Managing Change in University Libraries in the 21st Century: An Australian Perspective.

By: Gunapala, Matara; Montague, Alan; Reynolds, Sue; Vo-Tran, Huan. (2020)

Abstract

Because of the rapidly changing organisational environment, managing change is a critical issue for performance improvement for all organisations, including university libraries in Australia. However, due to the complexity of changing organisational climate and the intricacies of addressing this problem, a clear understanding of how university libraries can meet this challenge is yet to emerge. As libraries experience significant disruptions because of technological advancements driving change, this qualitative research study advances a conceptual framework based on relevant existing literature for performance improvement. The conceptual framework identified six elements (resources, relevance, stakeholders, strategy, government policy, and university infrastructure) to manage change in Australian public sector university libraries effectively. The research involved collecting relevant information by interviewing 18 chief university librarians from all states and territories of Australia except Tasmania and the Northern Territory. The study also considered information from the existing research and scholarly literature and library reports in data triangulation. This paper builds on this analysis to identify a shift in Australian university library management style and constructed a stakeholder-focussed framework that may address managing change in organisations. The framework consists of four components – expectations of stakeholders, resource needs, organisational culture, and change adaptation leading to performance improvement.

Key words
Change management / performance management / university library management / university library performance management

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