Organizational Cultures of Vocational Schools and Enterprises in Russia, China and Iran as Perceived by Students and Teachers

Abstract

This study examines the problems of getting vocational students prepared to work for a modern innovative enterprise and ensure their organizational socialization within the changing technological paradigm. Research methodology was based on the organizational culture framework proposed by Kim S. Cameron and Robert E. Quinn. A survey was conducted to find out how vocational students and teachers in Russia, China and Iran perceived the organizational culture of vocational schools, businesses envisaged as the most probable employers, and businesses that had been the most effective under the existing conditions. Organizational structure of vocational schools was found to be related to the socioeconomic situation in the country. The most harmonious examples were observed in Chinese vocational schools, where students were convinced that they would be working for effective companies. Students and teachers in China are united in their assessments and want everything to stay as it is. In the long run, such attitudes may cause stagnation rather than development. Russian students believe that their vocational schools have a clan culture and would like to strengthen the clan quadrant at the expense of the hierarchical one. They tend to overestimate the innovative component and disregard it largely, being convinced that they will most probably work for an ineffective organization. Teachers see the hierarchical culture as dominant in the existing situation and want to weaken it along with a market culture and strengthen a clan-type culture instead as much as possible. Such attitudes will naturally result in a lower quality of human capital. Vocational teachers in Russia have a quite clear understanding of effective organizational cultures, yet they exert no relevant socializing influence on students and even agree with them on giving priority to clan values. In Iran, vocational students assess the culture of effective businesses more adequately than teachers, while the latter seek to preserve the unquestioned dominance of hierarchical values and minimize the innovative ones, which prevents prospective organizational socialization in vocational education. Limitations of the study are discussed, and approaches to developing organizational socialization programs are worked out.