This paper was prepared under the direction of Prof. Marvin W. Peterson for the project on Managing Institutional Change and Transformation in Higher Education at the University of Michigan. The series is part of a University of Michigan project supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation as a part of the Kellogg Forum on Higher Education Transformation (KFHET).
 

Students enroll heavily in professional preparation programs in American undergraduate and graduate institutions in a wide range of professions. Typically, these academic programs receive less research attention than other aspects of higher education . The work of the professions is constantly changing as society makes new demands and as technology changes professional practices. These changes can be quite radical such as the adoption of the personal computer in the accounting profession in the 1980's. Innovations in professional practice must find their way into professional preparation programs. The process through which innovations are adopted by professional program faculty is explored in this paper. It will seek to synthesize two bodies of literature, research into faculty activities in designing or changing curricula and research into the diffusion of innovations. Finally, it will propose guidelines for faculty and administrators facing major changes to existing professional programs. While the process of adding new professional programs to an institution may be aided through the insights (large or small) offered in this paper, it is not intended to be applicable to such situations. Rather, the focus in on major innovation within existing programs.

Stark distinguishes among professional preparation programs based on five "structures" (content, organization, values, syntax, and symbols). These are important taxonomic distinctions and would be expected to have an impact on the process of innovation diffusion in the preparation programs of any one profession. However, that work is beyond the scope of this paper. The intent here is to uncover more or less universal principles of organizational change that may be generally applied to professional preparation programs.

Prior to this century those who wished to join most professions worked at low-level jobs while gaining the minimum knowledge required to enter the professional ranks . "Apprenticeship- cheaper, more practical, more informal- was substituted for the 'theoretical and systematic education' traditionally offered by higher faculties in institutions of higher learning" . Cornell University in the mid-nineteenth century made a reputation for itself with the philosophy that the study of knowledge should be primarily for the usefulness of society . This approach become popular in the land grant college era, and strengthened the movement of professional preparation training back into higher education; a movement that would continue through the twentieth century. Crafts once learned through apprenticeship were becoming professions learned at colleges and universities, in programs designed by "standardizing bureaucrats" .

Organizations of practicing professionals, in partnerships, clinics, schools, and corporations, have removed the training risk from themselves- the risk that years of training invested in an individual will not result in a competent professional- and placed it on the student. Students self-select into professional programs, based on their interests and their beliefs about the career prospects (educational investment payback) . Students are responsible for tuition and other costs, including deferred current wages. They expect these costs, both tangible and intangible, to be offset through future earnings. This expectation is supported through an informal payback analysis completed by the student . Hence, professional program demand is a derived demand, based on the value perceived by applicants. It can be argued, therefore, that programs which do not innovate to incorporate changes in professional practice will be less effective in professional preparation of its graduates, leading to lowered demand for that institution’s program.

A major purpose of professional programs is to prepare students for professional practice. Stark notes these purposes as "teach(ing) academic content, necessary professional skills, and the context of the profession…." As such, they must provide the technical skills used by professionals as well as a broader "socialization" into the profession. In her study of the socialization of accountants into accounting firms, Chatman found that firms made hiring decisions using selection methods that take into account a variety of job-related characteristics (past experience, intelligence, knowledge, skills and abilities). Once hired the new accountant undergoes the organization's socialization process. Through this, the new accountant starts to understand the abilities, values, behaviors, and social knowledge that are expected in their job, as well as their place in the organization. In keeping with the intermediary role that professional programs serve, faculty of effective programs must maintain awareness of the profession's changing needs and incorporate them into their program. Effective programs might be considered those whose graduates assimilate more quickly into professional life, needing little remedial on-the-job training, and other attributes.

Professional practice changes over time as new technology and new needs surface. When they arise from professionals in the field, rather than through faculty research, these changes must find their way into professional curricula, through faculty adoption, in order for their program to continue to be considered effective. Locke argues, for example, that "cost accounting" arose early in the twentieth century from the need of business owners to manage by exception. As business enterprises grew larger, managers could not oversee all aspects of operations as was possible in smaller firms. F. W. Taylor's principles of "scientific management" advocated the accurate and timely preparation of production and cost reports as an innovation to support the management of these larger organizations. Through these periodic reports managers could identify those aspects of their operations that were falling behind, and take corrective action, paying scant attention to those areas that were functioning normally. The accounting profession responded with improvements in cost accounting methods. Schools of business, about 20 in the United States in 1911 , faced an external pressure to incorporate the new idea into their curricula as a result. More recently, the microcomputer has changed the practice of the profession recently, through the wide availability of accounting software. The rote aspect of the profession, posting of debits and credits for clients in a bookkeeping function, has been replaced by financial database software, such as Peachtree accounting software. This software not only automatically posts transactions to ledgers from journal entries, but also prepares common financial reports once the task of the professional. This innovation in professional practice has been widely incorporated into accounting curricula.

Stark and Latucca identify specific influences on innovation in higher education programs. Innovations that complement institutional missions (incremental innovations) often arise from internal sources. Radical innovations, such as major mission changes and total overhauls of programs, "tend to attract public and professional attention", and are often responses to "societal or organizational factors" . They further hypothesize that major program changes often occur due to a "bandwagon effect", in reaction to external forces and mirroring those changes of peer institutions, rather than from planned and systematic program reviews. External influences cannot be separated from the overall environment in which higher education operates. They offer a model, Figure 1, based on early work of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching with three sets of influences on curriculum design: external, organizational, and internal.
 

External influences identified in this model included society at-large, governmental agencies, professional associations (the discipline), marketplace actors, alumni, and other sponsors. While some have argued that faculty members design their programs more or less in a vacuum, Stark and Latucca assert that faculty are more attuned, although perhaps not consciously, to external influences than may be apparent. Especially for professional programs, the concerns of employers and changes in the practices of the discipline and job markets "may simply seem muted because they are often filtered through such groups as accreditors, professional associations and the media" .

We turn our attention now to the literature on innovations and their diffusion, with the intention that this will illuminate the elements of the processes faculty might use to discover, debate, and decide on innovative changes in their professional curricula.

The factors leading to the successful adoption of innovations have been studied by a number of researchers. One early model is Rogers' (1995) theory of innovation diffusion, first published in 1962. The process through which innovation is communicated to members of a social system ("diffusion" as defined by Rogers) is at issue for faculty considering external forces on their curricula. In his theory, the communication process is central. "Communication…(is) a two-way process of convergence, rather than as a one-way, linear act in which one individual seeks to transfer a message to another in order to achieve certain effects" . Innovation adoption requires communication from those with new knowledge (practicing accountants) to those without (faculty), in cases where change is occurring in the field. This works reciprocally for new knowledge derived from faculty research, which is being disseminated to the profession. In either case, "homophily" , such as communication between individuals and groups with similar interests, group membership language, and values would work to reduce miscommunication about the innovation and increase the likelihood and speed of the adoption of change.

These diffusion messages are about new ideas, in which uncertainty, here defined as the "lack of predictability" of the success of a number of alternatives, is an important component. When uncertainty is low, and predictability of success is high, group consensus on adopting innovations moves quickly within the social system. Uncertainty is often high, however, for new professional program ideas. There are several reasons for this uncertainty in the face of program innovation. One is the complex nature of professional curricula, in both content ("component") and interrelatedness ("architecture"). Changes in such an environment will likely have unintended consequences which, if negative, will require more work in the future to correct. The influence of intervening variables on graduates' (and the program's) success, such as student aptitude during and after the program, opportunities in the marketplace upon graduation, and the general economic conditions shortly after graduation make it difficult to attribute specific program characteristics to successful post-graduation success or failure. This external uncertainty further clouds the internal uncertainty noted above. Finally, any concurrent innovations within the profession occurring while students are completing their program may render their professional training obsolete immediately upon graduation. In his model Rogers identifies several factors present in innovation diffusion, summarized in Appendix A.

Afuah (1998) provides a comparison of several later models of innovation adoption, see Appendix B. The three discussed here have particular approaches that may be useful in understanding faculty adoption of curricular changes. In Tushman and Anderson's model of incremental-radical innovation innovations are classified based on the extent to which they used existing technological knowledge. "Radical innovations" require very different knowledge on the part of those in the organization. The introduction of analysis software programs (such as SPSS) in college statistics courses made the then current product or service (e.g., course content and way of teaching) obsolete, destroying current competencies. "Incremental innovations", on the other hand, enhance current competencies since they build on the current technological expertise. Abernathy and Clark further this concept by separating knowledge into two segments: technological and market. In their view strong market competencies (ability to advertise and deliver the product or service), when not destroyed by an innovation, can often help a firm overcome the destruction of technological competencies of the innovation. A higher education example would be the current adoption of the Internet for distance learning by many institutions. It is competence-destroying technologically (a radical innovation), but may have little impact on the institution's marketing competencies. This is especially true if the Internet is an additional, and not the sole, means of course delivery. Clark's later work with Henderson added a further dimension. They posit that products and services are composed of two other types of knowledge, component and architectural. The components (each course in a program) are modified by the quality of the linkages (architectural knowledge) between them creating a curricular whole. The essential issues from these three models combined are: Does the innovation destroy or enhance competencies, are the affected competencies technological, market, component and or linkage? These factors, along with Rogers' innovation, communication, time and social system considerations, provide a framework for understanding the adoption of innovations in general.

Based on the general literature on innovation adoption, and research that focused on higher education programs, a case study of program changes would expect to uncover themes of external forces, organizational structure, internal influences, and the linkages between them in the faculty deliberations on adopting program innovations.

Dorweiler and Yakhou contend that a variety of environmental factors, such as "more powerful influence, professional institutions, employers and state legislatures," and other lesser powerful influences, is pushing change in professional programs. These changes involve moving away from the predominant purpose of "teaching of subject matter in the profession" to more problem-based learning techniques employing "search, identification, and solution" . Changes in four professional programs were selected for case description in the fields of accounting, engineering, graduate business, and law.

In the four cases chosen for study, external change agents were cited as the catalysts for change. These external agents were all organizations highly connected to the profession. In the accounting example, a collaboration of (then) Big Eight accounting firms and the American Accounting Association (a faculty association) resulted in the Accounting Education Change Commission (AECC). This commission produced research culminating in a grants program, which was funded by the accounting firms. The purpose of the grant program was to encourage broader substance in accountants' education, and an improved understanding of the role of new technology in accounting practice. In the engineering example, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) was the catalyst. Issues addressed included more emphasis on the engineers' roles the "total quality chain" new technology, increased emphasis on product safety and environmental protection, and learning to work in multi-cultural, global task situations. Changes in MBA programs were largely initiated through the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). These changes sought to increase the foundational knowledge of graduates in both liberal arts and fundamental business topics (e.g., accounting, economics, math/statistics and behavioral science) as well as to re-focus the business core concept. The American Bar Association (ABA) championed changes in legal education. The emphases were to reduce the rote "imparting of knowledge of substantive law" while increasing the use of case study and other teaching methods to meet the professional goals of students.

These examples show that external influences from well-connected professional organizations, and the use of grant proposals to elicit individual and small groups of faculty to participate, had a positive effect on this change initiative. These studies did not, however, report on many of the innovation factors research has suggested would be active in such a situation; the "radical" nature of the program innovations, communication mechanisms, compatibility to the current program environment, whether course- or program-level, locus of authority to make implementation decisions, and time/process involved. These would be suitable subjects for further research.

From these disparate literatures, a set of guidelines can be developed for faculty and administrators who are contemplating radical change to professional programs. These guidelines are offered here not as a conceptual framework, which has not been tested. Grounded in prior research, however, these seek to bring a practical application to this arena of organizational change.

Two categories of concern are suggested: the diagnosis of the innovation (Table 1), and the process through which the change can be managed (Table 2). Diagnosis is concerned mainly with developing a thorough understanding of the nature of the proposed innovation and its "fit" within the current program/institutional environment. Innovations can be described along these dimensions: relative advantage, compatibility with the current organization’s practices and beliefs, complexity of understanding and of implementation, the ability to "try-out" the innovation without committing the organization’s resources to an set of unknown consequences, and the degree to which results are observable to others (demonstrating its benefits to others). In addition, the innovation can be characterized as radical or incremental, technological or market, and component or architectural. See Table 1 (below) for recommended diagnostic actions.
 
 

Table 1. Diagnosis of the Innovation
 

Innovation Characteristic	Suggested Diagnosis and Recommended Actions
Relative advantage	Determine the advantages, both direct and indirect, that the innovation would be expected to produce: budgetary, prestige of the program, convenience or efficiency, and satisfaction (faculty, student, and employers of graduates). Focus groups with students and practicing professionals can be used to augment faculty discussions. This listing will be valuable for communication and training.
Compatibility	Check for compatibility with constituents’ (faculty and students, for instance) existing values, past experiences, and other needs of those affected. Less compatible innovations require additional communication and training resources for successful adoption.
Complexity	The more the innovation is easy to use and understand, the less resistance to its adoption would be expected. If complex, then more resources for communicating benefits and for training will be required for successful adoption.
Trialabiltiy	Whenever possible, conduct live pilot tests of the innovation, or adopt it in smaller units first before committing the program to the change. Pilot tests should be focused both in the size of the unit involved and in time. The key is to identify problems not readily apparent, and to increase acceptance through a successful pilot. If pilot tests are not feasible, then exhaustive work should be done to ensure that estimates of advantages and use of resources are accurate. Increased work to gain acceptance will be needed, such as visits of "near-peers" (see Table 2) who have adopted the innovation.
Observability	The pilot test should be designed to produce clear benefits. Observable results aid in communication and learning about the innovation.
Scope	Radical- Innovations that depart significantly from current methods, expertise, and values are more difficult to implement. Plan for longer time periods and higher resources for communication, training, and other implementation issues.  Incremental- Innovations that build on current expertise and values within the social system are usually easier to implement.
Client (professionals or students) Perception	Technology- New ways of teaching/learning/professional practice. The more radical the innovation, the more likely it will destroy old ways of doing things, threatening some faculty and students.  Market- New ways of marketing (communicating) the program to clients. Most likely to affect recruiting and admissions staff.
Structure	Component- Affecting individual units, such as courses or learning modules. Less broad participation/acceptance is needed to successfully implement these changes, once the key adopters have implemented. It is advisable, though, to look for unintended effects on other aspects of the program (architectural).  Architectural- Most typically, affecting the linkages between courses. Interdisciplinary initiatives are an example. These innovations require very broad participation and acceptance for success, leading to longer periods for discussion, debate, and implementation.

Having diagnosed the innovation and its expected effects on the program, an implementation plan should be drawn up. This plan covers the elements of innovation research that have shown the influences of the social system (such as program faculty) on the acceptance or rejection of new ideas. These include communication, time (to adopt), decision options, and planning for consequences. Table 2 offers suggested approaches to these dimensions.

Table 2. Process for Innovation Implementation
 

Planning Factor	Suggested Considerations and Actions
Communication	Sources of information- Success stories of programs or faculty seen as "near-peers" will enhance acceptance of the innovation. Seek out and communicate these to constituent groups (e.g., faculty and students). Perceived differences between early adopters of the innovation and the program’s constituents will impede adoption.
Time (process steps)- Ideal stages for implementation	Individuals will go through the following stages: knowledge of the innovation, persuasion, decision, implementation, and confirmation. These are all supported by prior diagnostic work (Table 1).  Individuals within a social system will adopt innovations at different rates, within the classic framework: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. To the extent that innovations can be individual decision, eventual adoption within the program would be expected to increase. The time period (from "innovators" to "laggards") should be manageable with increased information, especially success stories from "near-peers," and training on complex innovations.
Other Social System Considerations	Types of decision options (in order of best long-term overall acceptance of the innovation).	Adoption-at-option: the individual has the sole discretion to adopt or not.  Contingent (optional for the individual, after collective adoption of the innovation). Collective decision through some consensus or voting process among peers. All adopt or not based on the collective decision.  Authority decision (top-down, with or without input).
	Consequences (perceived and real). These "after-the-fact" perceptions are important to solidify the innovation, to make it "take-hold."	Desirability- Results seen as functional and consistent with values of the group will strengthen the decision to adopt.  Direct vs. Indirect- Plan to identify and manage both types of consequences.  Anticipated vs. Unanticipated- Unanticipated effects can have disastrous effects. Pilot tests can go a long way to find these, allowing planners to reduce their effects in the final implementation.

Appendix C synthesizes the foregoing discussion into a summary framework for action for faculty and administrators. The emphasis here is on managing program change, recognizing the elements of change, and providing strategic areas of thought for planning and executing change within professional preparation programs. While not a prescriptive, "cookbook" for change, it does offer a holistic approach for thinking about radical program changes to increase their likelihood of success. The reader may feel that these suggestions have broader applicability for change in non-professional programs, if so this work has accomplished more than was intended. Dimensions on which innovations in professional curricula can be managed include the innovations themselves, communications among members, periods for decisions, and characteristics of the faculty social systems. By giving attention to these known factors in innovation adoption, both faculty and administrators are able to plan carefully for the successful introduction of innovations in program design.

Appendix A. Rogers' model of innovation diffusion.
 

Diffusion Factor	Characteristics	Description *
Innovation	Relative Advantage Compatibility Complexity Trialability         Observability	Perceived improvements to economic, social prestige, convenience and/or satisfaction benefits, relative to current situation.  Compatibility with existing values, past experiences, and needs of potential adopters.  Ease of understanding and use of the innovation.  Degree to which innovation may be tried on a limited basis, without disrupting existing practices during trials.  Degree to which results (benefits) are visible to others.
Communication	Source of information Heterophily	Success experiences of "near-peers" ("homophilous").  Increased difference between early adopters (e.g., highly technical agents) impedes adoption.
Time  (Process steps)	Individual knowledge Individual adoption         Social system adoption	The stages of knowledge, persuasion, and decision leading to implementation, and confirmation.  Phases of adoption relative to others' decisions: the classic categories of innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards.  Rogers uses the s-curve to depict system adoption over time. Slight increases during first two categories (above) give way to steep increases during the next two phases, with final flattening of the curve in the final phase.
Social System	Types of decision options within the social system.               Consequences	Optional individual decision. Collective decision (made by some consensus process). Authority decisions (top-down). Contingent (optional for individual, but only after collective adoption). Desirability (results are not dysfunctional for the social system).  Direct vs. Indirect. Anticipated vs. Unanticipated.
* As described, more of the characteristic increases the likelihood and speed of adoption.

 

Appendix B. Selected models of innovation (beyond Rogers).
 

Model	Characteristics	Description
Tushman & Anderson	Radical	Innovation requires very different knowledge. Significant organizational learning is required. Current competence is destroyed.
	vs. Incremental	Innovation builds on current organizational knowledge, and requires little learning. Current competence is enhanced.
Abernathy & Clark	Technological	Competence?destroying technologically, "radical" to technology, not necessarily affecting market competence.
	vs. Market	Destroys market competence, "radical" to marketing, not necessarily technologically competence.
Clark & Henderson	Component	The make-up of the units of interest (e.g., courses or learning modules).
	vs. Architectural	The synthesis or linkages of the components, how and how well they "fit" together for the intended purposes (e.g., the curriculum or a smaller sequence of related courses).
Stark & Latucca (Higher education	External	Influences from outside of faculty/institution social systems.
programs)	Organizational	Institutional governance and social system characteristics.
	Internal	Faculty (group and individual) characteristics.