Engaging the Six Cultures of the Academy (review)
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Engaging the Six Cultures of the Academy
Current frameworks for studying organizational culture in higher education are insufficient for advancing our understanding of the complex forces that shape behaviors, actions, and outcomes in colleges and universities. Some higher education studies seek to categorize an institution into a particular organizational culture type and then assess whether that cultural type contributes to organizational effectiveness (e.g., Smart & St. John, 1996). By placing an institution in a single cultural category, however, these studies provide only an incomplete picture of the multiple cultural strands that comprise a higher education institution. Other studies posit culture as a critical social milieu, which must be navigated skillfully by leaders who seek to advance change initiatives (e.g., Kezar & Eckel, 2002). Yet these studies provide few insights for leaders who will eventually discover that the cultures of their institutions are comprised of conflicting, paradoxical sets of values that are not easily reconciled.
Given these limitations of the literature, research on organizational culture in higher education needs to be infused with new ideas and innovative frameworks that account for greater cultural complexity and variety. For scholars seeking to revitalize the study of organizational culture in higher education, Bergquist and Pawlak's Engaging the Six Cultures of the Academy offers an ideal text with which to start. This book is not merely an update of Bergquist's 1992 text (Four Cultures of the Academy) with two more cultural frames attached. Instead, this book represents a wholly new analysis of organizational culture that incorporates the most recent theories and thinking from the fields of organizational theory and organizational behavior. In particular, the authors' use of such postmodern concepts as fragmentation, paradox, and irony gives the book a fresh perspective that should intrigue both higher education researchers and practitioners.
First, Bergquist and Pawlak call for leaders to abandon the "strong culture" hypothesis, which suggests that organizations can become more effective if their leaders attempt to rally organizational members around a common set of values and beliefs. Early research on organizational culture in for-profit corporations (Deal & Kennedy, 1982) suggested that a strong, shared belief system contributes to higher levels of organizational effectiveness.
Subsequent research, however, presented a more complex view of the relationship between cultural strength and organizational effectiveness (Kotter & Heskett, 1992; Martin, 1992). Strong cultural values may also be associated with a rigid defense of the status quo, which blocks needed change. Further, strong cultures can also isolate and marginalize organizational members, whose belief systems are not congruent with the dominant ideology of the institution, thus depriving the organization of new sources of talent and ideas for growth and development.
As an alternative to the "strong culture" hypothesis, Bergquist and Pawlak encourage leaders to understand and develop skills to work within the multiple cultures that comprise their institutions. Specifically, the authors describe six sets of cultural values that permeate all higher education institutions to varying degrees: collegial, managerial, developmental, advocacy, virtual, and tangible.
The collegial culture, linked historically to the rise of the modern research university, values autonomy and academic freedom, and assigns a high level of importance to scholarly work within the academic disciplines. Managerial culture, in contrast, developed in conjunction with the rise of large statewide higher education systems, values efficiency, accountability, and rational planning.
Bergquist and Pawlak argue that the developmental culture arose in response to limitations in the collegial culture, which neglected the learning that occurs outside the parameters of academic disciplines. The developmental culture values affective and moral development for students, as well as ongoing professional development for faculty and staff. Similarly, the advocacy culture emerged as a response to concerns about the growing influence of the managerial culture. Linked historically with the rise of faculty and staff unions, the advocacy culture values equity, social justice, and collective action.
The authors trace the rise of the virtual culture to innovations in communications technology, which have had profound effects not only on instructional delivery mechanisms (online learning), but also on epistemology and...
