CONQUERING THE POWER OF CHANGE – A PRIVATE UNIVERSITY CASE STUDY

Leadership has become a global obsession in many ways, but managing change within private universities has put the breaks on organizational learning and learning in general. Our case study attempts to show the manner by which change has been introduced and dealt within the Business School of a private Cypriot University, the European University Cyprus. Then it tries to demonstrate if the success of the change process has its roots in the history of the organization, or its current representative strategies as per the theoretical framework drawn from literature review. Following a qualitative study based on semi structured interviews it emerges that it is the trust placed on the organization by the management, the staff and the student body that can bring high standards of education to the change process . This does not come alone, but together with the acceptance of the change process and embedded innovation. At the other end, there are still strong drawbacks that hinder change management to its full positive results. These reside mostly the inequalities, the social contract issues and keeping promises.