Academic and Corporate Cultures Contrasted

SUMMARY

The purpose of this article is to acquaint employee assistance professionals with some of the cultural differences between academic institutions and corporate employers. The authors will describe how these differences affect the provision of employee assistance services. Four key differences are identified. The first is exemplified in the respective mission statements adopted by academic institutions and business corporations. A second difference is that educational institutions are far more accepting of diversity of thought and more likely to respond to or investigate complaints. In contrast, corporate culture often dictates that the hierarchy not be challenged. The third is in the area of decision making. In academic settings decision making is most often done by a committee consensus process. Consequently, it is very slow. In a corporate setting decisions are made by a few key people. As a result, changes suggested by employee assistance practitioners are more likely to be more challenging to implement in academic settings than in corporations. The final difference between the two cultures is that a large segment of the academic work force is minimally supervised. Relative to corporate America, this segment is not held as accountable for its performance or conduct. Traditionally, employee assistance professionals advise supervisors to use “consequences” as tools to motivate behavior change. However, such advice is nearly meaningless when targeted to this quarter to a third of an academic institution's employee population. Some alternative motivational techniques are outlined.

Key Words:

• EAP
• academia
• academic culture
• corporate culture
• higher education