Partnerships in Education: Networks in Community

Australia 2 ABSTRACT The paper explores an attempt by a small team of staff within the School of Management at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) to transform the only postgraduate third sector management program offered in Australia, in response to powerful external pressures for change. After analysing the nature of these contextual imperatives for the transformation of the program, the paper outlines the rationale underpinning the new program and the 'intrapreneurial' process that accompanied its implementation. Thereafter the results of an evaluation of the transformed program, conducted after the first phase of strategic action, are presented, with specific attention given to an analysis of the politics of its implementation and the nature of the learning gained by the stakeholders of the program. The paper concludes with an attempt to relate the consequences of this initial phase of strategic action, within the new program, to social capital theory. 3 This paper explores an attempt the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) in Australia to transform its program in the management of third sector organisations in response to the profound social change brought about by globalisation. We begin with an analysis of the nature of the crisis faced by the program, the university, and managers in third sector organisations, and then offer a rationale for the strategic action taken by the Community Management Program (CMP) leadership team. This is followed by an evaluation of the first phase of the transformation process, including an analysis of the politics of implementation of the new program, and an analysis of the key learning gained by the community of participants, or primary stakeholders of the program, from their strategic action. We conclude with an attempt to review the results of this initial cycle of collaborative strategic action and learning within the specific frame of reference of social capital theory. Globalisation and, in particular, the emergence of a global economy dominated by powerful business corporations has transformed the global ideological climate. Fuelled by spectacular developments in technology, a process of global economic integration has led to the rise to dominance of corporate capitalism and the world wide disintegration of alternative systems. In 1989, the demolition of the Berlin Wall symbolised the demise of international communism/socialism; more recently, social democratic systems of governance in Western democracies have begun to crumble. The ideological convergence of economic and political institutions, particularly in the so-called developed world, is resulting in a …