Education University Retrenchment & Downsizing Thesis

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A means oriented strategy involves developing improved ways of managing resources while pursuing the organizations goals. Some approaches that are preferred are laying off faculty, decreasing faculty size, increasing budget control, and implementing energy conservation. Least preferred approaches include: laying off administrative staff, decreasing campus maintenance, decreasing salaries, and decreasing student recruitment. Reducing faculty size has particularly been effective because faculty salaries and fringe benefits usually represent an institutions' single largest expense. They often exceed 50% of the total budget. Because of this faculty retrenchment has become a major retrenchment strategy that is being used today (Budros, 2001, p.223)

When organization make retrenchment decisions it is important that they make rational choices. Classical models of organizational choice are made up of processes that are highly rational and involve the following four basic things: 1) they establishing organizational goals and objectives, 2) they search for alternative actions, 3) they assess the consequences ahead of time and 4) they select the right alternative at the time. "A central assumption within this classical framework of organizational choice is that human beings try to at least somewhat rational and their behavior is purposive and goal directed" (Ashar and Shapiro, 1990, p.122).

In these very uncertain times organizations are very rarely allowed face a problem, to define the problem carefully, to generate alternative solutions to it, and finally select the right choice. During these processes, goals are quite often determined afterwards in order to justify the actions that have already taken place. Using relevant information to make decisions is that to be a functional process and it is thought that it is ritualistic and symbolic. Many believe that it is used mainly to reiterate the magnitude of rational choices that are made. "The problem with the rational choice model is not that people do not want to be rational or that they prefer to manage organizations irrationally, but rather the problem is that rationality is hard to achieve in choice situations"(Ashar and Shapiro, 1990, p.123).

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Situations that contain a lot of stress, such as those of retrenchment or downsizing are very hard situations in which to make rational decisions. Administrators try to make the best decisions that are possible under the circumstances in which they have been placed. When dealing with cutting costs most administrators would prefer to find any other way to reduce expenses other than eliminating jobs, but sometimes there is just no other choice to make. When the situation at hand requires that job loss must occur it is important for administrators to remember that employees are people and not just numbers on the budget page. Making the best possible decision for everyone involved is the ultimate goal. And although this can be very tuff to do at times, it is possible to do using some very basic decision making skills and applying them to the situation in the best way possible.

When dealing with decisions that lead to retrenchment and downsizing it is very important that the decisions that are being made are done with the best possible information being available. This helps to assure that these decisions are as rational as they can be under the circumstances. When dealing with peoples jobs and family income it is very important that institutions of higher education do the right thing by their employees. This goes a long way in preserving the image of the institution so that at some point in time the bridges have not all been burned and there stands a chance of recovery and re-growth......

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