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Volume 3 / Issue 6/ 2016 

 

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A Reflection on Organizational Culture in Higher Education 
 

Nadia Laura Serdenciuc 

Teacher Training Department 

Faculty of Educational Sciences 

"Stefan cel Mare" University from Suceava 

nadianutu@yahoo.com 

 

Received 03.03.2016; Accepted 23.04. 2016 

 

 

Abstract 

The present study focuses on the role of the organizational culture in sharing values, shaping goals 

and guiding actions of the organization’s members. It also discusses the relationship between the 

tangible components and the less visible ones in the structure of the organizational culture. After a 

brief description of a few coordinates defining the organizational culture, our study focuses on the 

context and on the descriptors that establish some traits of the specificity of the organizational 

culture in the contemporary higher education.   

 

Keywords: organizational culture, academic organization, higher education, organizational 

culture‘s dynamic, shared organizational values 

 

1. Introduction 

 

An organization is a dynamic structure. It has its own life and it marks the life of its members in a 

sense of identity and belonging. Many recent researches are focusing on the organizational culture 

with the intention to explain the evolution of an organization and trying to delineate some useful 

coordinates for an efficient management (Eşi, 2014, 131-138). The analysis of the organizational 

culture can provide useful information in order to help managers face the change and its 

implications in the organization‘s life.  

 

Considering the culture as a result of social interaction consisting in a sum of rules, norms, beliefs 

and structures, which guide the behavior of the community members, E. Schein (2004) analyses its 

implication at the level of an organization. The author emphasizes on the fact that the culture cannot 

be defined as good or bad, but it can be appreciated as functionally effective in relationship with the 

context of its development. The culture can be viewed in relation to power: it guides and constrains 

our behavior.  

 

Culture gains more power in a certain context. Culture is important in building strategies of action 

for people, affirms A. Swidler (1986), and this is a specific trait for the institutionalized culture 

because it expands beyond the simple way of life oriented on achievements (Eşi, 2010, 41-50). The 

author emphasizes on the role of the values: shaping goals and regulating actions. We think that the 

functionality of an organization is determined by the assumed values. This functionality is validated 



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in terms of the organizational performance or in terms of its members‘ attitude because of the 

shared values, the responsibility in assuming actions and the correspondence between the members‘ 

professional goals and the organization‘s goals. We consider that an analysis of an organizational 

culture can provide some predictors for the evolution of an organization and can explain some 

choices in the professional life of the organization‘s members.  

 

2. A few coordinates of the organizational culture’s structure 

 

For a better understanding of the specificity in the organizational culture‘s dynamics we 

will point out some components which sustain the organization‘s functioning and which have 

important consequences on its effectiveness. A conceptual framework delineated by Y. Allaire and 

M. Firsirotu (1984), based on a literature review, proposes three interrelated dimensions that 

characterize an organization: the socio-structural system (consisting of all formal elements that 

determine its functioning), the cultural system (the shared beliefs and values) and the individual 

actors. The main components of the organizational culture are, in authors‘ opinion: the myths 

(fictional component expressed in symbolic terms), the ideology (a system of beliefs that explain 

reality) and the values (as symbolic interpretations of reality).  Some theories include in the system 

of the organizational culture a few strategic and contextual components. A configuration model of 

the organizational culture should include the following domains, in the opinion of D. Dauber et al. 

(2012): a values and beliefs system, a strategy, a structural system, organizational activities/ actions, 

an external environment. 

 

Schein (apud P. Gagliardi, 1986) considers that the development of an organizational culture is 

related to a process of dynamic learning that establishes actions to be done with the intention of 

external adaptation and internal integration, that looks for alternatives when the given response is 

no longer valid.  

 

Even if we can analyse an organization as an autonomous entity, the organizational culture is 

connected to the social culture, because an organization is functioning in a social context and needs 

to cope with its challenges. The functioning of an organization is analysed by D. Denison and A. 

Mishra (1995) in a framework built on two types of coordinates: internal integration and external 

adaptation. According to the authors‘ opinion, the capacity of the organization to cope internally 

and externally is related to four cultural traits: adaptability, mission (for external orientation), 

involvement, consistency (for internal integration).   

 

We can find an interesting perspective on organizational culture in B. Schneider,  A. 

Brief, R. Guzzo (1996). The authors consider that the organizational culture is represented by its 

members‘ beliefs and values that are not directly visible, because they are placed at a less conscious 

level, but that are very deeply implemented and hard enough to change. The organizational climate 

is presented as the tangible perspective of policies, practices and routines. The organizational 

culture is related to the organizational climate according to the authors‘ opinion, because the change 

of beliefs and values that represent the organizational culture can occur through the organizational 

climate and the change of practices and routines. 



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Although the social values influence the organizational culture, D. Dauber et al. (2012) affirm that 

the organizational values differ significantly from the societal values. The organizational culture 

reflects in a certain way the social culture because an organization consists of individuals who are 

members of the society, but they understand, explain and act in an organization according to their 

personal values built in a social context.  

 

Thinking about a culture of an organization E. Schein (2004) means more than shared elements or 

things held in common, the organizational culture is about structural stability (it doesn‘t change 

easily, even if culture is a dynamic structure), depth (below visible line, sometimes represented by 

unconscious elements), breadth (meaning the culture extension covering all perspectives in the 

organization‘s functioning) patterning or integration – which makes possible to consider cultural 

elements as parts of a larger structure.  Organizational performance is a result of the organizational 

culture put in action. W. G. Tierney (1988) identifies three coordinates of analysis for the internal 

dynamic of the organizational culture: values, processes and goals. These are concretized at the 

level of decisions, actions and communication process.  

Different types of approaches proposed by the studies on organizational culture point out that 

researchers are interested in understanding the mechanisms that generate this reality, in putting it in 

correspondence with an efficient functioning of an organization, in explaining and predicting the 

actors‘ behavior. D. Dauber et al. (2012) consider that literature emphasizes on three categories of 

approaches related to the organizational culture: the dimensions approaches (focusing on measuring 

the relations between different variables of interest), the interrelated structure approaches (focusing 

on linking the organizational culture to other constructs of an organization) and the typology 

approaches (focusing on defining certain categories of organizations). If some theoretical 

approaches bring in attention different organization types, others focus on components that assure 

the organization‘s internal functionality, emphasizing on the specific traits of this internal 

perspective, in relation with the mission of the organization and with its general functioning.  

 

3.  Higher education institutions - descriptors and context of the organizational culture  

The organizations evolve and it is interesting to observe their efforts in order to find functional 

responses to the problems faced. The type and the mission of an organization generate specific traits 

regarding the organizational culture. The organizational culture links together the mission of an 

organization and the identity of its members in a communication process based on shared values. 

Using the image of the culture as a tool kit for problem-solving situations proposed by A. Swidler 

(1986), we can analyse the actions of the actors from the high educational institutions in some sort 

of a technical manner but in the same time as a result of a personal reinterpreting of symbols, rituals 

and ways of action. Considering a university as an organizational actor, G. Krȕcken, F. Meier 

(2006) confirms its functional autonomy and, at the same time, underlines the image of an 

integrated entity which has its own goals, chooses its own strategies of action and is ready to 

assume the consequences of its actions.W. G. Tierney (1988) describes a few key dimensions of 

culture providing a framework of the organizational culture: the environment (the way it is defined 

by the members of the organization and the attitude towards it), the mission (its statement and its 

power in the decision making process), the socialization (the basis for relationships between 



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members, all the relevant information that helps the members to survive in the organization) , the  

information, (the context and conditions for the information flow), the strategy (related to the 

decision making process), the leadership (the organization members‘ expectations from the leaders, 

the type of leaders), which are appropriate for higher education organizations. These descriptors 

draw the context for the interaction and communication between the members of the organization. 

 

The academic organizations, linking education and research with socio-economic environment as 

part of the national innovation system (Mowery and Sampat, 2005) become the center of the 

international knowledge system by putting in correspondence technologies (Eşi, 2014, 87-92), 

communication and culture (P. Altbach, 1998). This proves that universities play an important role 

in the contemporary infrastructure of knowledge.  

 

4.Values and functionality in higher education - a few landmarks of a contemporary 

organizational culture perspective 

Globalization, as a main feature of the contemporary society, generates changes in culture, politics, 

economy and social life and also contributes to the redefinition of the institutions at their structural 

and organizational level. In the higher education sector we can also observe new values at the level 

of the scientific theory (Eşi, 27-38, 2010), and a process of deep institutional change that ―involves 

the deinstitutionalization of its rooted policy and values frameworks and the parallel 

institutionalization of new ones‖ (M. Vaira, 2004).The economic forces of the modern world 

transformed the academic life according to the market coordinates and the educational services can 

now be viewed in terms of sale and purchase. Frank Furedi (2010) considers that this marketization 

in higher education is more a political ideological process than an economic effect because 

governments put pressure on universities to compete for funds and to sell their services. What 

happened to the system of shared values and to the development of the organizational culture in 

higher education institutions in regard to these changes? F. Furedi (2010) considers that it is 

difficult to fit academic teaching into the marketing paradigm because the research - based 

knowledge cannot be transformed into consumer goods and  because the relationship between 

teachers and students is more about quality than about the quantity.  

 

T. Lewis, S. Marginson and I. Snyder (2005) propose the concept of a network university based on 

the changing nature of the contemporary social relations transferred in the context of academic 

collaboration, on the coordinates of an information society. This vision offers a decentralised 

approach to the university management and the sharing process at the level of beliefs and values of 

the organizational culture, shifts our attention on the extended meaning of a contemporary 

university: a ―borderless university‖, opened to the community and to the social concerns.   

A belief passes through different phases until it is born as an organizational value that determines 

the thoughts, the feelings and the actions of the organization‘s members. M. Vaira (2004), analysing 

the cause - effect relationship in terms of the organizational culture, delineates four phases in the 

process of transforming a belief into an organizational value. The point of start is the vision of the 

leader that externally orients the behaviour of the members in the desired direction, even if the 

members don‘t share the beliefs of the leader yet. The second stage occurs when the experience 

confirms, by bringing the desired result as a consequence of the vision put in action, the belief of 



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the leader. This belief has then the power to influence the choices of the members, even in those 

areas that aren‘t under the direct control of the leader. The third phase is related to a change of 

orientation from the ―effect‖ to the ―cause‖ (it is the stage of identification with the ―cause‖ and 

according to M. Vaira, an organization will fight from now on for a cause, not for an effect).  In the 

final fourth phase the value will automatically orient the behaviour of the members, it is ―shared 

unquestioningly‖ (M. Vaira, 2004). The power of shared values influences not only the functioning 

of a higher education institution but also sustains its evolvement. A study of C. Zhu and N. Engels 

(2014) emphasizes on the relationship between the organizational culture and instructional 

innovations, founded on the specificity of goals, on the desire and the openness for collaboration 

and a shared vision among members. This perspective shows that it is important to build a 

collaborative environment in the higher education institution in order to facilitate this kind of 

transfer. It is important for us to know that the higher education organization needs to adjust to the 

changes of the external environment but the change occurs also within the organization determining 

the activation of its members‘ thoughts, feelings and actions in a constant perspective, based on 

deep-rooted values or on the integration of new values and beliefs in the structure of the 

organizational culture.  

 

5. Conclusions 

The organizational culture‘s dynamics is related to the capacity of an organization to react in a 

functional manner to the change manifested on internal or on external coordinates, based on the 

validation process of the needed alternative from the variety of possible responses. The higher 

education institution assumes its role as an organizational actor and chooses its own strategies of 

action in the context of the socio-economic challenges of the contemporary society, playing an 

important role in building the infrastructure of knowledge, while expanding at the same time the 

territory of the shared beliefs and values.  

  

   

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2. Altbach, Philip G. (1998), Comparative Higher Education. Knowledge, the University and  
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3. Dauber, D., Fink,G.,  Yolles, M. (2012)- A Configuration Model of Organizational Culture, 
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4. Denison, D. R., Mishra, A. K. (1995) Toward a Theory of Organizational Culture and 
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