Organizational Culture and Community College Performance: An Analysis of Washington State's Community and Technical Colleges

• In Event: Organizational Theory Voices and Narratives

Abstract

The present study examined the relationship between organizational culture and community college performance by analyzing input-adjusted completion rates and data collected from a scenario-based survey administered at 27 community colleges in Washington State. Student-level records (n=28,499) were used to construct multi-level models to account for the effects of student and institution-level characteristics that contribute to variation in performance. Each college’s adjusted completion rate was examined alongside institutional indicators of culture type, culture strength, and cultural congruence. Results indicate that colleges with incongruent cultures outperformed colleges with congruent cultures, while inferential analyses suggest a negative relationship between the relative strength of a college’s organizational culture and its performance and a positive relationship between a college’s market culture-type orientation and its performance.

Author

• Darren Greeno, Skagit Valley College