Organizational culturein private higher education: a case study of a new private universityin post-soviet azerbauan

VIII. CONCLUSIONS
Khazar University has created a distinctive organizational culture that is composed of different elements. Essentially, it is an amalgam of local norms and traditions, implemented by an instimtional entrepreneur, and infused and supported with selective innovations and ideas coming from Westem partners. It is an organization that integrates its history, its values, and its institutional practices into a distinctive culmre that individuals have committed to preserving and perpemating. It's characteristics are improvisational, familial, and evolving, characterized by authoritarian, top-down goveming principles and some democratic, participatory govemance mechanisms. The ideology of Khazar constitutes an unfolding organizational saga that is promoting coherence and meaning to its

members and its leadership. The relatively small size of the institution, the strong top-down leadership of the chancellor, and its unique social-cultural context constrains and shapes the formation its organizational culture.

In many ways, Khazar University is a family owned business. Although universities are typically not considered family businesses, Khazar shares many of the characteristics of a family firm. Rosenblatt and de Mik (1985) define a family-run firm as "any business in which majority ownership or control lies within a single family and in which two or more family members are or, at some time, were directly involved in the business..." (p. 4-5). In Khazar's case, ownership of the university is within family of the chancellor and founder. He and other family members play central roles in managing the business of the university and promoting its growth and expansion. From a business point of view, the founder has developed a unique market niche for his institution by aligning the culture of the organization with the English language and westem academic ideals. This strategy has not only attracted students interested in a westem education, but has also brought his institution a variety of extemal resources that have facilitated the survival of the institution during a turbulent period of social and economic transition.

The longevity of the institution is tied directly to the leadership the founder. Almost single-handedly, he has established Khazar University and nurtured it in a hostile and unstable environment. He is responsible for the institution's creation and his presence and leadership are the only present guarantee that university has a possibility of continuing in the form it presently exists because of his oversight of every aspect of the institution's business. An obvious question that emerges in light of the centrality of the founder's role and leadership is how long can this instimtion be sustained? Organizational specialists who have studied family owned firms describe the life cycles of family businesses and the precariousness of their existence as they progress through each of their various stages towards maturity (Dyer 1986; Gersick, Kelin, et al. 1997). In Khazar's case, as a start-up institution (at the time of this writing, for six years), it is far from being a firmly established and stable institution. It's organizational