Comparing institutional relationships with academic departments: A study of five academic fields

Any effort to understand academic departments would be facilitated by a better understanding of its relationship between its two larger spheres: the institution and the discipline. This study particularly asks: How do the relationships between institutional culture and the culture of the academic department vary by disciplinary field Using discriminant analyses, this study compares five disciplinary fields (i.e., Biology, Business, Education, English, and Political Science) across varying aspects of culture (i.e., Instrumental Orientation, Affective/Multicultural Orientation, Interpersonal Orientation, and Reputation Orientation, etc.). Correlation analyses then reveal the extent to which these same aspects of culture for the institution are associated with the departmental culture for each of the five fields.