Need of the Hour: Sustainable Business Models in Higher Education Sector in Post Covid Regime

ABSTRACT

Purpose: The onset of covid 19 has introduced a paradigm shift in the modus operandi of the organizations across the globe. The rapidity of transformation had adversely impacted the lives and livelihood of and continued its strain in covid saturated regime. The pandemic has upended the business in Higher Education Institutions too, diluted the employee engagement, brought a transition in the organizational factors and resultantly aggravated the all-pervasive sufferings of the academicians. While each of the educational segment faced its unique challenges, prominently the Higher Educational Institutions underwent tremendous learning revolution. In the light of unearthing the intensity of disruption among the academicians, the present study is taken up to critically analyse the need for new business models due to the transition in the organizational factors. For the convenience of the study only the Bangalore based Private Higher Educational Institutions are considered. Design/Methodology/Approach: A strategically constructed 5-point Likert scale questionnaire in Goggle form was designed to obtain and evaluate the responses from the academicians of the Private Higher Educational Institutions in Bangalore. The population consists of 819 Private Colleges catering to the needs of the discipline of Arts, Science, Management and Commerce. Stratified random sampling technique is considered to collect the responses from each of the every10 faculties in each single mentioned department. With continued follow ups, the sizeable sample reached up to 389, slightly higher than the calculated samplesize for known population. The analysis was made by using the statistical tool Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test to check the sensitivity of transition in the organizational factors due to the pandemic. Findings: The chosen tool for the study does not demand the testing of the relation between the dependent and independent variables, hence no hypothesis being constructed. However, the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test showed that covid did make a statistically significant effect on the Organizational Factors, most predominantly the "Supportive of change" (Z=-14.821, p=0.000). 315 responses revealed the negative ranking which prompted a non-willingness of the organization to support the change in post covid scenario, 23 respondents on the contrary felt a negligible positive transition in the same organizational factors whereas the responses of the remaining 51 participants found to be neutral. The overall organizational effectiveness reported a diminishing trend in the post covid scenario. Research implicationsThe study is confined to Private Higher Educational Institutions in Bangalore. The study has used ranking test to identify the weightage of responses towards transition in organizational factors which invariably creates awareness among the academicians and the service providers too. In deep contrast with the pre covid scenario, the shift in organizational parameters would pave the way for future restructuring. The set of strategic suggestions provided in the present study could bring substantial change if implemented with care and caution. Originality/value The originality of the study is checked through the available online plagiarism software and found to be within 10%. Paper type Research paper