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УДК 378.6
Layal Adnan Hamzeh
Belarusian State Technological University
DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE OF HIGHER
EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS: CASE STUDIES FROM THREE COUNTRIES
An organization is an entity that includes many people who work together to achieve a group of well-known objectives by following specific processes and performing particular functions. The structure of an organization outlines the methods used to divide the organization into different parts, groups, and levels and the procedures that arrange the work of each part seeking to achieve the organization goals. Higher education institutions are special types of organizations that do not have a common or fixed organizational structure. Rather, the structure of a Higher education institution (HEI) depends on many internal and external factors and might change frequently due to several reasons. In this paper, we examine and analyze three case studies of the development of the higher education system in three countries. Our analysis will put us in the path to develop the organizational structure at the Arts, Sciences and Technology University in Lebanon from its current hierarchical form to a dynamic and flexible system.
Key words: Organizational structure, organizational development, higher education system, university, hierarchical structure, flexible structure.
An organization is a social entity with collective goals that is linked to an external environment. Organizations are unique in their internal and external resources, capabilities, and environments. Over the decades, researchers have agreed that it is not possible to generalize a unified model or structure that fits all organizations or institutions. Rather, each organizational structure model seeks to find the best ways to organize the structure of an organization, based on its situations and environments, in order to gain a competitive advantage. On the other hand, Organizational development (OD) is a field that examines the methods and strategies that an organization can adopt structures of colleges and universities vary distinctly depending on the institutional type, culture, and history. This variation is due to the unique characteristics and environment of each college and university (including strategic planning, financial objectives, curriculum planning, and admission regulations, etc.).
Introduction. Public and private colleges and universities combine key authority structures, including a governing board, a president, a group of administrative leaders, and an academic board or council. In public HEIs these organizational bodies collaborate 3 with several external authorities such as political leaders, community organizations, and business/charity institutions. These external organizations interact with and influence the policies and procedures of the university's internal organizational structures.
Main part. In the recent years, a number of factors, including the increased complexity of institutional functions, changing student demographics, technological innovations, demands for entrepreneurial majors, and the increase involvement of academic faculty in administrative tasks have
significantly changed the traditional organizational structure of the university. In addition, the rapid growth in the demand for continuing education, the provision of distance programs by colleges and universities, and the widespread of quality rankings and accreditations of HEIs have obliged universities and colleges to consider developing and improving their structures, missions, and routines.
This paper constitutes the first step in a research study that aims at developing the organizational structure of AUL University from its current hierarchical vertical form into a set of flexible and dynamic relationships and continuous collaborations between various departments in the university at all managerial levels.
In order to achieve this objective, we examine three case studies that analyzed the history, status, theories, and factors that played a role in the development of the higher educational systems in specific countries. Our aim is to select and analyze the principles and experiences that will help us to characterize the organizational structure at AUL University and develop a framework to improve the current structure into a dynamic and flexible one. Development of the Organizational Structure of Hungarian HEIs.
Hungarian experience. Kovats (2018) presents a study of the factors that affect the organizational structure of higher education institutions (HEI) in Hungary from a contingency theory perspective. The author states that the main factor that influences a change in the organizational structures of HEIs is government regulations. To support his theory, the author states the acts on higher education that were accepted by Hungarian HEIs between 1985 and 2017, and how each act forced certain changes in the general structure of Hungarian
HEIs. For example, in the 1985 act, the Hungarian government allowed the establishment of a new faculty only when a minister proposes it, and the establishment of a new department only if it obtains ministerial agreement. In addition, the governance of faculties (i.e., the organization and power of faculty boards) was also firmly regulated. Hence, the structure of the Hungarian HEIs was rigid and fixed based on government obligations.
In 1993, the rigidity and inflexibility in the structure of Hungarian HEIs were relaxed a little bit by a government act that stated that "higher education institutions develop their own organization", that "is divided into faculties and other comprehensive organizational units". However, a government decision was still necessary for the formation of faculties of state HEIs, while nonstate institutions were only required to inform the government about the establishment of faculties. This allowed the non-state HEIs to introduce slight changes to their structure when needed, but just to a very small degree. This situation remained until 2005 when a Higher Education Act increased HEIs autonomy in developing their own organizational structures. The law states that the faculty is a possible form of arranging educational activities implying that other alternatives exist. The choice of how to administer faculties (or other units) was entirely left to the HEIs. This act allowed HEIs to change their structure as they deem necessary, and opened the door for each HEI to design its own administration, positions, and roles. This flexibility in the organizational structure of Hungarian HEIs remained until 2011, when a new Act of Higher Education was implemented, which reinforced faculty structure once again and forced the existence of a rector who was the sole chief executive of the institutions. In 2015 a dual management structure was regulated in which the budget and management are managed by the chancellor, while the rector is in charge only of academic staff and associated matters. The chancellor has equal rank to the rector, can represent the HEI, and has veto authority over budgetary matters. The chancellor is selected by the prime minister and observed by the government. The establishment of the chancellor scheme caused a significant decrease in the overall autonomy of HEIs and forced them to return to adopting a specific organizational structure that was influenced by the rector and chancellor based on the government recommendations. Hence, Kováts (2018) deduces that the organizational structure of Hungarian HEIs is highly influenced by the regulations and acts of the government. The rules forced Hungarian HEIs to follow a fixed overall structure between 1985 and 1993. While new rules that were implemented in 1993 allowed these HEIs to
change their structure as they deem necessary and best for them. However, in 2005 the Hungarian government introduced a new system that forced HEIs to follow a specific general structure that was defined by the chancellor. So overall, Kovats (2018) emphasizes the fact that rules and regulations were the main factors that affected the organizational structure of Hungarian HEIs.
In addition to rules and acts, Kovats (2018) mentions several other aspects that played a role in shaping and transforming the organizational structure of Hungarian HEIs over the years. These factors include:
- the complexity of the environment of HEIs: this complexity depends on several elements, such as the number of stakeholders, the relative weight of each stakeholder, and the number and heterogeneity of HEI activities. Kovats provides an example of how the focus on research made several colleges change into universities of applied sciences;
- the mission statement of HEIs: a change in the mission statement could highly affect the structure of an HEI, since new positions and roles are needed when new HEI objectives are introduced or existing objectives are modified. For example, social responsibility became a new mission objective of HEIs in 2011, which forced HEIs to introduce new roles/positions that would help them change from "ivory towers" to "lighthouses";
- level of competition: this factor depends on many elements, such as the number of suppliers, the level of demand and the form of funding. For example, the level of the market demand on a certain major, such as social sciences, business, and law, would cause the funding agencies to prefer HEIs who offer higher quality programs in the demanded majors. This will turn increases the competition between HEIs in order to attract more funds and better students, which will shift the structure of the organization to focus on certain areas more than others;
- effect of Foreign HEIs : The competitiveness of foreign HEIs depends on the difficulty of qualification recognition, the availability, and afforda-bility of foreign HEIs and the level of difficulty entailed in joining national and foreign HEIs. In general, the existence and success of foreign HEIs forces national HEIs to adapt and change certain aspects that keep them up-to-date and aligned with the international levels of education. These changes could affect the general structure of the HEI in one way or another.
Based on the mentioned study and analysis, Kovats (2018) states and verifies, by searching and clarifying pieces of evidence from the Hungarian higher education system, three main hypotheses that can be applied for the organizational structure of HEIs [1].
Hypothesis 1: When the number of activities and objectives in an HEI increase, the core activities in the HEI (such as teaching and research) become more decentralized, and the HEI will require an organic, highly departmentalized structure in order to be effective.
Hypothesis 2: When the size of an HEI increases, the structure of the HEI tends to become more bureaucratized, and the number and presence of non-academic units increase.
Hypothesis 3: When the HEI operates in a more complex environment, the administrative tasks and activities within the HEI should be more centralized within a strengthened 'administrative steering core', which is required to provide "better coordination and special expertise".
Kováts (2018) concludes his review with several reflections that are very beneficial to be taken into consideration when studying the development in the structure of HEIs in general. First, Kováts states three main reasons for the development of HEIs' structure: the increase or decrease in the complexity and dynamicity of the HEI external and internal environments, the increase or decrease in the institutional autonomy (i.e., independence) of the HEI, and the increase or decrease in the size of the organization (in terms of student and employees numbers). In general, when the complexity and dynamicity of the HEI environment increase, the HEI will encounter higher levels of competition. In such cases, the HEI responds by adding new services and/or units, which will help the HEI to attract more students. When the size of the HEI increases, the HEI academic and administrative structures naturally become more differentiated and departmentalized, and new faculties and administrative units should be created which leads to more standardized procedures and more bureaucratic methods of management. On the other hand, as the academic structure becomes more decentralized and distributed, the administrative structure turns to be more centralized and coordinated, since most administrative units should be placed in the center of the structure so that they can supervise and offer services to all faculties, and these units should be supervised strongly by an 'administrative steering core'. Hence, the structure of the organization tends to become centralized and bureaucratic on the top levels, and decentralized and organic on the middle and bottom levels (both academic and administrative). This leads to tensions and debates between academic and administrative units that are on the same level, as well as between deans and chairpersons and institutional-level leaders and directors, with each side (administrative and academic) emphasizing its role and giving it more importance than that of the other side. Factors that Affect the Organizational Structure of
Palestinian HEIs. In a recent study that investigated the current status of the Palestinian higher education system, El Talla et al. (2018) focused on identifying the differences between the organizational structures of several Palestinian universities and the factors that cause the variations in their structures. This study is especially important for this dissertation due to the similarities between some of the Lebanese and Palestinian HEIs in their culture and general operations, which leads us to wonder whether they have similar organizational structures. The authors start by pinpointing the main characteristics that should exist in the HEI's organizational structure in order to achieve efficiency and effectiveness in accomplishing its required tasks, which are:
- balance: stands for the balance between the authorities and responsibilities given to the employees and the command and supervision required by the managers. A shift in this balance could lead to employees becoming dull and idle thinking or to managers losing their authorities;
- flexibility: this feature requires that the organizational structure should be designed to adapt to constant organizational changes, which means that the design of the organizational structure should include options for altering the structure without affecting the operations of the organization;
- continuity: the organizational structure should be implemented only after ensuring its continuity; since if a weak or faulty structure is implemented, the organization will pay a high price to recover from the consequences and shift to a new organizational structure. Hence, the organizational structure should be designed with the characteristics that ensure that it will prevail for a considerable period of time in the future.
Next, El Talla et al. (2018) state the factors that influence and determine the type of structure that each of the Palestinian HEIs adopts. These factors include:
- the size and age of the university;
- the HEI internal and external environment;
- the HEI geographical location and span (whether it has international branches or not);
- its specialization (more complex and diverse specializations lead to complex organizational structures);
- its human resources (the existence of capable and expert employees and managers lead to more advanced and better organizational structures);
- its use of technology;
- its span of control;
- the degree of dynamicity in its strategy (how often does it modify its mission and goals);
- its decision-making style (the methods and policies used by senior administrations);
- its communication model.
The last factor plays a very important role in preserving the flow of work within the HEI and creating a good regulatory environment. In general, the productivity of the HEI services is high whenever there are good communication systems within the HEI and between the HEI and its external environment (businesses, labor market, government, other HEIs, alumni, etc.). El Talla et al. (2018) emphasize the importance of the communication system in the HEI and highlight its effects on the HEI organizational structure. According to the authors, the existence of open and frequent communication links between the HEI board, faculty, and staff can help in solving many problems in the HEI in a faster and more efficient manner, and leads to relaxing the highly bureaucratic structure that usually exists at the top levels of HEIs. This is due to the fact that when the HEI board opens communication channels with the HEI faculty and staff, the HEI employees become more enthusiastic and work harder to fulfill their duties and tend to hold better responsibility.
In general, the organizational structure of the Palestinian HEIs that were examined in this study can be described as a hybrid structure of four main systems: administrative, financial, educational, and research (El Talla et al., 2018). The administrative and financial systems are an essential component of the organizational structure of Palestinian universities. They include the departments of marketing, accounting, payroll, finance affairs, human resources, students' affairs, admission and registration, public relations, personnel affairs, maintenance, procurement, warehousing services, security, and other administrative functions. During the last decades, Palestinian universities experienced several difficult conditions and faced the lack of essential resources due to political divisions and war situations, which urged these universities to strengthen their administrative and finance systems in order to overcome the difficult environment and be able to continue their missions and fulfill their objectives.
In order to illustrate a general depiction of the organizational structures adopted by Palestinian HEIs, El Talla et al. (2018) state ten points that were the main elements in the questionnaire that was used in the study. These ten points are:
- the organizational structure of the university should be aligned with its general objectives. In other words, the HEI mission and goals should determine what departments operate in the HEI, and the regulations and policies used in these departments and between them;
- the operations and services of the HEI are consistent with the type and style of its organizational structure;
- the design of the organizational structure is detailed to include the operations and regulations of each department in the HEI;
- the organizational structure of the university states clearly the type of relations that should exist between each president or manager and his/her subordinates;
- the organizational structure of the university is flexible and can be easily changed when changes should be made to the university objectives or services;
- there is no overlap and unnecessary duplication of jobs and processes within the university;
- the organization structure of the university includes the division of labor among the various departments in an efficient way that assists in achieving the HEI objectives;
- the organizational structure of the university guides the individuals to accomplish their tasks and duties in a rapid and organized manner;
- the qualifications and fields of expertise of the university members are aligned with the type and nature of duties of their positions;
- the organizational structure of the university comprises regulations and directives for frequent and mobile communications between the various departments and sections in the university that are essential to their missions and operations [2, 3].
According to the study that was performed by El Talla et al. (2018), the organizational structure of the Palestinian universities satisfy to a high degree, all the ten points stated above. The questionnaire performed by the authors among the boards, faculties, and staffs of three main Palestinian universities showed that the members of these universities believe that their institutions have an average score between 62 and 73 % on the ten points (complete details can be found in the reference), which indicates "the importance of an appropriate organizational structure that serves the objectives of the university and helps it to achieve its objectives efficiently and effectively" (El Talla et al., 2018).
Some of the important outcomes of the study by El Talla et al. (2018) are:
1. Faculty and staff with postgraduate qualifications (Master's or Ph D) showed more dissatisfaction with the organizational structure than bachelor or diploma holders. The authors explain this result due to the fact that staffs with postgraduate qualifications consider their jobs not appropriate, while faculty members with postgraduate qualifications consider that the organizational structure of the university should be modified to give more importance and support to the education and research services. In addition, some faculty members often complain that the organizational structure requires them to work on administrative tasks that
they consider below their level and qualifications. This result is very important to consider, since several Lebanese private HEIs experience the same issue.
2. The different circumstances of each university affect its organizational structure: the first university is a public one and has the most stable environment; hence its employees showed high satisfaction with their HEI's organizational structure and considered it very stable. Another university is a recent one that is run by the Palestinian government; hence it is affected by the political division in the Palestinian government, and it depends on two ministries. This leads to the staff of the latter university focusing their loyalty to one of the two ministries. All these factors affect the organizational climate prevailing in this university, and its members reflected low satisfaction with their HEI's organizational structure. A third university is subject to financial problems from time to time mainly due to the dependence on the students' fees for funding the university, which affects the performance of the employees and creates a discouraging organizational environment. The members of the third university showed less satisfaction with their HEI's organizational structure than those of the first university. The fact that some Lebanese universities also depend solely on students' fees as funding sources lead us to expect that the employees of these universities are less satisfied with their organizational structure and environment, as the study by El Talla et al. (2018) shows.
El Talla et al. (2018) recommended that the managements of the Palestinian universities should give greater attention to the organizational structures that are adopted in their universities and to the placement and duties of employees. In addition, the university boards need to improve the communication patterns between the university departments and with other universities. Finally, the university boards need to strengthen the democratic leadership style and to give more power to the university faculty and staff, in order to solve employees' problems and give them the opportunity to contribute to resolving the difficulties that face them and hinder their daily work. Most of these recommendations are very important and should be considered by most of the recently established Lebanese universities. Multiple-Hybrid Organizational Structure of HEIs in Germany. Perhaps one of the most comprehensive views of the organizational structure of a university is depicted in a very recent study by Kleimann (2019), in which the author examines the literature works that described the organizational structure of German HEIs and theorizes that a German university is best described as a Formal Organization that has a Multi-
ple-Hybrid organizational structure. Although this view was analyzed and established by the author for German universities, it can be standardized, to a high degree, for a general university worldwide (as we will illustrate at the end of this section).
Kleimann (2019) illustrates the two main perceptions of the nature and structure of the German university in the literature: the first view depicts the German university as an ordinary organization. This is due to the changes and growth of higher education in Germany, which transformed the university into an actor and a strategic agency that has an expanded autonomy and resembles commercial businesses or bureaucratic units (Kleimann, 2019). This view is referred to by Kleimann as the normality argument. In contrast to this view, a second notion argues in favor of the organizational singularity of the university, which depicts the university as a special and specific type of organization that can be described only by deviating it from the universal model of formal organization. Kleimann (2019) argues that neither view is totally correct or totally wrong. Rather, the university should be described by an organization model that presents a general, comprehensive perception of the university as an organization and at the same time is able to grasp the singularity of the university without ascribing it to being diverged from the normative model of organization. According to Kleimann (2019), the best organizational model that fits the German university is the Multiple-Hybrid model [4].
In 2006, Luhmann reformulated the systems theory that was presented in 1964, in which decisions are considered the basic elements of organizations (Luhmann, 1964; Luhmann, 2006). Luhmann (1964) defines the organizational structure as a set of "decision premises" that determine the probability or improbability of making decisions within the organization. Luhmann (2006) identifies four main types of decision premises, which constitute four different elements of the organizational structure of an organization. These decision premises are: decision programs, communication channels, personnel, and organizational culture. Decision programs determine how decisions are to be made and which decisions conform to the organization's policies and regulations. There are two types of decision programs: Goal programs that describe the aims and targeted outputs of the organization without specifying the methods; and Conditional programs that consist of if-then rules that specify specific responses to clearly identified activates.
The second element of the organizational structure is the communication channels that define who is permitted to issue an order to whom and who has to report to whom. They determine how the responsibilities and ranks within the organiza-
tion are interconnected and how the organization is divided into different organizational units. The third element is personnel, which states that staff qualities and characteristics (knowledge, preferences, skills, gender, age, levels, performance, etc.) have an influence on how decisions are made. In addition, organization members know about the characteristics of colleagues and regulate their own decision-making to the estimated decisions of their peers. The fourth element, the organizational culture, defines how the organization formally presents itself in symbols, offices, or manifestations and how it demands specific attitudes or certain behaviors, which thus form the visible side of the organization. Unlike the first three elements, the fourth element of organizational structure cannot be decided upon by the organization and usually goes beyond the grasp of organizational control. According to Kleimann (2019), the particularity of the organizational structure of a university is due to the fact that it consists of its specific mixture of the first three elements of organizational structure.
Based on these definitions, Kleimann (2019) identifies a 'hybrid organization' as an organization that has inconsistency in one of the elements of its organizational structure, such as organizations that have both profit and non-profit services, organizations that offer their services to two heterogeneous systems, organizations that have two parallel and totally different organizational goals, etc. However, Kleimann (2019) considers a university a special type of 'hybrid organization' which he calls a 'multiple-hybrid organization', which is an organization that has inconsistencies in each and every element among the three elements of its organizational structure (the organizational culture element is excluded, since it is outside the control of the organization). Kleimann (2019) states the facts that make the German university a 'multiple-hybrid organization'. According to him, the German university exhibits four inconsistencies in the decision programs element, four inconsistencies in the communication channels element, and two inconsistencies in the personnel element. These inconsistencies are summarized in the next paragraphs. First, with respect to decision programs, it has the following inconsistencies:
1. The German university has served several systems throughout its history, such as the political system, the social community, the economic system, etc.
2. The German university has always had two distinct main goals: teaching and research, which have a competitive relationship (they compete for resources such as time, money, prominence, etc.).
3. The operations within the German university often include heterogeneous and contradicting tasks, such as knowledge and technology transfer, employees' development, diversity management, institutional openness, resource management, etc. In addition, many of these tasks contradict each other, such as mass and elite education, labor market-oriented and science-oriented teaching, basic and applied research, long-term sustainability and short-term effectiveness, etc.
4. The decision programs in the academic sectors are goal programs, while those in the administrative sectors are conditional programs. This is due to the fact that the success of teaching and research cannot be achieved by rules; however, administrative procedures are successfully accomplished by relating defined inputs to defined actions.
With respect to the communication channels in the German university, this element has the following inconsistencies:
1. The German university has always experienced friction between two forces: the growing autonomy on the one hand and the remaining influence of the state on the other. German universities are state institutions as well as legal corporations that are subject to legal statutes and rules. At the same time, universities have considerably acquired autonomy in the wake of new public management since a lot of powers have been moved from the government to the university administration.
2. The German university comprises a double hierarchy: On the one hand, there is academic self-governance with its multi-layer system of teams and individual powers; on the other, the administrative hierarchy with its bureaucratic line-structure.
3. The German university is characterized by its "loose coupling of units". While the administration's structure is mostly bureaucratic, the academic sector is separated into disconnected departments and faculties that operate independently according to scientific divisions, not organizational requirements.
4. The German universities are not sure how much power and authorities should be granted to the "Professors" and what authorities over the professors should be kept to the university boards. This can be observed by the attempts at controlling the autonomy of the professoriate through new salary regulations, diminishing the academic council, individual target agreements, limited-term equipment for professors, or through the delegation of the right to assign professors from ministry to university. However, these attempts have not succeeded to the extent intended.
Finally, with respect to the personnel element, it has the following two inconsistencies:
1. The German universities have two completely different types of members: teachers and students. Both memberships have distinct roles that are shaped in different methods: on the one hand, there is the performance role of the tenured and paid instructors. On the other hand, there is the customer role of the student whose membership is brief, unpaid, bound to the successful passing of examinations and has limited rights. Hence, the university functions with two entirely diverse notions of membership.
2. Students in German universities are conceptualized from various perspectives. According to higher education regulations, students are members of the university with defined rights. At the same time, students are sometimes described as users of a public-law organization, clients of a specialized corporation, civics within a politic body, or customers of a company that presents educational services. These differences of students' roles show that the nature of university membership varies greatly from that of regular organizations.
Kleimann (2019) concludes his study by stating that the German university, in general, demonstrates inconsistencies, tautness, and incompatibilities with regard to all three elements of its organizational structure. This result emphasizes that the German university contains a heterogeneous subsystem within all these three elements. For this reason, Kleimann (2019) introduced the notion of "multiple-hybrid organization" which supplements systems theory's perception of organizations and contributes to the theoretical
development of the German university organizational structure. In addition, the model of multiple hybridity sharpens the theory of 'hybrid organization' by expressing it as a mixture of contradicting structures on all the structural levels of the university. Conclusion. In this paper, we studied the development of the organizational structures of higher education institutions in three different countries and the factors that affected the development process and caused it to succeed or fail. Our objective is to transform the organizational structure of the AUL University in Lebanon and find the suitable techniques that will enable us to convert the management structure within the university from a vertical form/chain-of-command into a set of flexible forms of management. Hence, it is important to identify the current nature of the organizational structure that exists at AUL. Based on Kleimann (2019) study, we can prove that AUL exhibits a 'multiple-
hybrid' organizational structure. In details, AUL has inconsistencies in all three elements of its organizational structure as follows:
- first, with respect to the decision programs element, AUL includes several contradicting tasks and objectives: from one side, it aims at providing education with the least possible costs for students; from the other side, it emphasizes the importance of high-quality education. In addition, AUL gives great attention to the quality of its students; however, the screening process of admission to the university is very weak. Furthermore, the decision programs in the academic departments at AUL are goal programs, while those in the administrative divisions are conditional programs. This can be observed by the lack of academic rules that define what decisions should be taken by each full and part-time instructor at AUL; rather, these decisions are taken based on the situation. On the other hand, the administrative offices follow predefined regulations and policies that are monitored by the university board;
- second, with respect to the communication channels element, AUL comprises two different hierarchies: an academic self-governance where each faculty has its own academic supervision style and methods of operation, and an administrative hierarchy that has a communication system similar to that of the bureaucratic chain-of-command, where each employee has a direct manager and defined reporting rules. In addition, AUL experiences the same problem of "loose coupling of units" that was described previously in this section.
Conclusion. Finally, with respect to the personnel element, AUL differs from many Lebanese and International universities in that it doesn't have a tenure track. In addition, contracts for administrative staff and academic faculty are single-year based. These conditions make the membership system of the university very fragile. This contradicts the university general objective of satisfying the essential needs of its members and offering them comfortable working conditions. In addition, academic and administrative faculty and staff often got confused between the university objectives: from one side, they always sense that the university financial targets are the most important to be focused on when performing their duties and tasks; from the other side, they are often reminded of the great importance of offering high equality education and teaching services. Hence, the membership boundaries and characteristics of the university are not clear and suffer from contradicting requirements and conditions.
Based on these facts, we can describe the organizational structure of AUL as a "multiple-hybrid" framework. This identification is very important, as we will be attempting to solve these contradictions and conflicts that we stated above while transform-
ing the management system of the university from its current status to a flexible framework that allows all members of the university to agree on common objectives and cooperate to successfully achieve them [5].
References
1. El Talla S. A., Al Shobaki M. J., Abu-Naser S. S., Amuna Y. M. A. Organizational Structure and its Relation to the Prevailing Pattern of Communication in Palestinian Universities. International Journal of Engineering and Information Systems (IJEAIS), 2018, no. 2 (5), pp. 22-43.
2. Kleimann B. (German) Universities as multiple hybrid organizations. Higher Education, 2019, no. 77 (6), pp. 1085-1102.
3. Kovâts G. The change of organizational structure of higher education institutions in Hungary: a contingency theory analysis. International Review of Social Research, 2018, no. 8 (1), pp. 74-86.
4. Luhmann N. Funktionen und folgen formaler organisation. Vol. 20. Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 1964. 427 p.
5. Luhmann N. Organisation und Entscheidung. 2nd edition. Wiesbaden, VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2006. 469 p.
Information about the author
Layal Adnan Hamzeh - PhD student, the Department of Management, Business Technology and Sustainable Development. Belarussian State Technological University (13a, Sverdlova str., 220006, Minsk, Republic of Belarus).
Received 04.10.2019
