The University of Australia (UAus) is Australia’s number one university and ranked number 30 in the world. Established originally in Sydney, the University has 10 campuses across Australia and has been busy expanding overseas opening up 2 campuses.
UAus successfully opened a campus (known as Campus X) recently in an Asian city with 20 million people. Detailed forecasting, planning and assessment of the market was carried out before opening the Campus to ensure it was a good location choice. As it was the first foreign University to establish a campus there and a high demand for education exists in the country, Campus X is doing very well with a growth rate of 20% per Semester. The campus has two Australians as part of the Top Management Team with the reminder of the team being local senior academics who studied in Australia and the UK with past experience of opening university campuses in Asia.
Due to the success of Campus X, UAus decided to open a second overseas campus in the Pacific. They chose a small Pacific Island nation called Brini. Although the country has a small population of 3 million people, it is a wealthy nation as a result of its large amount of natural resources.
UAus knew establishing the new campus (called Brini Campus) would be a challenge due to the local culture emphasising connections, interpersonal relationships and trust. A big focus on farming existed amongst the local people with only those from wealthy families or who wanted to do medicine choosing to enroll in a university degree. Many of those who want a higher education go to leading global universities such as Oxford and Harvard. Nonetheless, potential existed for the Brini Campus due to the nation’s high average income and only having two existing local universities.
Choosing local people for senior and middle management positions was critical at Campus X due to their local insights and connections therefore UAus decided to put only one Australian in the Senior (Top) Management Team. This was Jack Sloan, the Managing Director who had worked for UAus for many years and was part of the original team that established Campus X.
Jack’s Brini team included four local senior managers who had never opened university campuses or worked for a foreign university but were deemed excellent local business men and women with MBAs. They all went through a strict hiring process and were well connected locally with all having worked for the local universities. Kevin Balna was the Director, Sarah Dollinger the Head of Operations, Ted Corathe Head of Finance and Leo Salva was the Business Development Director.
Over the first few weeks of establishing the Brini Campus, Jack noticed several different business practices compared to Australia. Firstly, when he went to meetings with the Government and local organisations, he was often ignored. All conversations were directed to Kevin with many spoken in the local language. Furthermore, agreements were never written down in contracts and emails were minimal. Rather everything was discussed verbally with information shared and agreed on in meetings. There was limited written evidence.
Kevin explained to Jack outsiders are normally not trusted and that writing agreements down was rare as what was noted on paper was seen as invalid. Business was about trust. At first Jack accepted this and trusted his team with UAus headquarters reinforcing he must follow local business customs. However, after a while he noticed he was rarely informed of strategic decisions and his team would simply tell him “everything is going well”.
Over the next 12 months, the inclusion of Jack by his Senior Management Team did not improve. He would walk around the offices and notice that administration staff were coming in at all different times of the day. Regularly at 9.30am there would be no one at their desks, this also seemed to be the case from 3.30pm onwards in the afternoon. Phones would ring and no one would answer. He also noticed often classrooms would be full of students but no teachers. Then other rooms were completely empty suggesting low enrollments.
Jack decided to do some investigation to understand the situation more. He reviewed enrollments for the University’s second semester and noticed numbers were below half of the original predictions. He asked Sarah about students waiting for teachers to show up to class who replied “The academics do their own thing, we don’ tell them what to do with their classrooms”.
Concerned by such a statement, Jack decided to sit in the staff lunch room and speak to different staff members. When asking administration staff what time they come to work they responded “Whenever, our boss allows us to do what we want.” He also spoke to some junior members of the Business Development Team. They too explained their managers did not provide any direction, encouraging them to be free and for staff to do what they think is best.
Jack asked the junior business development staff how forecasting was going of the local market and predications. They seemed confused replying “What forecasts? We just use the local universities’ data and information.” Jack then asked how they were going with enrollment goals individually in which both responded they had no specific performance goals to achieve.
Other teams also had similar answers making Jack wonder who was in charge to guide and motivate key first-line teams. He identified none of the departments had written objectives or strategies. It seems what was discussed in Senior Management meetings never got communicated much to lower levels of the organisation. It also appeared that official policies and documentations from UAus Head Office were not being enforced at the Brini Campus.
Jack decided to call a meeting with his team. However, just before the meeting he got a call from his boss – the Vice Chancellor of UAus: Alex. “Jack, you’re now heading into your third semester there at Brini Campus, numbers are only of 10% of predictions, the campus is significantly underperforming with some complaints from the Department of Education that students are not happy with the quality of the teaching and there are serious delays in official paperwork. This needs to be addressed now!”
Shocked, Jack told Alex he had never heard about the complaints and that he was usually ignored at government meetings. Jack asked for more details on the concerning performance in which Alex responded: “Brini Campus has been underperforming since the beginning – why aren’t your managers doing more? None of the original goals have been met. Head Office sent through reports to Kevin and Sarah several times with requests for strategies on taking action to fix the performance issues but they never respond to emails or requests for action plans. Who is in control down there and making decisions?! Do you know that Harvard is opening up a course there with a local university next semester and Oxford will be doing the same thing with the other local university next year? You should be aware of all of this! Fix it. Otherwise we are closing the campus down.”
Jack headed into his meeting with his Senior Managers where he was greeted with comments that the company was doing well. He decided to begin with a few questions. He asked Ted and Leo if financial goals and sales objectives were made clear to teams or promoted as a way to motivate and encourage. Both responded that nothing is told to those who don’t need to know therefore little communication of goals is given except to “make as much money as possible”. Leo was furthermore asked about forecasting and if a competitor analysis was being conducted with the entrance of Harvard and Oxford to the market. Leo replied neither was a key focus for the Business Development team with any data used coming from the local universities’ connections.
Jack then asked Sarah what processes were in place to manage performance, motivate staff and also ensure organisational objectives are achieved through the different departments. She explained that limited policies existed, that each team manager was trusted to motivate and monitor their employees in their own way. Written policies were seen as too restrictive therefore most procedures were carried out informally.
Frustrated, Jack asked who’s decision was to have objectives hidden from staff. He also wanted to know why there was a lack of existing policies as the information he introduced from UAus’s Australian campuses had detailed rules and regulations as well as recommendations on motivation and leadership strategies. Kevin said it was his decision as the Director and the most senior local manager.
Jack demanded why such a decision was made without his consultation in which Kevin replied that he used his past experience and also knowledge of the country to make the decision. He believed his decision would be more appropriate than Jack’s due to his local knowledge and the staff had more trust in him to follow the decision.
He asked for you to provide a report to him that identifies 3 to 4 problems in the case, focuses on solving at least 2 problems through discussing a minimum of 2 practical solutions per problem and provides recommendations supported by theory. Furthermore, the report must include an implementation plan and executive summary
