union makes us strong?: technology implementation in a collective bargaining culture.

• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2047/D20351634

Community colleges may be uniquely situated to meet the challenge of constant change and must do so for continued relevance: the community college model is increasingly significant in a world of economic, social, and technological change. Discovering how the existence of a union influences the acceptance and use of learning management system (LMS) technology in a community college entails determining if a collective bargaining environment affects an institution's cultural expectations around decision-making. Eleven educational administrators and three Union leaders were engaged to study the processes used to craft change initiatives as framed by stakeholder theory and seen through the lens of sensemaking. An analysis across these eleven community colleges reveals that we see what we expect to see because it is framed within that which we have seen before. The very existence of Unions within the institutions effectively sets up if not an equal partner - or adversary - in decision-making, but at the very least an interest group of stakeholders that needs to be considered before, during, and after decision-making processes. A balance of stakeholder interests and administrations willing to make the final call despite cultural push-back was revealed to be a successful organizational model. Process review and changing organizational constructs which introduce technological solutions can only be successful in an environment of trust: trust in the decision-makers, and trust in the technology.--Author's abstract