This book explores the role and function of instructional designers in higher education, highlighting the real-world discrepancy between their actual contributions to organizational growth and the official job descriptions provided by universities.

Investigating how higher education professionals navigate the daily conflict arising from this misalignment, it highlights a number of approaches including improvising to accommodate additional tasks, or strictly adhering job descriptions. The volume is structured around main three themes: the interpretation of instructional design and the role of instructional designers, the concept of street-level bureaucracy and coping strategies, and the contribution of instructional designers to organizational development. The research is grounded in the sociological and management theory of street-level bureaucracy, allowing the author to dissect employee behavior into microelements and connect these to the macro-outcomes of organizational development. The study employs a qualitative approach, using quantitative content analysis and qualitative interviewing on a sample of 17 instructional designers from three different regions in the US. The findings challenge institutional and practice assumptions, offering a new perspective of understanding which asks whether instructional designers are predominantly acting as street-level bureaucrats, or whether behavior and performance is framed by institutional culture and personal characteristics. The author then discusses the implications of these findings for policy, practice, theory, and future research.

It will be of interest to academicians, post-graduate students, and higher education leadership professionals from fields across education, management, instructional design, sociology, and research methods.

Nirupama Akella is an Instructional Designer at Texas A&M International University, US.