ABSTRACT

As organizations move from bureaucratic to adaptive models of organization, managers, administrators and professionals need to be more flexible, creative, innovative and socially skilled. Protagonists of this view can point to the rapid expansion of higher education in Britain as testimony to a general upgrading of human resources. We have already noted that by the end of the 20th century, approximately onethird of 18 to 21-year-olds can expect to be in some form of higher education, along with a growing number of mature students.1 This has led Ball (1990) to suggest that the economic compulsion of enlightened self-interest has become so compelling that there is now “a commonality of interest between those who want to run effective businesses and those who want to meet the needs of the under-privileged in our society”.2