Academic culture in higher education: a systemic organizational theory analysis

This literature review analyzes academic culture in higher education through an open-systems perspective, drawing on organizational theory and scholarship specific to colleges and universities. It argues that academic culture is composed of three interrelated dimensions: the formal curriculum (official academic programs), the co-curriculum (extracurricular activities and student engagement), and the hidden curriculum (implicit norms and values). By integrating foundational works by Hoy and Miskel (2008), Scott (2003), Weick (1976), and Tierney (1988), it demonstrates how higher education institutions continuously interact with their environments, adapting to external pressures such as accreditation demands, labor market needs, and societal expectations. Within these open systems, both formal structures (e.g., governance, policies) and informal social dynamics (e.g., faculty-student relationships, campus traditions) shape the institution’s cultural ecosystem. The co-curriculum emerges as a vital space for student leadership, socialization, and experiential learning, while the hidden curriculum addresses often-unspoken lessons about power, inequality, and belonging. Synthesizing examples from Latin American contexts (Arocena; Sutz, 2005; Rhoads; Torres, 2006) further illustrates the global relevance of these processes, showing that academic culture cannot be divorced from its historical and political milieu. The review concludes that a holistic understanding of academic culture requires examining all three curricular dimensions and their continual interplay.