"Spirit of informatsionalizm" - the responseof the university corporate culture to the challenges of the modernity

The article belongs to a conceptual type. It uses theoretical hypotheses and suggestions to clarify the development of functional aim and content of modern university corporate culture. The aim is to answer the question about the causes of tension between academic culture and corporate culture once we review dual cultural basis of the modern university combining traditional academic and corporate cultures. Do their different vectors and disagreements threaten to turn university into economic corporation? The main research method is comparison which suggests the need to see the content of corporate cultures of classical and modern universities in comparative analysis. The aim of modern university corporate culture is to improve its competitiveness because it needs to answer pragmatic requirements of modern situation. From the point of view of discourse it is found in corporate lexics, which frequently uses such words as «commerce», «product - price relations», «educational service», «academic capitalism», etc. This brings imbalance to classical cultural basis of the university which has traditionally been oriented towards spiritual service to high ideals preferring theoretic fundamental knowledge. Fragility of academic culture shows itself in appearing (under the influence of corporate culture) danger of shifting university development towards its transformation into economic corporation. At the same time corporate culture potential is not limited to its commercial and economic characteristics and present day reality challenges university not only with pragmatic issues. In its attempt to survive and remain humane network world with its tendency towards impersonal nature, disconnection and alienation has claimed professional and personal identity with such characteristics as interaction, trust and cooperation. That is what modern philosophers, sociologists and psychologist mean when giving discourse description of such culture in «patchwork» construction (M. Castels). Because of its: «patchwork» nature the culture requires “lubricant”, “super - glue”, trust (F. Foukoyama) and «mutual understanding» (K. Gergen) and, as M. Castels says «informationalism spirit». All this is intrinsic to corporate culture the managerial function of which is to organize university life according to relevant challenges. The reason why such a great attention is paid to university corporate culture nowadays in its market discourse understanding is that modern society which dynamically spreads pragmatic and mercantile approach to all spheres of life has transferred education (including university education) to the same language. The novelty of the article is in identifying humanitarian content of the modern university corporate culture and its justification as a potential for complementary connection of university modernization processes of economic type and traditional classic component. Conclusion can be interesting for university education managerial structure. The answer of the modern university to the question presented in the article title is initiated by creation of its new cultural basis which has dual nature. On the one hand traditionally high academic culture supports classical «university idea» [1] of selfless service and remains a characteristic feature of university education, bringing in “an invisible element” of spiritual life [2] - unique humanitarian spirit. On the other hand modern sociocultural challenges dictate the need for the second component of university cultural basis: corporate culture orienting it towards economic, material and pragmatic interests. Contradictions between cultural basis components creates tension which underpins transformations typical of modern university and leads to questions concerning its future. Will university remain as it is or turn into economic corporation producing specialists necessary for different spheres of social reality created because of public labor division? This question is widely discussed nowadays and the answers usually sound like «this or that». Yet we would like to shift our discussion to the level of actual content of this notion which gave rise to this discrepancy and brought tension to university cultural foundations. Otherwise we will have to ask the question about what corporate culture is and if it really is so opposed to traditional classic that there is a threat of university transformation. Are the elements of university cultural basis really so opposing and divergent?