Understanding the evolution and impact of international programs offices as organizational cultures in higher education for a sustainable, global future

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Wednesday V)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Higher education SIG roundtable 2

Proposal

Over the last 50 years, U.S. colleges and universities have established international programs offices to support international activities and provide strategic institutional commitment towards comprehensive internationalization of the institution. Understanding the organizational culture of the international office at its inception and how it has evolved over time provides internal and external stakeholders with a framework of how the organizational structure, missions/policies, connections with other institutional entities, and actors’ interpretations of these items impacts the internationalization of the university. It is important to examine the historical events that led to the formation of the office as well as its emerging role in serving as a centralized hub for international activities at the university in order to identify sustainable practices for faculty, staff, and students in the future. Burton Clark focused on colleges as cultures and organizational sagas as the tools for institutional identity (1972). Organizational sagas are helpful for institutions of higher education because they can be used as a competitive edge in the recruiting and retention of customers and personnel, use knowledge in bringing about organizational change, communicate about the institutional identity, and create bonds by providing stakeholders with values that govern what they do. Additionally, Tierney (1998) describes the importance of understanding how institutions are shaped by external and internal factors and how organizational culture derives from the actors’ interpretation and symbolic representation of the internal factors, which include values, processes, and goals. Tierney provides a framework of organizational culture which includes six components: environment, mission, socialization, information, strategy, and leadership. This session will discuss the use of Tierney’s framework in a qualitative case study of the evolution of the organizational culture of the University Office of Global Programs at Penn State University by examining the deeply embedded patterns of organizational behavior and the shared values, assumptions, beliefs, or ideologies that members have about the organization and its work. Kezar & Eckel (2002) provide additional insight into whether there appears to be a relationship between institutional culture and change, which is helpful in providing a theoretical lens regarding the organizational culture of the University Office of Global Programs and its impact on the internationalization of the university. Purposeful and snowball sampling strategies have been used to identify participants for the study. In addition to semi-structured interviews, this study uses triangulation as a qualitative method of using multiple data sources to test validity, such as document analysis through books, newspapers, office records, and Special Collections documents (Patton, 1999). Although there is significant literature available about organizational cultures in higher education, very little research exists about the organizational culture of international programs offices. This session is applicable to comparative researchers, policymakers, and practitioners in higher education. While this study focuses on the organizational culture at a large, public, land-grant institution, the theoretical framework and methodology can be duplicated in multiple contexts.

Author

• Jana Clinton, Penn State University