| The investigation used an example of a packaged innovation to probe two contexts for inquiry--Communication and Innovation. The example is the Texas Student Information System (Tex-SIS). The immediate focus for the investigative design was the behaviors of Liaison Representatives (a communication relay) and of Potential Users (product-utilizers) in the 29 public community college adopters of Tex-SIS. The ultimate focus of the inquiry, however, was upon important phenomena occurring in the four life stages of a packaged innovation. To operationalize this ultimate focus a descriptive semihistory of Tex-SIS is presented, the inquiry and knowledge contexts in which the investigative problem resides are explained, and implications of the findings from the immediate focus for the ultimate focus are set forth.; The focus upon LR and PU behaviors intended to reveal (1) profiles of practice by each population, (2) existence or nonexistence of co-relationships between setting variables and practice variables, and (3) in-colleges stature of the Tex-SIS innovation in its institutionalization life stage. The investigation problem was defined by stating 24 questions, and the data bits necessary to answer the questions were identified. Two Query Instruments were designed and used to secure from LRs and PUs most of the required data bits; the remainder of the data was collected from archival sources. The data secured were treated and interpreted to make the revelations sought. Highly detailed profiles of practice are set forth in the dissertation document, as are also the testings for co-relationships. These detailed products defy summation, but some of the conclusions reached by the investigator are: (1) Addition of promotive behaviors by LRs to the relay function was the norm, rather than the exception. (2) The exercise of high promotive behaviors by LRs seems to be a personalized attribute, not co-related with settings variables. (3) The transmissions by LRs were targeted chiefly upon mass awareness by college officials and staff members, with no suggestions for program adjustments. (4) Potential Users' practice profiles were remarkably similar across the 29 colleges, and especially so in absence of explicit intent to utilize the printout information for program revision. (5) Almost none of the settings variables had an explanatory co-relationship toward PU and LR behavior profiles. (6) The institutionalizations of Tex-SIS by the 29 colleges demonstrated that the key element of the innovation--utilization of student information to affect programmatic decision--was largely in limbo.; Implications of the findings made for the knowledge context are stated by the author to be: (A) Conceptualizing an innovation as a collection of specific intents, instead of, or in addition to, conceptualizing it as a single and separate entity, as a focus for additional research could enhance the linking agent body of knowledge. (B) A hypothesis that (1) the life stage of an innovation and/or (2) the nature(s) of an innovation differentiate between the success achieved by the two brands of linking agentry merits further investigation, with subsequent enhancements of the knowledge context. (C) Further testing of the investigator's hypothesis that roles played by top management in an educational organization have fateful consequences for the life history of an innovation within that organization is strongly recommended. (D) The knowledge context supports a prospect that well-informed use of external linking agentry can expedite the accumulation of innovations to an eroded innovation of recent vintage. |
