This book is about a new concept – Organizational Learning Contracts (OLCs). An OLC is a shared agreement among the major parties in an educational institution (faculty, staff, students) about what, how, where, and when learning should take place. The book examines the consequences of strong and weak contracts in new and comparable traditional institutions. It is divided into two sections: (1) theory and research evidence and (2) practice. The book develops the concept of the OLC, builds measures of this concept, and then looks at the consequences of strong versus weak contracts on student and ... More

This book is about a new concept – Organizational Learning Contracts (OLCs). An OLC is a shared agreement among the major parties in an educational institution (faculty, staff, students) about what, how, where, and when learning should take place. The book examines the consequences of strong and weak contracts in new and comparable traditional institutions. It is divided into two sections: (1) theory and research evidence and (2) practice. The book develops the concept of the OLC, builds measures of this concept, and then looks at the consequences of strong versus weak contracts on student and institutional effectiveness indicators. The practice section presents the perspectives of two leaders of start-up institutions who have created new OLCs and explores issues of design and change in introducing OLCs. There are some critical themes underlying this book. The first deals with change in higher education. The dilemma is that there are strong forces both for change (e.g., economic, global, technological) and for the status quo. The book addresses in a specific way how to create effective organizational change. Another theme is the start up of new institutions of higher education. The basic question is: if you could start from the beginning, with appropriate resources, how would you design a new institution. The book explores this theme from a research perspective and from those who created new colleges. A third theme is bridging theory and practice. The book looks at both the meaning and consequences of the OLC.