Abstract
This article explores the qualities of organizational culture that can make academic departments more enabling rather than constraining. Drawing on a sabbatical experience with W.L. Gore & Associates, the discussion contrasts corporate practices with academic structures. Gore’s culture emphasized freedom, fairness, commitment, and open communication, supported by a lattice-style structure and sponsorship instead of hierarchical management. From this model, six principles of empowering organizations are identified: distributing power and opportunity, maintaining open communication, using integrative problem-solving, encouraging challenge within trust, fostering self-responsibility, and learning from organizational contradictions. The article applies these principles to higher education, offering questions for administrators to assess whether their departments empower or inhibit faculty. It concludes that academic departments can improve resilience and effectiveness by cultivating enabling cultures that balance accountability, collaboration, and trust.
Recommended Citation
Pacanowsky, Michael
(1987)
"Organizational Qualities of Academic Departments,"
Association for Communication Administration Bulletin: Vol. 61, Article 2.
Available at:
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/aca/vol61/iss1/2
