Organizational and leadership cultures within university departments
Abstrakti
Cultural analysis in higher education is currently of
greatest importance, since after decades of steady
growth, Finnish higher education system is
experiencing hard external pressures in the form of
budget cuts. We have to understand academic
cultures in order to understand their current ways of
working, as well as their ability to change. ln this
paper, I will discuss the phenomena of culture at the
level of academic departments, illustrated by three
case studies. Although less studied, individual
departments do often develop strong and unique
cultures, which can have a strong influence on
issues such as organizational climate and
discussions, productivity and supervision as well as
the issues concerning academic leadership.
Consequently, the development work within the
academic departments should start with the analysis
of the cultures of departments.
