Changing scripts in Nigerian higher education: the case of Kwara State Polytechnic

The purpose of this thesis is to gain an understanding of the process of change in Nigerian higher education, adopting Kwara State Polytechnic as a case study. A research question was posed. How can we understand the process of change in Kwara State Polytechnic?
This thesis wishes to explore this question through the interactions of people within an organisational setting as they produce patterned relations and action. Many writers (Akpan, 1987; Nwagwu, 1997; Adeniyi, 2001; Dike, 2002) have attempted to analyse change from different perspectives. The combination of structuration theory and neoinstitutionalism is proposed here, adopting the notion of scripts as a tool of analysis in studying organisational change. Scripts as a tool of analysis have been used in the developed world, which has a different culture from the developing world. They provide a valuable opportunity for research into the complexity of change, which the traditional stage models of change cannot adequately grasp because of the magnitude and complexity of change.
I identified various scripts in admission processes in Kwara State Polytechnic. I discovered the nature of scripts used by participants in the case study during the entire period under investigation (1974-2010). While identifying eight different scripts at work, I categorised these into two: bureaucratic and flexible scripts. Through the use of scripts, several events were identified that brought about changes in scripted actions. Moreover, I identified different factors responsible for continuous change in scripts which made the scripts unpredictable. In doing so, I built on and extended the work of other authors including Barley and Tolbert (1997) and Dent and Barry (2004), who have analysed change in organisations by studying scripts in use to explain the impact of managerialism on professionalism in higher education. This research work contributed to the study of change management by critically examining the methodology used to study the institutionalisation process. The use of scripts, as a tool of analysis, enables researchers to understand the complexity of change.