Exploring Higher Education Shared Governance Constitutional Documents as Potential Culture Building Contributors to Friction Between Faculty and Administration Through a Qualitative Analysis of Foundational Institution Documents

This qualitative research project investigates the role shared governance documents in higher education institutions play in communicating the guiding principles and expectations used to create, sustain, and challenge culture through a content analysis of foundational institutional documents. Colleges and universities face challenges driven by technology, globalization, the capitalization of education, and shifting expectations regarding diversity, equity, and sustainability. These changes require institutions to adapt their organizational models for more competitive decision-making while navigating evolving governance issues. In some instances, these changes have been cited as one cause for friction between institutional stakeholders, particularly faculty and administration. Previous studies have more often focused on communication patterns and power dynamics in higher education. This research examines foundational documents that communicate shared governance measures, specifically governing guidelines for higher education institutions. The study aims to determine whether or not these documents facilitate creating, sustaining, or challenging a culture that may lend itself to stakeholder friction as framed within the socio-cultural theory and, if so, to investigate how. Governing documents from forty higher education institutions divided into four size categories, including public and private institutions, were collected and analyzed for themes, similarities, and differences. The goal was to investigate if these works lack clarity within roles and responsibilities, use overly general language, perhaps intentionally left to interpretation, or have conflicting provisions that may indirectly or directly communicate a culture that undermines or contributes to strained stakeholder relationships.