The lessons of experience: Developmental experiences of mid-level female administrators in higher education.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The purpose of this study was to determine whether there are similar developmental experiences shared by both the corporate and higher education worlds, thus allowing for the possibility of applying business management development theory to higher education administration. This study builds directly on research findings from the corporate world that indicate how on-the-job experiences relate to management development.
McCall, Lombardo, and Morrison (1988) documented four broad categories of experiences that executives indicated were potentially developmental: assignments, hardships, events and other (mostly people related experiences). The authors then detailed 33 types of developmental lessons that executives reported emerged from these experiential categories. The following question guided the study process: Do the developmental administrative experiences of mid-level women in higher education administration agree with, refute, challenge, or extend the four Lessons of Experience “categories” as outlined by McCall, Lombardo, and Morrison based on their studies of business executives?.
A mailed critical incident survey was used to collect data from women administrators who had participated in past summer management development programs given by the National Association of Women in Education's (NAWE).
Institute for Emerging Women Leaders in Higher Education. A total of 104 surveys were sent out, and 61 were returned, for a response rate of 58%. Of the 61 returned surveys, 9 were eliminated because they did not fall into the parameters of the study criteria. The analysis of the data included tabulating the frequency and percentage of responses of the demographic data given by the respondents, as well as a content analysis of the qualitative data from the critical incident stories.
The primary outcomes from on-the-job experiences appear to be growth in personal and interpersonal leadership skills, knowledge, and values. Additionally, these experiences further developed administrative/management knowledge and skills specific to context, as well as broaden one's perspective about the organization.
The findings of this study are consistent with the McCall et al. (1988) study, which also reported that the key to on-the-job management development is to provide multiple opportunities to assume responsibility for challenging assignments and to reflect on the meaning of these events for accomplishing future management responsibilities.