Youth University Subculture as an Element of the Organizational Culture of the University

Gemranova Anastasiya Dmitrievna ORCID: 0000-0003-3934-8795 PhD in Pedagogy Associate Professor of the Department of Psychology and Pedagogy, Ulyanovsk State University 432000, Russia, Ulyanovsk region, Ulyanovsk, ul. Lenin, 144 Shabrova94@gmail.com Other publications by this author     Mitina Tat'yana Sergeevna PhD in Pedagogy Associate Professor of the Department of Psychology and Pedagogy, Faculty of Humanities and Social Technologies, Ulyanovsk State University 42 Lva Tolstogo str., Ulyanovsk, Ulyanovsk region, 432000, Russia tsmitina.ulsu@gmail.com

Mitina Irina Dmitrievna Doctor of Pedagogy Professor of the Department of Psychology and Pedagogy, Faculty of Humanities and Social Technologies, Ulyanovsk State University 432017, Russia, Ulyanovsk region, Ulyanovsk, ul. Lva Tolstogo, 42 7151mid@gmail.com

introduction

Organizational culture is a vital element of effective management practices at universities. Recently, researchers have been interested in studying the organizational concept to ensure effective management at universities. Research on the organizational culture of higher education shows that the mission, goals and strategic objectives of the organization should not contradict the current culture of the university, and they should work together to improve the effectiveness of the organization. University culture is a special type of organizational culture, whose values, beliefs and basic principles are common to all universities.

The academic culture of universities mainly consists of academic views, academic spirit, academic ethics and academic environment. The campus culture at the university is characterized by individuality, academic character, openness, leadership, diversity and creativity. Academic culture contributes to building a campus culture. The culture of the campus determines and limits the development of academic culture. The strategies for building academic and campus culture are as follows: The university must adhere to its mission, strengthen cultural trust and cultural awareness, integrate culture into the process of talent cultivation, and promote cultural development and innovation.

RESEARCH METHODS AND PRINCIPLES

The research was aimed at identifying the views of students on the concept of "organizational culture" and at studying how they understand and perceive this phenomenon. The purpose of this research is achieved using general scientific methods such as analysis and synthesis of information from open sources, analytical generalization of theoretical data, and the survey method. 82 students of non-pedagogical fields (physics, mathematics) of Ulyanovsk State University, studying in the 2nd year, took part in the survey. The survey was conducted in the first semester of the 2022/2023 academic year. The interpretation of the results was carried out using the methodology of E. Shane, which considers three levels of manifestation and study of organizational culture: artifacts, declared values, basic concepts.

discussion

Universities, as you know, are diverse, divided into specialties, professional groups and hierarchies. Some cultural attributes may be widespread and stable, while others may be shared only in small communities or preserved conditionally. University subcultures, such as the faculty community, are most clearly outlined and it is not difficult to find adherents of university traditions in them. Over time, other subcultures may appear, for example among students. Cultural differences between generations have important implications for teamwork and learning, especially for young people. As researcher A.L. Borisenok writes in his article, "organizational culture is a set of collective basic rules invented, discovered or developed by a certain group of people as they learned to solve problems related to adaptation to the external environment and internal integration, and developed well enough to be considered valuable. Therefore, new members of the group should be taught these rules as the only correct way to comprehend something, think and feel in situations related to solving such problems"^{[1, p. 130]}.

According to the theory of Edgar Shane ^[10], Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Sloan Institute of Technology and head of the Institute of Organizational Culture and Leadership, the study of organizational culture begins at the surface level – the level of artifacts. According to the socio-pedagogical dictionary, an artifact is "a man–made element of culture. Artifacts – cultural phenomena – are things made by man, thoughts born by him, means and methods of action found and used by him" ^{[8, p. 7]}.

Artifacts are easy to see, but difficult to decipher, they include: corporate logos, uniforms, rituals, stories, events, "heroes", posters, buildings, layout, proposed organizational structure, etc. These are the "visible" symbols of culture. The organizational culture of the university is its own and unique style of organization and management, as well as the image of the educational institution. It is represented by an indivisible system of behavioral models, which is based on its own worldview, rituals and traditions of higher education.

The organizational culture of the university is a world of values that are important to all members of the university community. Such values have a beneficial emotional and psychological impact on students in order to recognize their attitudes and norms of behavior. It is also a special world of learning, culture, science and creativity, capable of organizing the entire life of the university. It covers all areas of the university's activities and is based on the principle of semiotic context, which, through accepted symbols and signs, rituals and norms, transmits socio-cultural information that forms the corporate context, traditions and spirit among the university community. Organizational culture consists of values, behaviors, beliefs and lived policies, as well as certain practices and accepted behavior in the organization. Sustainability includes actions that ensure the long-term survival and viability of an organization, conserve environmental resources, and enhance the ability to solve social and economic problems. Without rituals, ceremonies, rituals, norms and rules, the development and functioning of any university in the world is impossible, since they have become the basis of established university traditions over the centuries. University culture cannot be shaped by individuals. Sharing and collective acceptance of the same values and artifacts is a common key role in university culture.

Values are the second level of the study of organizational culture and they include professional norms and rules, mission, vision, goals and objectives of the organization.  As M.L. Dorzhieva writes in her article, "the approach to the study of values is carried out in the context of considering the socio–cultural life of people. The followers of this trend put forward the thesis of a multitude of value worlds, closed and irreducible with each other large cultural and historical systems. Values here act as regulators of interpersonal relations inherent in each individual public organization and close in essence to their functions to the norms, rules, beliefs shared by all people in a particular socio-cultural system" ^[3]. Over time, the most effective goals become generally accepted in the team. Teachers play a huge role in the adoption of university values. Higher school teachers proclaim and promote organizational values. The conscious acceptance of university values leads to the fact that they become the individual values of each student, taking a firm place in the motivational structure of his behavior. Even after graduation, graduates of their alma mater continue to share these values. If the proclaimed values of higher education justify themselves, then they begin to be perceived as an integral part of the educational process at the university.

One of the key concepts related to the value orientation of university education is mission. Some researchers, whose point of view is close to us, note, "in order for the university's mission to fulfill its purpose, it must not only be competently formally expressed, but also effectively presented to both staff and students, and the public as a whole. The main means of implementing the university's mission are the goals, values and norms of its organizational culture" ^[4].

Thus, values take us to the third level of organizational culture according to E. Shane – basic concepts. Representations act as a general vision of reality inherent in a certain group of people, which may not coincide or contradict the views adopted in other communities. As a rule, these are emotional and cognitive representations of attitudes and feelings towards the university, trust, understanding and worldview of students and teachers.

Any organization, including a university, is not capable of embracing culture in one day. It is formed over time, when all participants in the process undergo various changes, adapting to the external environment and solving problems.  As Shane himself writes, "Culture as a set of basic concepts determines for us what to pay attention to, what things mean, how to react emotionally to what is happening and what actions to take in various situations. Once we develop an integrated set of such representations—a "mental world" or a "mental map"—we will feel as comfortable as possible with other people sharing the same set of representations, and we will be very uncomfortable and vulnerable in situations where other assumptions apply, because either we will not understand what is happening, or Even worse, we will misunderstand and misinterpret the actions of others" ^{[10, p.32]}.

As we wrote earlier in our previous research, "the component of the university complex is the established personnel, motivational, regulatory, information and communication, logistical, financial structure. As well as self-organization and self-government based on the socio-cultural basis of the university educational environment. This also applies to the specifics of the established subcultural traditions of the university environment – the subcultures of students, teachers and managers ... these subcultures differ in the presence of specific qualities and characteristics, their set of values, but they are united precisely by the spiritual and moral foundations of the classical university tradition. Corporate rules of conduct in the organizational component of Ulyanovsk State University have also been formed, representing the established norms and rules of internal interaction" ^[2].

The youth university subculture "is formed not only during studies, student participation in corporate events, but also in the work of various student associations" ^[6]. It is difficult to fully determine the degree of influence of student subcultures on the organizational culture of the university, since it depends on the number of students, the number of subcultural formations and their orientation. The formation and development of a youth subculture naturally takes place in the educational space of the university. "Youth subculture is understood, first of all, as a special form of organization of young people, defining their lifestyle, behavior, thinking, differing in their customs, rituals, norms, values and stereotypes" ^[7].

The concept of organizational culture helps to understand and analyze the trends that make an educational organization what it is in order to structure and develop the corporate culture of the university. The analysis of the organizational culture of the university leads to various models that can be identified. In a university setting, it is especially important to explore the interaction between members of the educational community, between teachers and students, but no less important and interesting will be the analysis of only students as a certain university subculture.

MAIN RESULTS

We asked a research question: what are the students' ideas about the organizational culture at the university? Based on interviews with interested students on campus, we have compiled a 3-point survey to characterize the student culture at the university. These three points of the survey correspond to the three-level system of studying organizational culture according to E. Shane: artifacts, values, representations (see Table 1.). We analyzed the responses of students using the model of the theory of cultural consensus. To apply this model, we took into account the following parameters:

1. the need to ask a number of questions on the same topic and with the same level of difficulty;

2. The ability of respondents to respond independently of all other survey participants;

3. High level of consistency (common truth) among respondents ^[9].

Table 1.

 A questionnaire to identify the attitude of students to the organizational culture of the university

Grouped together, these response patterns indicate the values of the subcultures present in the participant group. 

When asked about students' knowledge of the level of artifacts of the university's organizational culture, 85.4% of respondents gave a positive answer and only 14.6% - a negative one. 54.8% of the respondents know and share the values of the university well, and 45.2% do not know. 70.7% of respondents are proud to be students and actively participate in university activities, compared to 29.3%.

Our results showed the presence of two student subcultures: student subculture - 1 (with the least knowledge about the organizational culture of their university) and student subculture – 2 (with high levels of knowledge in the field of organizational culture of the university). These two subcultures show differences on several points, which focus on the student experience and, in particular, on a sense of connection or belonging to the university. Members of the first subculture seem disconnected from both their peers and the university. They mostly work alone and do not try to gain access to the university environment, they are simply not interested in what the university "breathes", and they do not seek to know its organizational culture. Members of the second subculture, on the contrary, are very actively integrating into the university space and want to become a part of it. Such students are well versed in the artifacts of their university, know the traditions of the university and take part in all university activities.

Understanding the student community as a unique socio-cultural system existing in a society with a pronounced value orientation, the development of student subcultures is the result of the interaction of this value orientation with the one that the university broadcasts. Based on the concept that philologist M.A. Kropacheva gives in his work, "subculture can be understood as a system of values, attitudes, behaviors of any social group, which is an independent integral education within the framework of the dominant culture. It differs from the dominant culture in its views on life, behavior, and, most importantly, language" ^[5].

Institutional effectiveness is influenced by exogenous hidden variables, academic leadership, and faculty involvement in decision-making. All these components together influence students in their perception of the organizational and corporate culture of the university of which they are a part. The concept of "academic culture" is closely related to the concept of "student culture".The term "academic culture" refers to the attitudes, beliefs and values that students and teachers adhere to in relation to all aspects of their activities. It includes academic views (the main point of view of people on academic activity), academic spirit (thought and spiritual power of academic practices and actions), academic ethics (norms and rules of academic activity), academic environment (material environment), as well as the conditions and habitat of a person in a university.

Campus culture is a powerful source of socialization for students. Students are socialized through their perception of the norms of the educational institution, including the norms of their peers, and their usual participation in educational and social events. Understanding the impact within the university climate is never an easy matter, because the culture even within one educational institution is heterogeneous and dynamic. Students encounter many cultural currents, some of which may conflict with each other. The difficulty is compounded by the fact that people pay attention to different things in their environment and may understand the same experience differently. For this reason, many aspects of the university's organizational culture will have different meanings and significance for different people. There are many ways in which universities can promote their mission and distinctive university culture that supports civic understanding and student participation. Many universities have notable physical features or a special location reflecting the mission and values of the institution. Repetitive rituals can convey important civic and patriotic sentiments. Some elements of the university's culture include strategies for socializing new students and faculty in the university community. Other elements of the organizational culture include strategies to draw attention to the university's special relationship with the local community of the region. Students must learn to value not only the rights but also the responsibilities of membership in the university community.

Another central value for higher education institutions is respect for people whose background, culture, or beliefs differ from their own. University culture can play an important role in supporting students' growing understanding of unfamiliar cultural traditions and in encouraging respect for differences, thereby preparing graduates for successful work in a diverse society and globally interdependent world. The climate within the university, in which these values are manifested, can help students better reflect on their cultural background, as well as develop a better understanding and respect for others.

conclusion

Organizational culture is a vital element of effective management practices at universities. Recently, researchers have been interested in studying the organizational concept to ensure effective management at universities. In addition, it is necessary to analyze the typologies of organizational culture in order to understand organizational behavior in higher education institutions.

As you know, culture is a complex structure, to understand which it is necessary to pay great attention to the multilevel and multifaceted complexity underlying this term. Recognizing that many and diverse cultural subgroups, such as organizational culture, form the foundation of the university opens up new opportunities for understanding the deeply social and discursive nature of higher education.

Summing up this small study among the students of Ulyanovsk State University, we can say that the interest in the organizational culture of the university, the desire to develop together with the university and be part of its history, is quite clearly seen in the emerging value portrait of students. This means that the mission, goals and strategic objectives of Ulyanovsk State University basically correspond to the dominant current type of culture. In this study, an attempt is made to identify the understanding of the organizational culture of the university among the student subculture and to identify the features of its formation among students of non-pedagogical fields (physics, mathematics). As a result of the conducted research, a generally positive attitude of students towards the university, knowledge of norms and rules, goals and mission, as well as elements of the corporate identity of the university was established.