Faculty subcultures in engineering and their implications for organizational change

Abstract Background Prior efforts to understand faculty culture have largely described monoliths where individuals are differentiated by their productivity. Little prior work provides rich faculty subcultural descriptions and their connections to specific activities, including disposition to change. Purpose/Hypothesis This article describes the goals, assumptions, methods, and inferences made about faculty culture within an engineering department at a large university with very high research activity, with the potential to enrich future discussions about change among the target audience of engineering faculty, administrators, and researchers. Design/Method We employ cultural consensus theory (CCT) to characterize faculty culture, based upon a detailed survey, analysis, and member checking. We use the academic ratchet—as a theoretical framework to interpret CCT results, and extend our understanding using previously published change theories. Results We discovered two faculty subcultures of roughly equal membership: (a) change‐oriented and (b) continuity‐embracing. Members of each subculture agree on the primacy of research but differ in their views of change, leadership, and trust. Members of the change‐oriented subculture seek large‐scale changes but feel disempowered to pursue them, while members of the continuity‐embracing subculture seek modest changes and feel empowered to enact them. Conclusions We introduce a scalable, person‐centered culture characterization approach (CCT) to the engineering education research community. This approach deepens our understanding of faculty culture, and our results reinforce the central role of the academic ratchet in shaping faculty activities. This analysis illustrates the potential roles of each subculture in enacting change of various types and magnitudes.