comparing institutional relationships with academic departments: a study of five academic fields

COMPARING INSTITUTIONAL RELATIONSHIPSWITH ACADEMIC DEPARTMENTS:A Study of Five Academic Fields

Jenny J. Lee*

..............................................................................................................................................................................................

Any effort to understand academic departments would be facilitated by a betterunderstanding of its relationship between its two larger spheres: the institution andthe discipline. This study particularly asks: How do the relationships betweeninstitutional culture and the culture of the academic department vary by disciplinaryfield? Using discriminant analyses, this study compares five disciplinary fields (i.e.,Biology, Business, Education, English, and Political Science) across varyingaspects of culture (i.e., Instrumental Orientation, Affective/Multicultural Orientation,Interpersonal Orientation, and Reputation Orientation, etc.). Correlation analysesthen reveal the extent to which these same aspects of culture for the institution areassociated with the departmental culture for each of the five fields.

..............................................................................................................................................................................................KEY WORDS: departments; academic disciplines; institutions; organizational culture;organizational change.

INTRODUCTION

An examination of the academic department provides insight intomultiple and varying cultures, both of the institution and the discipline.Past approaches have considered the values and beliefs of the individualfaculty member (Boyer, 1990; Kennedy, 1997), faculty in the variedacademic disciplines (Becher, 1989; Biglan, 1973a; Biglan 1973b; Braxtonand Hargens, 1996), and faculty in the national and international systems(Clark, 1987b). Despite scholars’ attempts to examine higher educationfrom such levels, the most important dimension that has been largelyunexplored is faculty within a given department. The departmental culture,from the faculty perspective, is subject to influences from both of the

*Center for the Study of Higher Education, College of Education, Room 305, P.O. Box210069, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721-0069. E-mail: [email protected]

603

0361-0365 ⁄ 04 ⁄ 0900-0603 ⁄ 0 � 2004 Springer ScienceþBusiness Media, Inc.

Research in Higher Education, Vol. 45, No. 6, September 2004 (� 2004)

institution and of the discipline to which the department belongs (Clark,1984, 1987a; Edwards, 1999; Light, 1974; Ruscio, 1987b; Trow, 1977). Forthis reason, the academic department is often referred to as the intersectionbetween the larger discipline and the local institution (Clark, 1987a).The strength of the relationships between the institutional, departmen-

tal, and disciplinary cultures, however, remains largely unknown. Insti-tutional leaders and policy makers can only hope that the departmentsreflect the overall institution’s priorities and values. However, given thediverse academic fields that these departments also represent, theinstitutional culture and departmental culture cannot completely overlap.It is no wonder then, that Edwards (1999) describes departments as the‘‘stumbling blocks’’ to institutional change. Thus, this study asks: How dothe relationships between the institutional culture and the culture of theacademic department vary by disciplinary field?

LITERATURE REVIEW

Addressing degree to which the departmental culture is associated withthe institutional culture is hardly a simple endeavor. Not only must oneconsider the wide spectrum of disciplines as well as institutions, one mustalso identify which dimension of culture to study. Previous studies have shedsome light on the independent effects of the discipline and institution onfaculty beliefs, values, and opinions. Some major dimensions of disciplin-ary and institutional culture that researchers have examined includeattitudes towards research, teaching, autonomy, and job satisfaction.

Research and Teaching

In analyzing the institutional and disciplinary effects on facultyperceptions of research, several studies have compared research viewswith views about teaching, as a possible research-teaching continuum. InBraxton and Hargens’ (1996) review of the literature, they conclude thatfaculty in what they term, ‘‘high-consensus fields’’ (i.e., chemistry, physics,and biochemistry) are oriented more towards research than are faculty in‘‘low-consensus fields’’ (i.e., social sciences). Conversely, faculty in low-consensus fields are more oriented to teaching than are those in high-consensus fields.Clark (1987a) additionally found that teaching loads and involvement in

research vary markedly across the fields in a research university. Heassociates the amount of resources and value placed on new knowledge withthe amount of time apportioned for research. For example, in contrast-ing the resource-rich fields of physics and biology with resource-poor

604 LEE

fields like the humanities, Clark notes that faculty in resource-poordepartments are more involved with teaching and less involved withresearch. Other researchers have noted similar divisions in teaching andresearch between the hard and soft sciences, but offer different explana-tions. Whereas Braxton and Hargens (1996) attribute an emphasis onresearch to epistemological orientations, Clark believes that researchpriorities also relate to available resources.Finkelstein (1978) elaborates disciplinary differences by looking at

faculty research productivity: at the top are the natural scientists, followedby the social scientists, then by faculty in the humanities, education, andthe fine arts. He suggests that these differences may be due to howscholars in these fields communicate their creative work. Whereashumanities faculty tend to write books, natural scientists communicatethrough journal articles. Moreover, faculty peers in the natural scienceand social science fields more readily accept multiple authorships than dofaculty in other fields. Interestingly, Finkelstein (1978) as well as Harryand Gouldner (1972) disagree with the research-teaching binary compar-ison and instead view these two areas as independent of one another.Harry and Goldner found that the time that would have been spent onresearch is taken more from faculty leisure and family events than fromteaching duties. Regardless of the explanation, previous research clearlydocuments disciplinary distinctions with respect to research and teachingvalues.In distinguishing the values accorded to research and teaching by

institutions, faculty in research universities show more interest in researchthan do faculty in other types of institutions (i.e., doctoral granting,comprehensive, liberal arts, and 2-year colleges), whereas faculty in2-year colleges are more interested in teaching than are their colleagues inresearch universities (Boyer, 1990; Clark, 1987; Sax, Astin, Korn, andGilmartin, 1999). Boyer (1990) similarly found the requirements of tenureand faculty promotion rely heavily on research and publications,particularly among the research and doctoral granting institutions.Conversely, he found that faculty in 2-year colleges, followed by liberalarts colleges and comprehensive schools, believe teaching effectivenessshould be the primary criterion for the promotion of faculty. In a casestudy of Stanford University, Hind, Dornbusch, and Scott (1974)conclude, ‘‘teaching is not highly visible to outsiders, and therefore theorganization is less permeable with respect to the evaluation of teaching’’(p. 123). In their survey of Stanford faculty, only 15% indicated anyoutside evaluation of their teaching. Hind and colleagues continue, ‘‘Thispermeability is much stronger for research, since the publication of resultsof research makes research performance visible to distant colleagues’’

COMPARING INSTITUTIONAL 605

(p. 123). Clearly, institutions differ markedly in the priorities assigned toresearch and teaching.Since there are great differences among disciplines in their preferred

modes of inquiry and in the importance assigned to research, scholarlywork to a certain extent defines certain disciplines. Under these conditions,one would expect faculty in the more elite universities to maintain greaterallegiance to the discipline (becoming what is referred to as cosmopoli-tans), since research is a high priority in such institutions (Austin andGamson, 1983). However, even within the elite institution, notabledisciplinary differences exist, with faculty in the sciences conducting moreresearch than those in the humanities do (Clark, 1987a). In other types ofinstitutions (i.e., community colleges, comprehensive colleges, and liberalarts colleges), undergraduate teaching is highly emphasized but with few(if any) resources available to conduct research. One may also expect tofind greater faculty involvement in administrative affairs in the smallerthan in larger institutions, thereby reducing disciplinary involvement andcommitment (Kuh and Whitt, 1988).

Job Satisfaction and Autonomy

In their review of the literature, Austin and Gamson’s (1983) notepositive relationships between overall job satisfaction and satisfactionwith the following aspects of the job: autonomy, academic freedom,nature of the work itself, relations with employees, tenure, and recognitionand the opportunity to work with students. Austin and Gamson’s (1983)review suggests that institutional size and complexity are strongly relatedto faculty autonomy, which they define as ‘‘the ability of faculty to setinstitutional goals and to structure the organization to maximize profes-sional concerns’’ (p. 33). They interpret these findings to mean that largeruniversities tend to have more specialized departments and that theseinstitutions can allow for greater faculty autonomy and foster greater jobsatisfaction because they are engaged in externally funded research.Concerning disciplinary effects, Opp (1992) finds that the weight of

predictors (salary and interest in research) in career satisfaction variesconsiderably by disciplinary groups. He also found that fine arts facultyare less satisfied with their careers than other arts and science faculty. Thisfinding may relate to the fine arts faculty members’ relative lack ofresearch interest. In another study, Ladd and Lipset (1975) found that (1)those who are the most satisfied with their jobs also tend to be the mostliberal and critical in political orientations; (2) social scientists at the elitecolleges and universities, especially, tend to be the most liberal; and (3)

606 LEE

social science professors feel more secure in their careers choice, anddisplay a greater sense of efficacy within their institutions in comparison toacademics in other disciplines.

Disciplinary Cultures

In order to understand institutional relationships with departmentalculture further, one should especially consider a primary source of thedepartment’s identity, the disciplinary culture. Disciplinary cultures arebroad and influential, yet unparallel to the institutional culture. Thediscipline is an essential identity to the professional lives of facultymembers (Becher, 1987; Clark, 1980; Ladd and Lipsett, 1975; Smart,Feldman and Ethington, 2000) and has been found to produce variationsin goal priorities (Smart and McLaughlin, 1974), reward structures (Smartand McLaughlin, 1978), social and epistemological orientations (Becher,1987), and political attitudes (Ladd and Lipsett, 1975). In other words,how departments determine they will meet the institution’s larger missionvaries from discipline to discipline (Wergin, 1994).Analysts have attempted to categorize disciplines in various ways.

Among the most cited organizational attempts is Biglan’s (1973a)disciplinary classification by three key dimensions: (1) hard–soft (2)pure–applied, and (3) life–nonlife. Biglan (1973b) also found thatdepending on the side of the dimension being considered, professorsdiffered in (a) to the degree to which they were socially connected, (b) theircommitment to teaching, research, and service, (c) the number ofpublished journal articles, monographs, and technical reports, and (d)the number of sponsored dissertations. More recently, Becher (1987)classified disciplines by its nature of knowledge, leading to four disciplin-ary sectors: ‘‘hard-pure,’’ ‘‘soft-pure,’’ ‘‘hard applied,’’ and ‘‘soft applied.’’Regardless of its external distinguishing characteristics, the discipline is

often cited as a primary source of faculty identity (Austin, 1990; Becher,1987; Clark, 1987). Faculty are often first socialized into the disciplinaryculture in graduate school and the ‘‘invisible colleges’’ of colleaguescontinue to sustain disciplinary values even after the faculty member isresocialized into the hiring institution (Austin, 1990; Tierney and Rhoads,1993). The discipline’s prevailing influence can determine what is known(Becher, 1989), the patterns of professional interactions (Becher, 1989),scholarly advancement and review (Tierney and Rhoads, 1993), and one’ssocial and political status (Kuh and Whitt, 1988). The discipline can evenaffect attitudes beyond one’s professional life (Ladd and Lipsett, 1975).For such reasons, the disciplinary culture prevails throughout one’s career


regardless of where the academic is employed. Especially given that thefaculty member’s professional life is grounded on a specialized area ofexpertise, it is more cost-efficient (and less professionally damaging) toleave the institution than the discipline (Clark, 1980).

Defining of Culture

I want to present my definition of ‘‘culture’’ as it pertains to thisparticular study before proceeding further. Given the many possibledefinitions of ‘‘culture’’ offered by scholars, Kuh and Whitt (1988) haveobserved that there are as many definitions of culture as there are scholarsstudying the phenomenon. Since such variety can make it difficult forscholars to advance current knowledge or for practitioners to applyresearch findings in analyzing their own cultures, formulating a clearunderstanding of culture is critical.Most definitions of culture incorporate conceptions of shared ideas and

behaviors, although few clearly separate these key notions. Kuh and Whitt(1988) define culture as ‘‘the collective, mutually shaping patterns ofnorms, values, practices, beliefs, and assumptions that guide the behaviorof individuals and groups in an institute of higher education and provide aframe of reference within which to interpret the meaning of events andactions on and off campus’’ (p. 12). Becher (1984) also proposes a broaddefinition of culture as consisting of ‘‘[people’s] customs and practices;their transmitted knowledge, beliefs, law, and morals; their linguistic andsymbolic forms of communication, and the meanings they share’’ (p. 167).Like most others, he also combines beliefs, morals, and meanings withpractices and behaviors. As such, these definitions neglect to differentiatethe shared practices from the shared interpretations. Although the originalanthropological definitions of culture also broadly include actions andmeanings (Geertz, 1973), an all-encompassing definition does not wellserve most goals of organizational research—improving conditions andpractice. Therefore, a more precise definition is needed.For the purposes of this study, I focused on the more specific definition

of culture, which Peterson and his colleagues (1986) define culture as ‘‘theshared values, assumptions, beliefs, or ideologies that participants haveabout their organization’’ (p. 81).

METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH

To reiterate the purpose of this study, I sought to examine how therelationships between the institutional culture and the culture of theacademic department vary by disciplinary field. In the following sections, I

608 LEE

shall describe the dataset and preliminary data analyses. Next, I shallexplain the specific analyses (i.e., discriminant analysis and correlationalanalyses), that I had utilized to identify some major aspects of depart-mental culture and then address the varying relationships between thedepartmental culture and institutional culture.

Research Design and Data Source

The data source for this study was generated from The 1998 FacultySurvey (Sax, Astin, Korn, and Gilmartin, 1999), a national survey ofteaching faculty collected during the fall and winter of 1998. The nationaldatabase included survey responses from over 55,000 college anduniversity faculty members at 429 2- and 4-year colleges and universitiesnationwide as part of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program(CIRP), sponsored by the American Council on Education and the HigherEducation Research Institute (HERI) at the University of California, LosAngeles. The survey instrument included demographic and biographicinformation, and especially focused on faculty procedures and practices,professional priorities, opinions and perceptions of the institution, andsatisfaction ratings.

Preliminary Data Analyses

In a prior study of faculty culture, 96 survey items that reflected thevalues, assumptions, beliefs, and ideologies about faculty work, theirinstitution, and their profession (Lee, 2003) were factor analyzed. Thirteendimensions of faculty culture (using the department as the unit ofanalysis), along with their Cronbach Alphas, were identified: Collegiality(.87), Commitment to Diversity (.88), Commitment to Scholarship andScholarly Recognition (.82), Commitment to Students’ Affective Develop-ment (.93), Commitment to Teaching (.71), Dissatisfaction with CollegiateCulture (.63), Governance Stress (.72), Instrumental Orientation (.64), JobSatisfaction (.85), Multicultural Orientation (.71), Prestige Orientation(.82), Student Centeredness (.86), and Valuing Professional Autonomy (.66)(see Appendix A). The 13 cultural measures were not highly correlated(less than .60). A mean institutional score on each of the 13 faculty culturecomposite variables was computed for each of the 429 institutions (i.e.,across disciplines).Next, I removed the contribution of a given department’s faculty from

the institutional means used for that department. Otherwise, I would haveduplicated the data from both the discipline and the department, which


would artificially increase the correlations between each institutionaldepartment’s means and its corresponding disciplinary means. Figure 1shows the standard notation for computing an institutional mean for agiven variable. Supposing that a particular institution has J departments,the institutional mean was calculated as follows:

Figure 2 shows the adjusted institutional mean for a given variable. Theadjusted institutional mean for department k excludes the departmentalmean (unit of analysis): The result of such corrections is that the measuresof ‘‘disciplinary culture’’ for departments within that discipline varyslightly from institution to institution.Analyses were conducted using five representative academic disciplines:

Biology, English, Political Science, Business, and Education, for theseprimary reasons: (1) they exemplify separate schools of thought—thenatural sciences, the humanities, the social sciences, and the professional/interdisciplinary programs, respectively, (2) the five academic disciplinesare the largest numbers of respondents (in comparison to the otherdisciplines), and (3) these disciplines are likely to be found in almost allinstitutional types (unlike Nursing or Law Enforcement, for example).The final sample for the five fields included 1,201 departments and 13,946

PJ

j¼1

Pnj

i¼1

xij

PJ

j¼1

nj

FIG. 1

xij ¼ the value of x for the ith person in the jth department,nj ¼ the number of people in department j.

P

j6¼k

Pnj

i¼1

xij

PJ

j6¼k

nj

FIG. 2

xij ¼ the value of x for the ith person in the jth department,nj ¼ the number of people in department j.

610 LEE

faculty. The number of faculty respondents per department averagedslightly greater than 11. Table 1 shows the distribution of institutions andfaculty by institutional type for each discipline.

Data Analyses

For descriptive purposes, I conducted a discriminant analysis to observethe cultural differences (using the departmental means for 13 culturalfactors) of the five disciplines. A discriminant analysis is a form ofmultivariate analysis that allows one to identify the variables or sets ofvariables that most parsimoniously discriminate two or more groups fromone another. For this particular study, this descriptive analysis identifiesthe cultural dimensions that classify the disciplinary fields.In order to address the main research question of this study, How the

relationships between the institutional culture and the culture of theacademic department vary by disciplinary field, I computed the depart-mental-level correlation between the departmental mean and the correctedinstitutional mean for each measure, within discipline. The correlationsshow the extent to which the departmental and institutional cultures areassociated. I then tested the significance of the correlations between eachdiscipline for each discriminant function. I also conducted a Bonferronitest in order to avoid Type II errors.

TABLE 1. Number of Institutions and Faculty by Institutional Type

Institutions Faculty

Institutional type Total Sample Total Sample

All institutions 2618 429 440,850 13,946

All 4-year institutions 4489 380 336,832 12,858

Universities

Public 124 28 106,488 2913

Private 72 29 41,779 1594

Four-year colleges

Public 390 85 108,713 4298

All Private 903 244 79,852 4053

Nonsectarian 375 86 36,012 1555

Catholic 174 33 16,099 817

Protestant 354 99 27,741 1681

All 2-year institutions 1129 49 104,018 1088

Note. Adapted from Sax, Astin, Korn, and Gilmartin (1999). The American College teacher:National Norms for the 1998-99 HERI Faculty Survey. Los Angeles: Higher EducationResearch Institute, UCLA.


FINDINGS

Before examining the relationships between the institutional culture andthe departmental culture, I present four major dimensions of departmentalculture. I also demonstrate how these disciplinary cultures differ bycomparing the five selected disciplinary fields—Biology, Business, Educa-tion, English, and Political Science—on each of the 13 cultural measures.These findings will serve as a basis for interpreting the relationships betweenthe institutional culture and the departmental culture by disciplines.

Comparing Disciplinary Cultures

Some notable differences exist among the five disciplines. The fourdiscriminant functions were as follows: Instrumental Orientation, Affec-tive/Multicultural Orientation, Interpersonal Orientation, and ReputationOrientation. Table 2 shows structural matrix of the leading cultural factorsfor each of the four functions.

TABLE 2. High Correlations between Cultural Dimensions and Discriminant

Functions

Function

Cultural dimension

Instrumental

orientation

Affective/

multicultural

orientation

Interpersonal

orientation

Reputation

orientation

Instrumental

orientation

.83

Commitment to affective

Development

.71

Multicultural orientation .55

Valuing professional

Autonomy

).46

Student centeredness .43

Collegiality .39

Commitment to teaching ).61Job satisfaction .44

Prestige orientation .35

Scholarship and recognition .81

Note. Correlations of .35 or higher were used in defining each function. Commitment toDiversity, Dissatisfaction with Collegiate Culture, and Governance Stress were not included inany of the four functions because these correlations were less than .35. N = 1201; WilksLambda Test Functions 1–4 p < .0001.

612 LEE

Table 3 displays the canonical discriminant functions at the groupcentroids. As shown, no two disciplines share the same patterns on thegroup means. In other words, these disciplines are distinct based on thefour functions. Among the five fields, Biology departments score stronglynegative on their Affective and Multicultural Orientation and positive ontheir Instrumental and Interpersonal Orientations. Business departmentsshare a strongly positive Instrumental Orientation and negative Affectiveand Multicultural, Interpersonal, and Reputation Orientations. Instrumen-tal Orientation, Affective/Multicultural Orientation, and InterpersonalOrientation are all positive among Education departments. Among these,Education departments share the strongest Affective/Multicultural Ori-entation. English departments possess strongly negative Instrumental andReputation Orientations and a positive Affective/Multicultural Orienta-tion. Almost in direct contrast to Education, Political Science depart-ments share negative Instrumental, Affective/Multicultural, andInterpersonal Orientations. They do possess, however, a positive Repu-tation Orientation.

Comparing Institutional Relationships

One of the main research objectives of this study was comparinginstitutional-departmental associations across the five disciplines. Whilethe discriminant analysis revealed disciplinary differences with respect tothe four cultural dimensions, the correlation analyses examined theinstitutional and departmental associations on each of the four culturaldimensions for each of the five fields. As shown in Table 4, the extent ofinstitutional and departmental overlap varies by discipline.Considerable variation among the correlations appears to lie within

Instrumental Orientation. Political Science and Education departments

TABLE 3. Functions at Group Centroids

Function

Field

Instrumental

orientation

Affective/

multicultural

orientation

Interpersonal

orientation

Reputation

orientation

Biology .33 ).89 .51 .00

Business 1.64 ).60 ).53 ).21Education .96 1.35 .14 .00

English )2.05 .20 .00 ).33Political science )1.43 ).19 ).48 .55


share less of the institutional culture than do Biology, Business, andEnglish. The correlations for Political Science and Education are, in fact,smaller in comparison to the Instrumental Orientation correlations for theother three fields. The correlational differences are significantly differentwhen comparing Political Science and Education to Biology, Business,and English (p<.01; Bonferroni adjustment p<.05). There was nosignificant difference when comparing Political Science to Education.Among Political Science departments, the institutional culture’s relativelyweak relationship with departmental Instrumental Orientation (r ¼ .21)might be partly explained by Political Science departments sharing analready weak Instrumental Orientation (see Table 3). Education depart-ments, however, share a strong Instrumental Orientation (see Table 3),despite its somewhat weak relationship with its institutional InstrumentalOrientation (r ¼ .37).There does not appear to be a direct relationship between cultural

dimension levels (Table 3) and the strength of associations betweeninstitutional and disciplinary cultures (Table 4). As a further example,Biology departments share the lowest Affective/Multicultural Orientation(see Table 3) even though the institutional and disciplinary culturesappear to considerably overlap when it comes to this cultural dimension(r ¼ .62). One must keep in mind that degree of institutional anddepartmental associations for this cultural dimension are relatively similaracross the five fields (from .55 to .62). In fact, the differences are notsignificantly different from one another (p>.05 between each field).Nonetheless, Biology departments are less Committed to Students’Affective Development and Orientated Towards Multiculturalism than theother four fields. However, Biology departments are strongly associatedwith the institution’s Commitment to Students’ Affective Development andMulticultural Orientation. This finding has important implications, as willbe explained in the next section.

TABLE 4. Correlations between Institutional and Departmental Cultures, by Field

Field

Instrumental

orientation

Affective/

Multicultural

orientation

Interpersonal

orientation

Reputation

orientation

Biology .49* .62* .74* .78*

Business .50* .57* .72* .79*

English .47* .58* .77* .77*

Political science .21** .55* .73* .83*

**p < .01, *p < .05.

614 LEE

Like Affective/Multicultural Orientation, the difference when it comes tocomparing Interpersonal Orientation across the five fields is small andnonsignificant. The correlations for Interpersonal Orientation, neverthe-less, are all relatively high (above .70), which demonstrates that thedepartmental culture highly reflects the institutional culture (or vice versa)when it comes to Interpersonal issues such as Student Centeredness andCollegiality. Interestingly, discriminant findings revealed that Business andPolitical Science departments have lower Interpersonal Orientations thanBiology, Education, and English (see Table 3). Despite this particularfinding, correlational findings indicate the institutional InterpersonalOrientation share considerable overlap with departmental InterpersonalOrientation consistently across all five fields. Such findings also havesignificant implications, as will be discussed.Education departments are least associated to the institutional culture

when it comes to their Reputation Orientation. The correlational differ-ences between Education and each of the other four fields are significantlydifferent (p<.05), although there is possibility of Type I error (Bonferroniadjustment p>.05). Conversely, Political Science departments highlyreflect the institution’s Reputation Orientation (r ¼ .83), although thedepartmental–institutional Reputation Orientation association amongPolitical Science departments are not significantly different when com-pared to each of the fields. Nonetheless, Political Science is the only fieldthat shares a positive Reputation Orientation (see Table 3) and highlyoverlaps with its institutional culture when it comes to its emphasis onscholarship.

CONCLUSION

In sum, this study explores an essential aspect of the departmentalculture: the varying relationships between the departmental culture and itslarger sphere, the institutional culture. The relationships between thedepartmental culture and institutional culture vary by the selected fivefields. As found, their Instrumental Orientation, Affective/MulticulturalOrientation, Interpersonal Orientation, and Reputation Orientation candifferentiate these fields. In fact, as the functions at the group centroidshave demonstrated, no two fields share the same pattern of culturalorientations. Business departments, for example, share a positive Instru-mental Orientation and negative Affective/Multicultural Orientation,Interpersonal Orientation, and Reputation Orientation, while anotherprofessional field, Education, also shares a positive Instrumental Orien-tation, but also shares a positive Affective/Multicultural Orientation,Interpersonal Orientation, and Reputation Orientation. Thus, it is no


surprise to find that the extent to which the institutional and departmentalcultures overlap would also vary by disciplines.Within each of the five fields, the associations between the departmental

and institutional culture differ by cultural dimensions. Only withinInstrumental Orientation and Reputation Orientation, however, were thedisciplinary differences significant. (And after making a Bonferroniadjustment, only Instrumental Orientation showed significant differencesby fields). When it comes to Reputation Orientation, for example, PoliticalScience departments highly share the institutional culture. On the otherhand, Political Science and Education departments least share the cultureof the institution when it comes to Instrumental Orientation. Despite therelatively weak relationship between departmental and institutionalInstrumental Orientation, Education departments share a strong Instru-mental Orientation, which may indicate that among Education depart-ments, their Instrumental Orientation is pervasive across institutions. Insum, findings demonstrate the variability and relative independence ofdepartmental cultures from their institutional cultures.The findings of this study speak to administrative leaders and scholars

alike. As college and university leaders consider ways to increasedepartmental Commitment to Students’ Affective Development (i.e.,instilling students’ commitment to community service, preparing students’responsible citizenship, enhancing out-of-class experiences, etc.) and theirMulticultural Orientation (i.e., faculty appreciating a diverse studentbody), for example, they first ought to acknowledge the major disciplinarydifferences that exist. As this study shows, Education and Englishdepartments are positively orientated towards Students’ AffectiveDevelopment and Multiculturalism whereas Biology, Business, and Polit-ical Science departments are not. Despite such variation, institutionalleaders should be aware that the institution can, nevertheless, consistentlyaffect departments when it comes to these cultural arenas given that theoverlap between institutional and departmental cultures are relativelysimilar across the five fields. Likewise, despite the sizable variation amongdepartmental Interpersonal Orientation, the institutional culture can play aconsiderable and consistent role on departmental Collegiality and StudentCenteredness. Conversely, departmental chairs should recognize thatdepartmental cultures might even produce institutions that share a highMulticulturalism Orientation, Students’ Affective Development, Interper-sonal Orientation, Collegiality, and Student Centeredness. As such, anexemplary department may affect other departments as well as the overallinstitutional culture.This study also informs leaders of ways that institutional culture might

have differing effects on departmental cultures (or departmental cultures

616 LEE

might have differing effects on institutional cultures), such as onInstrumental Orientation and Reputation Orientation. In this case, PoliticalScience departments share more of the institution’s Reputation Orienta-tion, whereas Education departments share less. As such, attempts toaddress these particular areas might be approached differently, dependingon the cultural aspect.In terms of implications for theory, previous research has also well

uncovered major disciplinary differences (Becher, 1989; Biglan, 1973a,1973b; Clark, 1987a, to cite a few). This study furthers previous research byintroducing four major cultural dimensions and measuring the differencesacross fields. Although the direction of institutional–departmental rela-tionships remain uncertain, this study shows the varying extents to whichinstitutional cultures is associated with departmental cultures, dependingon the cultural orientation examined. Therefore, institutional researchersand scholars must recognize the distinct departmental cultures and thevaried extents to which the departmental and institutional cultures areassociated. In other words, a study of institutional culture mustacknowledge the heterogeneity of values, beliefs, and priorities across theindependent academic departments.The findings have additional important implications in terms of future

research. Scholars should explore the direction of the relationshipsbetween institutions and departments, which may vary depending on thecultural aspect. Moreover, researchers may consider how departmentsnegotiate between their dual loyalties—the institution and the discipline,particularly in response to institutional change efforts. Related, futurestudies should also examine the relative relationships between disciplinaryassociations and the academic departments and ways that disciplinaryassociations can collaborate with institutional change agents.An important issue is to what extent the correlations between the

institutional and departmental cultures reflect differences in the distributionof faculty by institutional type. This concern is a major limitation of thisstudy that should be explored. Future studies may investigate significantdifferences in the effect of the institutional culture on the departmentalculture by institutional type across disciplinary fields. Future researchshould also examine the variations within a single disciplinary field.The findings also suggest that other methodological approaches would

assist in further examining other unknown factors that might help shapethe departmental culture. For example, a more in-depth, qualitativeinquiry into the different perspectives that comprise the departmentalculture would help understand how institutional and disciplinary forcesare manifest in particular departments, but also to identify otherrelationships that might help to shape departmental values and opinions.


APPENDIX A. Dimensions of Faculty Culture

Measure and variables Factor loading a

Collegialitya

Satisfaction with professional

relationships with other facultyb.82

Satisfaction with competency of

colleaguesb.70

Satisfaction with social relationships

with other facultyb.69

Faculty here respect each otherc .67

People here don’t treat each other

with enough respectd,c).60

My research is valued by faculty

in my departmente.58

Faculty are committed to the welfare

of the institutione.48 .87f

Commitment to Diversity

Institutional priority: to hire more

minority faculty and administratorsg.86

Institutional priority: to create a

multi-cultural campus environmentg.83

Institutional priority: to recruit

more minority studentsg.82

Institutional priority: to hire more

women faculty and administratorsg.77 .88

Commitment to Scholarship and

Scholarly Recognition

Reason for Career: Opportunities

for researchh.76

Importance of recognition from my

colleagues for contributions to my

special fieldi

.68

Primary Interest: Research

(versus teaching)j.66

Reason for Career: Freedom to pursue

scholarly/teaching interestsh.66

Importance of becoming an authority

in my fieldi.65

Reason for Career: Intellectual challengeh .50 .82

Commitment to Students’

Affective Development

Goal for students: to instill in students

a commitment to community servicei.83

618 LEE

APPENDIX A. (Continued)


Goal for students: to help students

develop personal valuesi.82

Goal for students: to provide for

students’ emotional developmenti.79

Goal for students: to develop moral

characteri.78

Goal for students: to prepare students

for family livingi.77

Goal for students: to prepare for

responsible citizenshipi.70

Goal for students: to enhance students’

self-understandingi.67

Institutional priority: to help students

learn how change societyg.64

Institutional priority: to help students

understand valuesg.64

Colleges should encourage students to

be involved in community

service activitiese .63

Reason for career: opportunity to

influence social changeh.61

Goal for students: to enhance the

out-of-class experiencei.60

Institutional priority: to facilitate student

involvement in community serviceg.59

Institutional priority: to develop

leadership ability among studentsg.50

Community service should be given

weight in college

admissions decisionse .46

Faculty are interested in students’

personal problemse.42 .93

Commitment to Teaching

Importance of being a good teacheri .74

Reason for Career: opportunity for

teachingh.70 .71

Dissatisfaction with Collegiate Culture

Social activities are overemphasizede .78

Intercollegiate sports are overemphasizede .65

There is great conformity among studentse .63 .63




Governance Stress

Source of Stress: Committee workk .80

Source of Stress: Faculty meetingsk .75

Source of Stress: Colleaguesk .48

Source of Stress: Institutional

procedures and ‘‘red tape’’k.46 .72

Instrumental Orientation

Goal for Students: Teach classical

works of Western civilizationd,i).72

Goal for Students: Prepare

students for employmenti.60

Chief benefit of college is that it

increases one’s earning powere.57

Western civilization should be the

foundation of curriculumd,e).53

Student use of computers enhances

their learninge.49 .64

Job Satisfaction

Overall job satisfactionb .71

Satisfaction with opportunity for

scholarly pursuitsb.71

Satisfaction with teaching loadb .71

Satisfaction with working

conditions (hours, location)b.70

Satisfaction with opportunity to

develop new ideasb.65

Satisfaction with salary and

fringe benefitsb.60

Satisfaction with autonomy

and independenceb.59

Source of stress: teaching loadd,k ).57Satisfaction with job securityb .54

Would still be a college professorl .43 .85

Multicultural Orientation

Diversity leads to the admission

of too many underprepared

studentsd,e ).73Diverse student body enhances

education for all studentse.70

620 LEE



Colleges should be involved in

solving social problemse.58

Faculty of color are treated

fairly hered,e).55

Goal for students: Enhance

knowledge/appreciation for

other racial

groupsi .49

Women faculty are treated

fairly hered,e).45

There is a lot of campus racial

conflict here e.45

College officials have the right

to ban extreme speakersd,e.43 .71

Prestige Orientation

Institutional Priority: to increase/

maintain institutional prestigeg.77

Institutional Priority: to enhance

institution’s national imageg.77

Institutional Priority: to hire

faculty ‘‘stars’’g.70 .82

Student Centeredness

Most students are treated like

‘‘numbers in a book’’c,d).70

Faculty are interested in students’

academic problemse.64

It is easy to see faculty outside of

regular office hoursc.64

Most faculty feel that students are

well-prepared academicallye.61

Most students are strongly committed

to community servicee.60

Institutional priority: to promote

intellectual development of

studentsg .59

Institutional priority: to develop a

sense of community among

students and facultyg .55

Students here do not usually socialize

with one anotherc,d).54


REFERENCES

Austin, A. E. (1990). Faculty cultures, faculty values. In W. G. Tierney (ed.), AssessingAcademic Climates and Cultures, New Directions for Institutional Research, no. 68.San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Austin, A. E., and Gamson, Z. F. (1983). Academic Workplace: New Demands,Heightened Tensions. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Research Report, no. 10.Washington, D.C.: Association for the Study of Higher Education.

Becher, T. (1987). Disciplinary shaping of the profession. In B. R. Clark (ed.), TheAcademic Profession: National, Disciplinary, and Institutional Settings. Los Angeles:University of California Press.



Satisfaction with quality of studentsb .51

Student Affairs staff have the support

and respect of facultye.49

Faculty are rewarded for being good

teachersc.47 .86

Valuing Professional Autonomy

Reason for Career: Flexible scheduleh .76

Reason for Career: Autonomyh .71

Reason for Career: Intellectual

Freedomh.40 .66

aComposite labels are not intended to replace the individual items that comprise each factor.Rather, the labels serve as a concise term for a series of complex, yet highly inter-related, items.b5 = ‘‘very satisfied,’’ 4 = ‘‘satisfied,’’ 3 = ‘‘marginally satisfied,’’ 2 = ‘‘not satisfied,’’ 1=‘‘not applicable’’c3 = ‘‘very descriptive,’’ 2 = ‘‘somewhat descriptive,’’ 1 = ‘‘not descriptive’’dResponse values were reversed after the factor analysis for the purposes of conducting thereliability analysis and scoring this factor.e4 = ‘‘agree strongly,’’ 3 = ‘‘agree somewhat,’’ 2 = ‘‘disagree somewhat,’’ 1 = ‘‘disagreestrongly’’fCronbach Alphas are based on reliability analyses using the department as the unit ofanalysis.g4 = ‘‘highest priority,’’ 3 = ‘‘high priority,’’ 2 = ‘‘medium priority,’’ 1 = ‘‘low priority’’h3 = ‘‘very important,’’ 2 = ‘‘somewhat important,’’ 1 = ‘‘not important’’i4 = ‘‘essential,’’ 3 = ‘‘very important,’’ 2 = ‘‘somewhat important,’’ 1 = ‘‘not important’’j4 = ‘‘very heavily in teaching,’’ 3 = ‘‘leaning toward research,’’ 2 = ‘‘leaning towardteaching,’’ 1 = ‘‘very heavily in teaching’’k3 = ‘‘extensive,’’ 2 = ‘‘somewhat,’’ 1 = ‘‘not at all’’l5 = ‘‘definitely yes,’’ 4 = ‘‘probably yes,’’ 3 = ‘‘not sure,’’ 2 = ‘‘probably no,’’ 1 = ‘‘de-finitely no’’

622 LEE

Becher, T. (1989). Academic Tribes and Territories: Intellectual Enquiry and the Culturesof the Disciplines. Bristol, PA: Open University Press.

Biglan, A. (1973a). The characteristics of subject matter in different academic areas.Journal of Applied Psychology 57: 195–203.

Biglan, A. (1973b). Relationships between subject matter characteristics and thestructure and output of university departments. Journal of Applied Psychology 57:204–213.

Boyer, E. L. (1990). Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. SanFrancisco: Jossey-Bass.

Braxton, J. M., and Hargens, L. L. (1996). Variation among academic disciplines:Analytic frameworks and research. In J. C. Smart (ed.), Higher Education: Hand-book of Theory and Research, Vol. 11, pp. 1–46. New York: Agathon Press.

Clark, B. R. (1980). Academic Culture. Higher Education Research Group, YaleUniversity.

Clark, B. R. (1984). The organizational conception. In B. R. Clark (ed.), Perspectiveson Higher Education. Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Clark, B. R. (1987a). The Academic Life: Small Worlds, Different Worlds. Princeton:The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Clark, B. R. (ed.), (1987b). The Academic Profession: National, Disciplinary, andInstitutional Settings. Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Edwards, R. (1999, September). The academic department: How does it fit into theuniversity reform agenda? Change 31: 17.

Finkelstein, M. J. (1978). Three decades of research on American academics: adescriptive portrait and synthesis of findings. Unpublished doctoral dissertation,State University of New York, Buffalo.

Geertz, C. (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.Harry J., and Gouldner N. (1972). The null relationship between teaching and research.

Sociology of Education 45: 47–60.Hind, R. R., Dornbusch, S. M., and Scott, W. R. (1974). A theory of evaluation

applied to university faculty. Sociology of Education 47: 114–128.Kennedy, D. (1997) Academic Duty. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Kuh, G. D., and Whitt, E. J. (1988). The Invisible Tapestry: Culture in American

Colleges and Universities. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 1. Washing-ton D.C.: Association for the Study of Higher Education.

Ladd, E. C., and Lipset, S. M (1975). The Divided Academy: Professors and Politics.New York: McGraw-Hill.

Lee, and Jenny J. (2003). The shaping of departmental culture: Measuring the relativeinfluences of the institution and the discipline. Manuscript submitted for publica-tion.

Light, D. (1974, Winter). Introduction: The structure of the academic professions.Sociology of Education 47: 2–28.

Opp, R. D. (1992, October). Disciplinary differences in faculty career satisfaction.Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of HigherEducation Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, MN. (ED 352919).

Peterson, M. V., Cameron, K. S., Mets, L. A., Jones, P., and Ettington, D. (1986). TheOrganizational Context for Teaching and Learning: A Review of the Research Lit-erature. Ann Arbor: National Center for Research to Improve PostsecondaryTeaching and Learning, 1986. (ED 287437).


Ruscio, K. P. (1987b). Many sectors, many professions. In B. R. Clark (ed.), TheAcademic Profession: National, Disciplinary, and Institutional Settings. Los Angeles:University of California Press.

Sax, L. J., Astin, A. W., Korn, W. S., and Gilmartin, S. K. (1999). The AmericanCollege Teacher: National Norms for the 1998–1999 HERI Faculty Survey. LosAngeles: Higher Education Research Institute, UCLA.

Smart, J. C. Feldman, K. A., and Ethingon, C. A. (2000). Academic Disciplines:Holland’s Theory and the Study of College Students and Faculty. Nashville: Van-derbilt University Press.

Smart, J. C., and McLaughlin, G. W. (1978). Reward structures of academic disci-plines. Research in Higher Education 8: 39–55.

Tierney, W. G., and Rhoads, R. A. (eds.), (1993). Faculty Socialization as Culturalprocess: A Mirror of Institutional Commitment. ASHE-ERIC Higher EducationReport. No. 6. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Trow, M. (1977). Departments as contexts for teaching and learning. In D. E.McHenry (ed.), Academic Departments: Problems, Variations, and Alternatives. SanFrancisco: Jossey-Bass.

Wergin, and Jon (1994). The Collaborative Department: How Five Campuses are InchingToward Cultures of Collective Responsibility. Washington DC: American Associationfor Higher Education.

Received August 20, 2002.

624 LEE

comparing institutional relationships with academic departments: a study of five academic fields

Documents