Organizational culture in the private liberal arts college: A case study

The purpose of this study was to describe the organizational culture of Pacific Union College (PUC), a part of the Seventh-day Adventist system of higher education in North America. The design of this research project was a case study, and the methodological paradigm on which this study was based is that of naturalistic inquiry. Three means of inquiry were utilized: an organizational culture survey, interviews, and content analysis. The survey was administered to all salaried personnel of the college. Each respondent also submitted a demographic profile. Interviews further contributed to the triangulation of this study. They were conducted on the campus with 16 faculty selected by the researcher because of their familiarity with the college and their potential to be articulate and informative regarding it. A content analysis of the last institutional self-study done by Pacific Union College (Pacific Union College, 1990) furthered triangulation. Formative studies such as this are conducted for the purpose of improvement rather than to answer a hypothetical question or prescribe for practice. The study addressed five research questions. The results of this study indicated a predominant perception that the collegial culture is dominant. The findings further revealed that the collegial culture is perceived to be dominant without the application of demographics. This contrasts with analysis of the Self-Study (Pacific Union College, 1990) which indicated that the managerial culture was dominant. The findings indicated that there was not cultural congruence between the faculty and administration, but that there was closer congruence between the administration and the department chairs. The findings of the survey showed that the collegial culture was dominant among the faculty while the managerial culture was dominant with the department chairs and administration