Research Group for Political and Organisational Culture
Introduction
Organisational and political culture as part of the diagnostics of organisations was a significant fashion in the last third of the 20th century but interest in organisational culture grew only in the years following the change of the system in Hungary. The beginnings of research by the Workshop can be dated to that period and Geert Hofstede’s researches can be regarded as its professional antecedents. Researches in progress in the Workshop extend over the interrelationships between culture, the authority and conflicts, over the typology of organisational culture, over the special issues of client and contacts culture, further on over the profile of organisational culture and the analysis of the functions of culture.
Theoretical and field work is also conducted in the Workshop and efforts are made to publicise its results as well as to forward them to decision-makers at various levels, so that analyses based on research of scientific calibre may also become part of the decision-making process besides the draft decisions.
The series of research studying the social and cultural interrelationships of the reform efforts in state organisation, initiated by the government, were started in the Research Group in 2006. Among others the emergence and operation of the governmental structure after the change of the system was studied from the angle of political and social sciences, as well as reflections of the press on those efforts, and the social, political and cultural problems related to the transformation of the background institutions of ministries were analysed within the framework of the sociology of organisations. Empirical studies were also made in the Ministries of Education and Culture, of the Environment and Water as well as in their respective background institutions.
During the course of the empirical fieldwork a survey by questionnaire was also done, by which we wished to obtain a picture of how employees of the ministries and their background institutions assessed the reform efforts of the state organisation launched by a governmental decision in the year 2006.
The results of the series of research a continuation of which is planned are summarised in a book entitled “State Reform, Public Administration, and Background Institutions” (ed.: Tamás Rozgonyi, authors: Béla Benyó, Gábor Budai, László Hegedűs, István Jávor, Tibor Papházi, Gábor Török L., János Vadász) will be published by Gondolat Publishing House in late August 2008.
Comparative studies of organisational culture have been in progress in the Group for years. The first ‘settlers’ of the comparative studies of culture at first chose the nation state as a unit of analysis. In addition to acknowledging the importance of national differences demographic as well as professional factors as potential sources of cultural differences have obtained increasing attention. The venue of these differences is the organisation; hence shifting from the national level to the scene of organisational as well as sub-cultures has become necessary in comparative studies of culture.
We have conducted and continue to do research in this context in a branch of century-old traditions, in the organisational system of water management with the aim of outlining the various cultural boundaries (region, profession, hierarchy), and to explore the relevant sub-cultures. Results so far obtained have been summarised and published (Rozgonyi, T. – Varga, K.: Organisational culture as a predictive factor in organisations of various types. Research report; Rozgonyi, T.–Toarniczky, A.: Organisational culture as exemplified by the Hungarian directorates of water management. Társadalomkutatás, 25 (2007) l, 21–43.
Head of Research Group
Rozgonyi, Tamás, C.Sc.