University culture: comparison of the profile obtained from self-report documents with students' perception

The findings provide the following: commitment is formatted by the identification to be formatted as Clan culture to be strong. According to the data, most of the students demonstrate whether identification or disidentfication, which are directed opposite, when the identification is strong then neutral is weak, but still, there is a positive association for disidentification and neutral type. Male students are prone for disidentification to be higher than identification, but still, most of them identify themselves with the organization and the direction of this effect is getting positive, while Clan is strong and Hierarchy to be weak. When the desire for growth of Clan aspect is high value than the commitment is getting lower, that the kind of gap estimation, which results in the non-preferable scenario for the organization.

Textual analysis results

The procedure of the textual analysis as stated in the methodology part consisted of several steps: 1) the most frequent words with frequency of more than 3 times (that was the mean value for noun frequency and about that value for adjective) in the text were chosen for culture description in the English version of the book “Diagnosing and changing organizational culture: based on the competing values framework”; 2) the parallel matching of the same structure texts (English and Russian) was made to define the key words for culture types for Russian language; 3) the R-algorithm was applied for self-report documents of HSE to capture the most frequent nouns and adjectives appeared, the top 100 words were analysed. The number for analysis was motivated by the comparison of Humanities and the Sciences terms occurrence, where the overall set of words analysed was more than 2 million and 100 positions of the most frequent to be chosen (Pojanapunya & Todd, 2016, May), consequently, the procedure should be valid for our case of smaller set; 5) the match of the key words with the most frequent words was provided to sum up the frequency and evaluate the culture trace. The words from one `family' (Moudraia, 2003) The schema of the analysis is given in Appendix 6.

The key words choice

To provide the key words choice the chapter 3 text, which contains the description of culture types according to the Competitive Values Framework (Adhocracy, Clan, Market and Hierarchy) of the English version as original source from the model authors, has been analyzed via the R package udpipe algorithm counting the lexical units occurrence in the text. The positions with frecuence of more than 3 (mean value) for nouns and adjectives as static linguistic forms, characterizing the culture were chosen. Then the same root words frequencies were summed up to get the most occurred ones, some linguistic units like `organization', `company', `characteristics' were excluded as broad categories. The most specific and unique characteristics were taken into account. Hence, the 5-9 key characteristics of each culture type were defined and given in the frequency Table 5.

Then the correspondence with the Russian equivalents was provided to define the key words that appeared in Russian version of the book. That was needed due to the self-reports to be published in Russian language. As it was noticed the texts of both books had the same structure of the sentences, it was possible to match the position of English key word with Russian ones, such methodology was proved in the paper of Kaji and colleagues (1992). Also, the frequencies of the key words (the numbers given in Table 5) in both versions occurred to be the same in most cases, suggesting the result of procedure validity.

Table 5 Key words for CVF culture types in English and Russian

Note. aThe first number in the braket is for English key word frequency, the second number is for Russian version.

Self-report analysis results

As it was noted, the 100 words chosen from the R report for the searching procedure of culture-type cues, excluding non-meaningful words (e.g. `г', `год') and the same root words to be united. The frequency of the key words for culture type was counted in the tables and the trace was defined - the most frequent phrases allow to capture the type by simply summing up the appearance in the self-report documents. Words from one family provided the more emphasis of particular culture, the suffix variation of Russian words was considered, but the new words that might have new and additional meaning were not counted.

Self-report documents from 2013 to 2018 contain the information on the most crucial characteristics of the university, taking into account all the campuses of Higher School of Economics, the results of the university activity has been described as the plans for the growth and development are stated in the reports. The documents of various years allowed to capture, whether there the change of the culture change over time and evaluate the discourse to be varied or not.

The reports from the RStudio on nouns and adjectives are given in Appendix 7. During the observed period, the discourse change was not detected as the words frequently appeared did not changed significantly. But some changes of the culture trace appeared. Among the most frequent positions the key words appearance was counted by the matching of those. In other words, the searching procedure for key words in the text was made. After the counting of the frequency of the key words the frequency of culture associated terms lead to the conclusions. According to the self-report documents from 2013-2018 the organizational culture of the HSE University is shifted toward the Hierarchy type (the frequency tables and analysis for culture traces is given in Appendix 8). The amount of words associated with this type is more frequent than other types suggesting the biggest families of words. Market culture is supposed to be less emphasized by the university, while as Clan as Adhocracy types are about the same value by the terms' occurrence. Interestingly, the earlier reports of 2013-2014 suggested even more shift toward the Hierarchy, which is typical for the educational organizations traditionally (Smart, 1999). Then, the later reports showed that the gap between Hierarchy and Adhocracy or Clan became lower, hence, the more balanced the organizational culture has been constructed.

Discussion

The research was constructed to answer three research questions. The results appeared allowed to provide some important conclusion for the university.

(1) What is the organizational culture profile constructed on the basis of students' perceptions in the HSE Saint-Petersburg?

As it was noted the measurements for students of what kind of culture was constructed in the university was provided on the basis of CVF as their position on the desired type was also estimated. The data collected in two years gave the opportunity to get the more students as possible in the sample. While assumption on the fact that students from different Schools may perceive culture differently was not proved at the previous stage, the current study showed that there were evident differences. When the overall sample of students prone to evaluate the aspects of Market and Adhocracy culture types as the strongest ones with the orientation to the competition, innovativeness support and desire to get the first position, students would rather prefer of Clan to be stronger with its orientation to people, mentoring and tuition as educational models with value of common activities.

The tremendous differences occurred for School of Law with the shift toward Market type and lowest value for the Clan, but School of Social Science and Area Studies suggested `softer' type of organizational culture with Clan to be stronger in comparison to other Schools.

The gap which appeared between current culture of the Higher School of Economics Saint-Petersburg and preferred one makes it possible to conclude that such situation may contribute to the kind of relations between students and the university. As students may be treated as stakeholders for the organization (Soriano et al., 2012) and its mutual influence on each other may be as beneficial as rather counterproductive. Actually, satisfaction with the educational process as positive behavioural strategies (e.g. additional out of curriculum activities, promotion, involvement into research and projects) are significant for the University to be effective organization. Though, that may appear as the orientation of the organization to students taking into account their role and position in organizational aspects.

(2) What culture type traces can be captured in HSE self-report documents from 2013 - 2018?

The analysis of self-report documents allowed to get the understanding of the image that the university is constructing. Content of the documents cover all the campuses of Higher School of Economics; hence, the results are generalized and some organizational aspects for different campuses can be left. The examination of activities and orientations of the organization can be treated as the source where the `true identity' is hidden. Moreover, that image is the way of how organization positions itself. It is considered that information given in the documents can provide organizational culture traces as particular concepts appear in the text are associated with those to be related to the four types of culture according to Competitive Values Framework. The organizational context presented by the 5-9 key words that describe culture was defined by the analysis of the most frequent words in the original text. When the words appeared in the self-reports than their frequencies summed up allowed to capture what culture type could be more emphasized. The observed period was 5 years, which in terms of organization can lead to the changes. There were not great differences during the years, but the emphasis on the Hierarchy culture as procedure-oriented and rule-driven showed that university image and even its identity correspond to the traditional type. The gap between the reports' culture trace and the perception of Saint-Petersburg campus is evident. The aspect of Market was not detected according to our methodology of analysis, but this is strongly highlighted by the students. However, aspects of Clan and Adhocracy have also appeared in the documents, but Clan is not treated in the same way by the students. Consequently, it can be suggested that Saint-Petersburg campus may demonstrate the formation of subculture with other features be more expressed and supported.

(3) What is the commitment level toward the university demonstrated by students?

Commitment is the measure of what type of relations are built between organization and students. That is important as strong commitment leads to the benefits organization may receive from students behaviour. But in the previous study (Pomyalova & Volkova, 2020) it was stated that the strongest predictor for commitment was identification. That state is sufficient in the organizational process: individual is learning the organization aspects, values and artefacts and then is able to be either identified with them or reject those. If values and observed practices, environment are far from the individuals' values then he or she tends to be indifferent to the organization. On the other hand, when the values are shared than the more chances of being committed finally.

Students of HSE Saint-Petersburg either have positive identification and strong commitment or neutral identification and committed to some extent. Of course, commitment is not discrete value, but some value on the scale, though most of the values are above the average. That means that even the gap in the organizational culture perception does not contribute significantly to the overall level of commitment. However, the strong Clan culture results in the higher commitment as positive identification does. Also, disidentification which correlates with neutral identification in the case of the collected data turned out to be predictor for commitment; males were prone to demonstrate desidentification, but their value for commitment was still high and predicted by stronger Hierarchy and weak Clan.

The finding for the commitment is positive for the organization, though there is the group of students that are less prone to commit to the organization. The reasons for such differences of males and females are not clear for now but can become valuable for the understanding of such clustering.

All in all, there are several main findings of the research:

1) Organizational culture for Higher school of Economics in Saint-Petersburg is shifted toward Market and Adhocracy types;

2) Students would rather prefer that Clan type to be more presented in the university;

3) Higher School of Economics according to the self-report documents is associated with the traditional type of Academia with Hierarchy aspect to be strongest;

4) Tremendous differences in the organizational report of self were not detected in the period of 2013-2018, but the formation of subculture in different campuses is likely to appear;

5) Despite the gap in the perception of culture, students in Saint-Petersburg campus tend to be committed to the organization, though some group is not prone to identify themselves with the organization which is true for male students.

There are some limitations in the study to be noted. Firstly, the case observed in isolation without comparison with other universities that demonstrate tendency of changes. The data was collected from students in two years, there was a small chance of repeated measures, but highly likely respondents of the previous wave were rejected to participate again. The sample cover students of the 2nd and 3rd-year students that would be additional limitation of the results as we are not able to compare students during their educational lifecycle. Also, some finding for desidentification measure are not clear and need additional research among male and female students. Considering textual analysis, suggested methodology is constructed on the basis of frequency of adjectives and nouns in the texts of Higher School of Economics self-report documents and frequency of words appeared in the description of the four culture types in the CVF model in the original text from its authors. And the correspondence of English words to Russian was made by applying of machine translation method of mathing texts, that might result in some misleadings with meaning. Hence, the semantic analysis and experts' evaluation with the creation of the list of words can be associated with culture type should be provided in the future research to get more accurate estimation of culture from organization documents.

Conclusions and practical implications

The case of Higher School of Economics demonstrates that transformation occurs in the organization proved by the growth in a number of students, educational programmes, foreign students and partnership with business (Table 1) results in the formation of unique culture reported from students. While organization perceives itself as more or less static and differs from the members' estimations. The comparison of these results may be useful for the understanding of how to gain even more effectiveness and what sides to be empowered in the future. Flexibility is getting higher when the innovation and creativity are appraised, but the true values of the university should be supported to save the uniqueness among competitors on the growing market of educational services.

Moreover, the offered methodology of textual analysis, applying Competitive Values Framework, is firstly applyied in the organizational culture research dedicated to the analysis of organization artefacts (documents, reports, statements, advertisements and so on). That is the attempt to create the procedure of for the examination of the organizational culture by the content analysis method, which may become the basis for the future research and new approach of CVF model usage for culture studies.

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Appendix

Organizational culture profile for School of Economics and Management

Organizational culture profile for School of Social Science and Area Studies

Organizational culture profile for School of Arts and Humanities

Organizational culture profile for School of Law

Means, standard deviations and Pearson correlation for variables

Note * indicates p < .05. ** indicates p < .01.

Schema for the textual analysis of self-report documents

Reports from R-Studio for analysis of nouns and adjectives frequencies (report for 2013)

Results of content analysis of HSE self-report documents from 2013-2018

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