Academic and Corporate Cultures in Modern University (A Case Study of Armenia and Belarus)

Abstract

Any reforms of modern education in the context of the Bologna principles somehow connected with the fundamental academic values and freedoms that guarantee institutional autonomy and social integrity of the universities. At the same time, post-soviet transformations of the higher education systems (HESs) often assume the introduction of the market-oriented approaches to meet the economic challenges that may contradict the traditional academic culture. On the basis of research data gleaned mainly from expert interviews in framework of case study in Armenia and Belarus, the authors analyze the ongoing transformations in HES with a focus on the features of implementation of academic freedoms in the context of existing contradiction between the new tendencies in higher education (market-oriented values, the entrepreneurial university model) and its classical humanistic model oriented to academic values, as well as to assess a possibility of coexisting academic and market cultures within the university.  The authors reveal the contradictory attitudes to assessment of the level of implementation of academic freedoms and to the possibility of combining academic freedoms with corporate culture in mentioned countries. Moreover, HESs needs the radical changes that would not destroy its fundamental culture and help to adjust universities to the global challenges.