Genome of the university

The paper proposed is of a conceptual nature. The problems connected with transformation of the universities are nowadays widely discussed. One of those problems is the problem of the university governance, management and leadership. There is an opinion that universities must be run in a way similar to the one which is used by big industrial companies. This opinion finds its realization to the great extent in the actions of the Russian governmental bodies responsible for the higher education. This article looks into the system fundamentals of the university as well as resulting university management principles. It is proposed in the article to extend the well known metaphorical approach to organization by using not only the notion of life cycle but also the notion of the genome. The organizational culture is being suggested to be treated as a genome of an organization. The basic values (genes) of the organizational culture for universities and commercial enterprises are analyzed and compared. It is shown that these values differ greatly and that unlimited and uncontrolled introduction of the genes of commercial enterprise into university genome can lead to the grave illness or even the death of a university Analysis demonstrates that organizational culture is the most important element of a university. Hence, the organizational and managerial experiments at a university influencing its' culture have to be implemented with great caution as the values of a university are translated to its graduates eventually defining the values of the society in general. Approach suggested in the article has limitations which are common for any metaphorical approach. Besides that it is possible in this context to highlight two additional dangers of this approach. On the one hand, concentration on creativity requires special attention to the proper identification of organizational mission and values that would take into consideration its' real environment. A wrong identification may lead to creating a product highly estimated by a professional community, but not demanded by the market. The second trap is that when specific university personnel is not managed properly, it can lead to machinations, squabbles, quarrels and dishonest competition. It can seriously confuse the activity of a university. A new approach to the analysis of the university activity is suggested in the article. Though the proposed metaphor, as any other metaphor, does not provide university leadership with direct prescriptions on how to run their organization, it impels them to rethink the ways in which the university is advancing in terms of exercising non-traditional methods of governance, leadership and management and reappraisal of the role of organizational culture in these processes.