In aanpassing koersvast

Developments in the organisational culture of the Stichting Carmelcollege school foundation, 1922-2000.

This study describes and analyses the management of a single Roman Catholic educational organisation within the secondary education system in the Netherlands over a longer period of time, i.e. 1922-2000. This educational organisation – the Stichting Carmelcollege school foundation, based in Hengelo – was founded by Carmelite friars in 1922 and has been governed by a predominantly lay board since 1968. Starting out with two small secondary schools, the organisation had grown to 35,000 students by 2000, thereby becoming one of the largest denominational secondary school organisations in the Netherlands. This longitudinal study is historical in nature but touches on the disciplines of organisation theory and public administration. Through an archival record search and a literature review, it attempted to systematically delineate the changing organisational culture of the school foundation throughout the decades. The study sought to answer the following research question:How has the organisational culture of this foundation developed since its formation and how can later developments be understood in the light of a strongly changing context and new demands made on a school board?The central, theoretical concept here ('organisational culture') was used in the sense as defined by the American organisation expert E.H. Schein: a pattern of basic assumptions invented or developed by a given group to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration.‘Organisational culture' in this sense is a strongly value-laden concept, although values – with the exception of the most profound ones – are also subject to change. Such changes are due to shifting views, social developments and cultural relations over time, as well as their political translation into legislation. In four content areas, the cultural changes within the school foundation were so significant that the board had to continuously respond to them. These were: 1) the shape and form of the Catholic identity, before as well as during and after the period of secularisation; 2) the strong growth in student figures in preparatory higher and secondary education, leading to an expansion and later a restructure of the educational system; 3) changing influences of national government policy; and 4) the position and outlook on the task and role of the school board itself.For this historical study, E.H. Schein’s theory provided the idiom to describe the aspects of organisational culture in their coherence and dynamically analyse the school board’s actions in four content domains.

Dissertation: http://hdl.handle.net/11370/375c5354-25c9-4342-9a19-98425577def0