Stop the Brain Drain: A Higher Education Collaborative Autoethnographic Change Study Using a Soft Systems Approach

Knowledge loss is a common challenge within IHEs—highly educated and skilled individuals leave—often taking the knowledge to do their job well with them. Turnover in IHEs is currently at an all-time high. There is a strong correlation between knowledge management practices and organizational performance. This paper (in progress) explores this phenomenon using collaborative institutional ethnography, enabling a critical analysis of how power dynamics and uncertainty shape both individual experiences and broader workplace social structures. Participants include six IHE employees (in various IHE roles) from three separate universities in the eastern region of Texas. We aim to uncover the internal experiences and perceptions of institutional processes, emphasizing the intersection of personal and organizational life. We turn to a novel approach borrowed from the systems engineering field, Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) as a theoretical lens to analyze complex scenarios and data, offering solutions for mitigating knowledge attrition. This study highlights the diverse and often conflicting perspectives—such as faculty prioritizing academic continuity and administrators focusing on efficiency—that contribute to knowledge loss. The novelty of this paper lies in positioning knowledge management within IHEs as a system of interconnected activities that can be sustained through SSM.