2023 Volume 45 Issue 1 Pages 78-80
As a discussant, I made my comments primarily based on the perspective of organizational management. This is because it is essential to understand the overall picture of an organization to gain a broad view of the university organization as a whole and to become a leader in its transformation. To understand the overall picture of the organization, the metaphor of the “iceberg model” is introduced. Although it is easy to understand the necessity of looking at the entire organization to understand it, people tend to see only what is easily visible. Not only the structures that appear on the surface but also the politics, human relations, and culture that exist beneath the surface. When considering the “structure of knowledge,” which is the theme of this project, it is necessary to be careful not to emphasize only what is easily visible. If we work only on what is visible, the entire organization will not change, and we will end up with superficial reforms. Consequently, the people will be exhausted by these reforms. For these reasons, it is important for professionals involved in university management to pay attention not only to structures that appear, but also to those that exist beneath the surface, and to work for the reform and change of the entire organization, including these structures. Managers with excellent leadership who run the entire organization know the essentials of running an organization. In the future, as this project explores the structure of knowledge for university professional development, it will be important to broaden the scope of the project and examine the entire organization, including its invisible parts.
