Abstract:
During the 1990s, many Australian universities
adopted innovative new online learning technologies
without critical examination of their merit to
those institutions, leading in some cases to wasted
resources, unfulfilled expectations, program and
organisational failure. Given that limited theoretical
and empirical explanations have addressed this
important research problem, this paper discusses
and applies a management fashion framework to
this research problem and argues that online learning
technologies could be conceptualised as a
management fashion, following the empirical
work of Abrahamson and Fairchild (1999). The
major contributions of this paper are to identify an
important yet under-researched area in higher education
research, demonstrate the utility of a management
fashion framework in this context, and
propose a number of recommendations for policy
makers, university managers and academics confronted
with educational innovations.
