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ABSTRACT
Due to changes in the economic, political and educational landscape in Thailand over the past 15 years, higher education institutions are being mandated to shift from fully public, civil service entities to autonomous, quasi-public universities that require significant management changes. This research considers the likely challenges associated with future educational impacts and utilizes a case study at the College of Arts, Media and Technology, Chiang Mai University to show the current ‘as-is’ and desired ‘to-be’ management scenarios. The paper investigates potential solutions through the lens of a Governance, Risk Management and Compliance (GRC) framework to facilitate sustainability within Thailand’s affiliated universities. While the management challenges of higher education are specific to individual faculties and universities, the case study presented in this paper acts as a microcosm of Thailand’s higher education challenges. The aim of this paper is to promote discussion and consideration of the likely challenges and solutions to Thailand’s changing higher education.
Keywords: Public autonomous universities, Governance, Risk management and compliance, Higher education, Chiang Mai University
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, education has globalized (Hershock et al., 2007), affecting public universities in Thai- land, which have been required to become autonomous organizations with limited government supervision. Before these changes, the Thai government provided centralized budgets to public universities, and staff were civil servants. Staff felt secure and safe in their jobs and as a result often lacked motivation or encouragement for imagination or ingenuity in their work. Ultimately, this led to stagnation within Thailand’s higher education sector and the quality of education suffered (Kirtikara, 2002). In 1997, Thailand faced an economic crisis, which in turn led to a crisis in education, resulting in the Thai government applying for financial assistance from the Asian Development Bank (ADB). One suggestion from the ADB was to let public universities manage themselves to reduce government spending, while also minimizing bureaucracy in higher education. Nitikraipot (1999) showed that bureaucracy, in partic- ular, was reducing the effectiveness and global competitiveness of Thai universities. As a potential solution to the economic difficulties and bureaucracy, the Thai government mandated that 14 universities transform into autonomous public universities. The transformation from fully public, civil service organizations, to affiliated quasi-public entities, presents significant management challenges. This paper utilizes a case study approach to outline the challenges associated with the transformation to public autonomous status and highlights the gap between current and desired management practice, specifically focusing on the potential of a Governance, Risk Management and Compliance (GRC) framework to close this gap. The objectives of the paper are to highlight the management challenges faced by public autonomous universities, introduce the disparity between current and desired management scenarios, and promote debate about how to build sustainable higher education organizations in Thailand.
Public autonomous universities in Thailand
The Thai government commonly uses and prefers the term ‘autonomous universities’ when describing the new higher education management structure, but this paper prefers the term ‘affiliated universities’. The word ‘autonomous does not truly reflecting the status of these newly organized Thai universities, which despite being offered significantly more autonomy than traditional public universities, are still bound by government directives and restrictions.
Thailand has 92 public universities, 14 of which have received mandates to become public affiliated universities as of 2011 (The Office of the Higher Education Commission, 2010). Among this group, 10 have finished their evolution from public to affiliated public status and four are new universities, which were conceptualized as affiliated universities from the outset. The process of transforming from a public, to an affiliated public university, initially results in two main challenges. First, some lecturers and staff are fearful of losing their perceived permanent employment status due to the new infrastructures and systems. Second, there is a bureaucratic legacy, where it is well ingrained to blindly follow leaders rather than be creative and productive at work. Such a mentality is not commensurate with the new affiliated status. In an attempt to overcome these challenges, a significant number of management tools have been applied to universities in Thailand (e.g., Public Sector Management Quality Award, Thailand Quality Award and Results-based Management). These tools are mainly concerned with piecemeal improvements in quality management for specific university stakeholders, and have achieved limited success (Suvan-nasarn, 2010). GRC, which attempts to integrate organizational ethos and allow universities to successfully identify and meet their objectives, is a potential framework for addressing these issues more systematically. The key advantage of GRC is that people, processes and technology are central aspects of the framework and are in alignment with the philosophy of the affiliated status, as well as its aim of achieving successful and sustainable management (Suvanasarn, 2010; PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2004; Tarantino, 2008). Therefore, if Thai affiliated universities can successfully implement and maximize the potential of GRC, the gap between current and desired management scenarios could be reduced to secure their future as higher education institutes in Thailand. This is of particular importance in relation to the single ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), which is to be established in 2015 and will significantly impact Thai higher education. Before assessing how a GRC framework might help Thai affiliated public universities meet their management challenges, there is a need to understand the current higher education management situation and potential management requirements of the affiliated status.
Management requirements of the affiliated status
The central management challenges of Thailand’s affiliated university status are related to seven scenarios set out by the Thai Ministry of Higher Education (2008), which are based on global, regional and local socio-economic factors. These scenarios represent the key future challenges for Thai higher education, especially affiliated universities that, with their relative autonomy, are more fully exposed to these risks. The seven scenarios identified by the Thai Ministry of Higher Education Commission (2008) are:
- Demographic change
- Energy and the environment
- Future employment
- Decentralization of the country and development of local administrative bodies
- Peaceful conflict resolution and violence
- Post-modern/post-industrial world
- His Majesty the King of Thai- land’s initiative on ‘Sufficiency Economy’
Each of these scenarios is presented in Table 1 with regard to its context and the potential impacts on Thai public affiliated universities. These impacts are based on a review of appropriate literature.
Table 1 highlights the key challenges and potential impacts for Thai higher education and affiliated universities. In summary, significant future impacts stem from the forthcoming AEC in 2015, the requirement to build a stronger regional and inter-national research profile, pressure for secure financial operation, domestic and international competition, and systemic organizational weaknesses within institutions. Some of these challenges are also common to universities internationally, but all have specific idiosyncrasies related to Thai- land. To better understand how Thai higher education institutes might respond to these challenges, the next section presents a case study at the College of Arts, Media and Technology (CAMT), Chiang Mai University (CMU).
table 1. Challenges of the public affiliated status based on future educational scenarios, along with the potential management impact on Thai public affiliated universities.
METHODOLOGY
CMU was established in 1964 as the first higher education institute in northern Thailand. In 2008, it became an affiliated public university, self-governed by a University Council. The vision of CMU is to be “a leading university with academic excellence in International Standards, focus- ing to become a research-oriented institution of higher education and producing graduates with high moral and ethical standards, equipped to practice good governance under the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy and Sustainable Development” (CMU, 2010). As an affiliated public univer- sity, CMU has recently become more independent, with requirements to remain competitive and reach inter- national standards in education and research.
The College of Arts, Media and Technology (CAMT), established in 2003, is one of 21 faculties at CMU. It currently has over 1,000 students and 100 faculty and staff. CAMT is subject to the same challenges as other faculties and higher education establishments throughout Thailand. In this research, CAMT was utilized as a case study to investigate how Thai higher education institutes might respond to challenges presented by affiliated status and acts as a microcosm of the wider university environment.
To fully harness the potential of CAMT as a case study, the ‘as-is’ management situation and associated challenges were determined. Following this, current management solutions were investigated before considering a ‘to-be’ framework for CAMT, which was based on the potential impacts identified in Table 1. To promote the sustainability required by the affiliated status, future impacts and solutions were then considered through the lens of the GRC framework. The case study methodology is outlined in Figure 1 and detailed further in the corresponding sections.
This paper’s main aim is to high- light the current (‘as-is’) management issues and challenges associated with changing to public affiliated status for one university faculty. The research then illustrates the desired ‘to-be’ management state, before finally out- lining how a GRC framework might help to close the existing gap and move from the ‘as-is’ toward the ‘to-be’ situation.
Stage 1: determination of the ‘as-is’ situation
Without determining the ‘as-is’ situation, the requirements for change cannot be ascertained. With this in mind, this stage of the research collected data to determine the ‘as-is’ management situation of CAMT, including current challenges and solutions. From September 2009 to January 2010, CAMT undertook a self-assessment process, which generated information relating to aspects of the organizational profile, leadership, strategic planning, customer focus, workforce focus and process management. The first step of CAMT’s self-assessment involved an identification of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats via a SWOT analysis. Information obtained from this SWOT analysis constituted key data in this research.
Data collection also consisted of interviews and group discussions with staff from all three of CAMT’s organizational levels – operational, middle and executive (Figure 2).
Figure 2. The three organizational levels of CAMT and associated interviewees.
In-depth interviews and group discussions took place with the Dean (executive level); Vice Dean, three Assistant Deans and the Head of School (middle level); and the head of administrative department, ten lecturers and fifteen general staff (operational level). The lecturers and general staff were specifically chosen based on recommendations from CAMT management on their knowledge of the organization. The focus of the interviews and group discussions varied according to the organizational level (Figure 2), with the aim of providing a comprehensive overview of CAMT’s current management status and challenges. The structure of questions was based on the 2009-10 Education Criteria from the Thai Performance Excellence Framework, which focuses on assessing performance, specifically within educational institutions and was generated by the Office of the Higher Education Commission (2009). The data collection process determined the current situation of administration and management at CAMT through self-assessment questions described in this framework.
In addition to primary data collection, literature reviews in quality management were conducted (especially pertaining to higher education) in order to fully inform and understand the ‘as-is’ situation.
Stage 2: determination of the ‘to-be’ situation
Determining the ‘to-be’ situation was based on literature showing potential future impacts on Thai higher education (shown in Table 1), as well as further in-depth interviews with 31 staff at all levels in CAMT. The ‘to-be’ situation was conceptualized in the CAMT management tree (Figure 3), showing the future direction of CAMT according to the problems, solutions and scenarios identified from the literature and presented in Table 1.
Stage 3: using the lens of gRC to close the gap between the ‘as-is’ and ‘to-be’ management situations One of the crucial aspects of the affiliated university status in Thailand is autonomy (Ministry of Education, 2008). Along with this autonomy, sustainability is a key issue for higher education institutes in Thailand. In response to this requirement of sustainability and in line with the importance of people process and technology in higher education, the final step of this research assessed how CAMT might achieve its desired ‘to-be’ scenario through the lens of a GRC framework. GRC was selected as it effectively links the concept of sustainability with people, process and technology, and has potential to help CAMT respond to both the challenges of the affiliated status and wider educational change (as identified in Table 1). GRC can be defined as:
...A capability and a culture that enables an organization to achieve principled performance by: prioritizing stakeholder expectations, setting and evaluating
objectives, ensuring that objectives are achieved with responsibility and integrity, managing the desirable and undesirable effects of uncertainty on objectives, operating within voluntary and mandatory boundaries of conduct, communicating with internal and external stakeholders about system performance, and providing assurance that the system is effective, efficient and agile” (OCEG, 2009, p.4).
The GRC operating model helps leaders visualize success and understand how such an approach could be realized within their own organizations. To begin the implementation of GRC at CAMT, a ‘kick-off’ meeting was held to inform CAMT staff about GRC. At this meeting, a GRC expert was present to emphasize the importance of GRC in Thailand’s education system. Following the meeting, CAMT staff were given a copy of the draft GRC policy. The ‘as-is’ situation and ‘to-be’ situations at CAMT were then compared to envision how the gap might be closed.
As well as relevant literature, in-depth interviews were used to as- certain GRC trends and benefits from experts in Thailand. To further assess the gap between the ‘as-is’ and ‘to-be’ situation, and any future GRC implementation, a GRC expert provided consultancy to CAMT. Following this consultancy, researchers interviewed staff to assess their understanding of GRC.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
CAMt ‘as-is’ situation
Following the SWOT analysis, meetings, group discussions and interviews, a set of six key management challenges were identified, as well as CAMT’s current solutions. These are shown in Table 2.
The key challenge identified in the ‘as-is’ situation is how to align stakeholders’ expectations with effective processes by using technology to meet organizational objectives. The aspects where CAMT is currently performing competently are focusing on risk management and effectively using technology in the organization - for example, a program evaluating student risk to reduce drop out rates and promote high grades, and a business intelligence program to help decision making in CAMT. The vital steps for future sustainability are good governance, which is related to the alignment of management and policy and is ultimately related to the compliance of all sections in the organization. This need for compliance once again highlights the potential usefulness of a GRC program to universities and faculties faced with challenges of the affiliated status. Staff and student skill at CAMT are increased through placement opportunities with international universities and companies, while community links are cultivated through support for local communities. All projects focus on revenue to promote self-funding and self-sufficiency. Despite CAMT’s current solutions, there is still a need to improve and respond more appropriately to the challenges, hence the ‘to-be situation.
table 2. Current management challenges and resolutions at CAMT.
Figure 3. CAMT ‘to-be’ management tree and relationship to the Thai MoE’s seven future educational scenarios. The ‘to-be’ situation is based on the future educational scenarios and challenges identified in Table 1.
CAMT ‘to-be’ situation
Figure 3 shows CAMT’s key challenges, which constitute the ‘to-be’ situation and are related to the seven future educational scenarios identified in Table 1.
The ‘to-be’ situation is symbolized as a tree, representing the growth required to meet the challenges of the future educational scenarios and affiliated status. Each branch of the tree is weighed down and dependent on the current management challenges. At CAMT, there is an identity and awareness amongst staff and management of what constitute the ‘as-is’ and ‘to-be’ situations, but a lack of coherence and understanding about how the ‘to-be’ scenario might be achieved. Figure 3 illustrates that the ‘to-be’ situation is characterized by understanding future change and current management challenges, but at CAMT current challenges and potential future change have yet to be integrated. The current challenges are therefore shown as weighing down or impeding the change required to reach the ‘to-be’ situation. These current challenges are not unique to the case study at CAMT, as literature shows higher education across Thailand is constrained by similar issues when striving to meet higher education changes (e.g., Biyaem, 1997; Chulalongkorn University, 2000). In this regard, the lens of GRC offers potential for Thai universities to meet their management challenges and move closer towards the ‘to-be’ scenario.
Developing a GRC framework at CAMT
The requirements captured from the literature describe Governance, Risk Management and Compliance as both separate and integrated terms. When designing a potential model at CAMT, GRC knowledge was collected and analyzed, along with in-depth interviews with a GRC expert. Results showed that GRC could be defined in a number of ways depending upon the objective of the individual or organization responsible for the interpretation of a GRC remit. While many business management tools are well defined in terms of their scope and application, GRC has been described as, “… a large black box: a mysterious container full of improved processes and software for automation...” (Broady and Roland, 2008, p.22). The problems in defining a suitable and consistent GRC framework have led to a variety of models being developed by management consultancies (e.g., PricewaterhouseCoo- pers, 2004; Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, 2011; SAP, 2011). The emphasis placed on GRC by these models and the wide-ranging literature illustrates that despite the difficulty in defining and structuring GRC, an implicit business need to apply GRC principles often remains.
With a focus on Thailand, Suvanasarn (2010) described GRC as a new standard, which provides a single consolidated framework to provide benefits and meet the expectations of stakeholder governance, with an emphasis on ethics. Thailand’s state enterprises maintain a focus on GRC in business, and in 2011, GRC was a key performance indicator to measure risk management at the top levels of enterprise (The Committee of State Enterprise Performance Evaluation, 2010). In contrast, within the education sector, no higher education institutions currently apply GRC in their management (Suvanasarn, 2010). This is particularly surprising given that affiliated public universities manage themselves under supervision of the state, where quality and transparency in management should be used to drive sustainable organizations.
This research used GRC definitions and a literature review to investigate and initialize a suitable GRC project at CAMT. A GRC ex- pert noted that this is the first such project within the education sector of Thailand and signaled that GRC has significant potential to add value to the management of public universities, especially affiliated universities, which have new and complex management requirements. Public affiliated universities should initialize GRC models of management parallel to global changes and in alignment with the Thai MoE’s seven future scenarios (Table 1). It is important to note that while a GRC model was in- vestigated and carefully considered in this research, it has not yet been fully developed and applied at CAMT. This research, therefore, considers how the lens of GRC might be used to respond to higher education challenges. Future work will further develop, apply and test a GRC model.
table 3. Analyzing the gap between CAMT’s current situation and GRC context/requirements.
Results presented in Table 3 illustrate the gap and highlight the problem between the people, process and technology requirements of GRC and CAMT’s current management.
After CAMT reviewed, discussed and analyzed GRC data, the ‘CAMT GRC Tree’ was developed to assist CAMT in the design and implementation of a GRC program. Figure 4 shows the proposed ‘CAMT GRC Tree,’ which is similar to the CAMT ‘to-be’ tree (Figure 3) and shows the general aims of GRC, along with how CAMT might address these aspects. An effective GRC model could help CAMT meet its management challenges.
Figure 4. CAMT GRC Tree.
The branches in Figure 4 constitute GRC perspectives that support CAMT’s overall objectives. The Roots of GRC include governance-based regulations, namely, responsibility, accountability, equitable treatment, creation of long-term value, transparency, promotion of best practice and social and environmental awareness. At the crest of the CAMT Tree is ‘CAMT GRC’, which meets requirements of good governance and sustainability. ‘CAMT GRC’ has four dimensions: financial, business process, customer, and learning and growth. These are detailed below.
- Financial: The CAMT budget should be managed based on overall CMU Quality Assurance (QA) and TQA Activities. CAMT should also continue to focus on student affairs, research, student contests, visiting professors, special projects and cooperative education. Lecturers in CAMT should match full-time staff with full-time equivalent students (FTES) to support academic quality, as the Thai government will support the education sector where a high QA score exists. In addition, stakeholders trust organizations that guarantee effective organization and want to invest (e.g., provide research funding).
- Learning and Growth: CAMT should use knowledge management as a key tool to cover strategic planning, manpower planning, evaluation, human resource development, management information system (MIS) and risk management.
- Business Process: The five “S”
processes are sorting, straightening, systematic cleaning, standardizing and sustaining academic utilization to help staff understand how to work in CAMT. In addition, CAMT must satisfy office utilization, office inventory, building and place, and utility costs. CAMT also uses Information Technology (IT) to manage its organization – for example, MIS, Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) and e-office.
- Customer: CAMT uses Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to support and encourage customers. This encourages CAMT to support its customers via public relations, marketing and information. Additionally, up and cross selling and retention, as well as a loyalty program and animation services delivered for the Government Office of Chiang Mai are the main external services.
An effective GRC model must consider the variations and nuances of an organization, if it is to drive sustainability and growth. This presents a dilemma within universities, given their complex management structures, with faculties, schools and departments each presenting different management needs. The GRC approach in this paper is not designed to present a homogenous, one-size-fits-all model for affiliated universities in Thailand. Rather, it attempts to highlight the forthcoming challenges to higher education in Thailand, showing how a systematic investigation of challenges might be undertaken. GRC is an important approach to drive sustainability given that the affiliated status provides autonomy and exposes these universities more fully to the risks associated with local, regional and global change.
CONCLUSION
Higher education is changing locally, regionally and globally. Uni- versities must respond, if they are to remain competitive and meet the needs of the society they serve. This paper has initially highlighted the changes that are likely to affect high- er education in Thailand and has considered the potential impacts on higher education organizations, par- ticularly the newly formed affiliated universities, which are likely to be more exposed to these impacts. By leveraging a case study, this research has shown the ‘as-is’ situation of one university faculty to underline the current challenges faced by higher education in Thailand, as well as how they might respond and create sustainability via a GRC framework. While the challenges identified in this case study are specific to CAMT at Chiang Mai University, the challenges are likely similar to those faced by other faculties and universities across Thailand. In this light, it is hoped that the processes presented in this paper and the importance of effective GRC can be considered by other higher education organizations in Thailand, so they can respond to future chal- lenges with a view toward achieving sustainability. With the recent glo- balization of education, and specif- ic impacts on public universities in Thailand, this paper has presented re- search, which in its most general sense should generate discussion about how Thailand’s higher education system can respond to change and become sustainable.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Acknowledgements go to the lead author’s PhD supervisors: Mr. Metha Suvanasarn, Dr. Anchalee Jengjarern and Dr. Sermkiat Jomjunyong. Rajamangala University of Technology Lanna is also gratefully acknowledged for supporting the lead author’s work through a scholarship.
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