Abstract:

The internal and external environmental factors of a university influence its strategies, activity and reputation. Any university promotes the values of the society for which it trains specialists. We believe that this statement includes part of the mission of any university, from the perspective that a university is essentially an organization. The present paper brings to the fore how the values of the environment in which the university operates can influence its organizational culture. Some influences are desired by representatives of the academic environment and even by representatives of the business environment, because these influences enhance the performance of graduates in the fields in which they will work. But values that have supported the evolution of humanity for thousands of years are sometimes randomly absorbed into the academic environment and can disrupt the evolution of academic processes, the results and reputation of the university. Firstly, the paper reviews the main values from the components of the organizational environment that can influence the culture of a university. Secondly, a synthesis of the results obtained by observing the participation or absence in the didactic activities supported by the author of the paper of students from the last year of studies at an engineering faculty is presented. This synthesis also includes the reasons cited by students regarding their absences from some activities and regular participation in others. Third, I conducted group interviews with the students in the class, and the results were analyzed using the problem tree method, with the help of the students. Some interviews indicated how professors impose their personal values on student groups and educational processes, creating suspicion in students' minds about these values and those of the university. Unfortunately, other discussions have shown that protecting individual values only for some, regardless of whether they are students or teachers, turns these values into interests that harm others. Indisputably, major global events, such as wars or the COVID-19 pandemic, change our perception of individual, group and organizational values. But, on the other hand, these events make us wiser and braver in the moments when we are asked to discern if a value is used in the academic environment for the benefit of students or to their detriment.

Keywords:

Value, organizational, culture, university.