Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/499026
16 BizEd MAY | JUNE 2015 research+insights ILLUSTRATION BY JAMES YANG SLOW GROWTH IN ONLINE ED In 2014, 5,257,379 students reported taking one or more distance education course—up 3.7 percent from 2013. This rate of growth is the slowest for online education in more than a decade, but it still far exceeds the rate of growth in higher education as a whole. MOOC creation has plateaued, with 8 per- cent of schools o•ering one or more MOOCs, and 5.6 percent reporting they have MOOCs in development. At the same time, 74.1 percent of academic leaders rated online learning outcomes as "the same or superior to" those for face-to-face learning. Only 28 percent of academic leaders say that their faculty accept "the value and legitmacy of online education." This marker has stayed steady since 2003. From the "2014 Survey of Online Learning," conducted by the Babson Survey Research Group and sponsored by the Online Learning Consortium, Pearson, and Tyton Partners. Its findings are based on a survey of 2,807 responding schools. It is available at onlinelearningconsortium.org/2014Survey. Hierarchy, High Pressure & Risk WHEN THE PRESSURE'S ON, does hierarchy help or hinder a group's success? It does both, according to a study from re- searchers at Columbia Business School in New York City and INSEAD's campus in Fontainebleau, France. Eric Anicich of Columbia, Roderick Swaab of INSEAD, and Adam Galinsky, also of Columbia, analyzed data per- taining to 30,625 Himalayan climbers from 56 countries who collectively went on 5,104 expeditions over the past 100 years. They found that strong hierarchi- cal structures helped improve coordina- tion and organization, as well as reduce conflict, among groups of climbers. "A strong hierarchy can help expeditions reach the top of the mountain: Like the symphonic movement of a beehive, hierarchy helps the group become more than the sum of its parts," Swaab says. However, hierarchy is a double-edged sword. When climbers came from coun- tries with very strong hierarchical cultures, their groups not only achieved more success—they also su©ered more fatalities. When hierarchy is too strong, it can prevent lower-rank- ing team members from reporting signs of trouble, and their silence can lead to catastrophe. Among climbers, it can lead to increased fatalities; in organizations, to unnecessary risk. "The key to finding the right balance in a hierarchy is iden- tifying the barriers that keep lower-ranking team members from voicing their perspectives and providing them with opportunities for empowerment, like owning a task or having authority over a specific initiative," says Galinsky. Leaders also should make clear that they welcome input from those they lead. "Hierarchical cultural values predict success and mortality in high-stakes teams" appeared in the February 3, 2015, issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.