This study examines how the decisions and traits of top managers translate into indirect, symbolic and procedural barriers to organizational learning (OL) and sustainable change within fragmented higher education institutions (HEIs) that are increasingly characterized by digitally enabled, globally disparate online workforces (faculty and students). It addresses the critical issue of whether current managerial selection and development models are sustainable, specifically investigating how non-academic leaders, often ill-equipped for complex intellectual capital management, impede the development required for a modern, global online HEI.
A qualitative analysis was conducted on the Pedagogic Innovation Project, a strategic, digitally relevant change initiative across 10 French campuses. This context provides a rich context for observing managerial practices and outcomes associated with leading highly specialized, distributed workforces through transformation. We employ upper echelons theory (UET) to investigate how the top management team (TMT) acts as a barrier to OL in a fragmented, knowledge-intensive HEI. We move beyond general applications of UET to focus on the indirect, symbolic and procedural forms of managerial influence. By analysing these underreported mechanisms, we contribute novel insights into how the values of TMT shape learning failures and defensive routines at the organizational level.
The findings show that non-academic senior leaders, often recruited via informal networks and overly focused on procedural control, tend to cultivate unsustainable human resource management (HRM) practices that undermine organizational capacity. Such leaders inhibit double-loop learning (DLL) and suppress faculty expertise, which constitutes the core intellectual capital of a global HEI. Their reliance on defensive routines (rebranding top-down mandates) fosters distrust, opposing the autonomy needed for online work. By promoting commodified “plug-and-play” staffing and prioritizing superficial compliance over genuine integration, these leaders fail to implement sustainable performance management or authentic employee well-being during digital transformation, both of which are detrimental to sustainable HRM practices. Their reliance on defensive routines (rebranding top-down mandates) fosters distrust, opposing the autonomy needed for online work. By promoting commodified “plug-and-play” staffing and prioritizing superficial compliance over genuine integration, these leaders fail to implement sustainable performance management or authentic employee well-being during digital transformation, both of which are detrimental to sustainable HRM practices.
This study offers fresh insights into top management's role in innovating the business model within a fragmented French HEI, which therefore limits the generalizability to other HE contexts or sectors beyond education. Findings may not hold in systems with stronger academic leadership or less marketized environments. The study reflects only faculty perspectives, omitting direct input from top managers, which limits visibility into executive constraints. Confidentiality also restricted analysis of TMT demographics, narrowing the use of UET. The single-case design reduces comparative scope.
HEIs and organizations managing global, digitally enabled workforces must overhaul manager recruitment, prioritizing candidates with expertise in intellectual capital stewardship and sustainable HRM, not just procedural control. They must invest in developing existing managers to champion DLL and authentic employee well-being over superficial compliance. For HR departments, this study signals the immediate need to discontinue unsustainable practices such as “plug-and-play” staffing models that erode expertise, favouring long-term talent development and management that empowers faculty autonomy.
The managerial suppression of faculty expertise, coupled with the use of “plug-and-play” staffing, actively contributes to the erosion of academic identity and professional morale. This suggests a counter-productive societal trend where bureaucratic control and metric-driven compliance supersede deep intellectual capital, thereby marginalizing practitioner-led innovation. Moreover, the reliance on defensive routines breeds a culture of distrust, undermining the high autonomy necessary for effective knowledge work. Over time, public resources are invariably diverted towards symbolic governance (accreditations) instead of genuine pedagogical investment, raising concerns about the long-term quality and integrity of public service outputs.
The originality of this study lies in its extension of established theory and its application to an understudied, non-corporate context. It provides a crucial, non-corporate extension of UET, highlighting the specific mechanisms (namely, indirect, symbolic and procedural managerial influence) by which TMT characteristics actively obstruct organizational adaptation and deep learning in fragmented public sector environments. It offers empirical evidence that top managers' decisions, particularly those rooted in non-academic managerial expertise and focused on procedural/metric compliance, can systematically undermine a university's core mission (teaching and research integration).
