the study’s key findings [PDF 688 KB*] is available to all. The complete research study is accessible to ECAR subscribers and is available for purchase by nonsubscribers.

 *To view the PDF files on this page, you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader version 5.0 or greater. Download now.

About ECAR

The EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research (ECAR) was established in 2001 to promote effective IT decisions in higher education. To date, ECAR has published more than 325 research studies and bulletins, roadmaps, case studies, and occasional papers. ECAR has organized a dozen symposia, and in 2006, ECAR and the North East Regional Computing Program (NERCOMP) delivered the first ECAR Academy. Today, 430 colleges and university subscribe to ECAR. Learn more about ECAR at www.educause.edu/ecar.

About EDUCAUSE

EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology. The current membership comprises more than 2,200 colleges, universities, and educational organizations, including 250 corporations, with 17,000 active members. Learn more about EDUCAUSE at www.educause.edu.

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