The Effect of Market-Oriented Subcultures on Post-Merger Higher Education Institutions

Over the last decade, HEIs (higher education institutions) around the world have undergone transformation for a number of reasons, including mergers and acquisitions. The reasons for this vary from remaining competitive in an ever-increasingly competitive academic environment to being forced to do so. With deeply ingrained traditions, long tenures and substantial professional autonomy on the one hand and fragmentation, subcultures and a sense of territory and boundary on the other, the consequences of merging such cultures are significant. The BBS (Budapest Business School) has had to deal with this merging of cultures and subcultures whilst at the same time deal with a greater market-orientation as it strives to move further away from the budget-commanded regime towards a market-oriented operation. To investigate the make-up of the organisational culture of the BBS and consider its orientation, a multi-method approach was considered using the Competing Values Framework for quantitative analysis and cognitive mapping with focus groups and one-to-one interviews for a qualitative analysis. Potential difficulties are considered within this context. (Contains 2 tables, 5 figures, and 2 footnotes.)