Chapter 2: The Psychology of Inclusive Decision-Making

Universities across the globe have been jarred by the seismic shift in an increasingly complex environment that is characterized by national and international competitors, shrinking governmental funds, discriminating and diverse consumers and escalating demands for accountability. As guardians of social tradition, institutions of higher education have historically been protected, if not isolated, from the intrusions of market influences. In their 1997 book, Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies, and the Entrepreneurial University, Slaughter and Leslie concluded that the “encroachment of the profit motive into the academy” (p. 210) was a fundamental shift in higher education’s social contract. In Academic Capitalism and the New Economy: Markets, State, and Higher Education, Slaughter and Rhoades (2004) illustrate how the twenty-first century knowledge economy that is hallmarked by global networks and integrated partnerships, accelerated the need for higher education to redefine its relationship to the new information-saturated, market-driven society. While Slaughter and Rhoads’s (2004) theory of academic capitalism rejects the notion that higher education has been “corporatized” by the influences of market pressures and professional management, they do suggest that: