In the rapidly evolving landscape of higher education, institutions worldwide face multifaceted challenges, including globalization, digital transformation, changing student demographics, and heightened societal expectations. Against this backdrop, the interplay of organizational culture, work values, and organizational performance has emerged as a critical determinant of success for higher education institutions (HEIs). The international conference on "Organizational Culture, Work Values, and Organizational Performance in Higher Education Institutions" seeks to explore this intricate relationship and its potential to drive institutional excellence.
Organizational culture forms the cornerstone of any institution, defining its identity, norms, and shared values. In HEIs, culture influences not only operational efficiency but also academic excellence, research quality, and community engagement. A robust organizational culture fosters collaboration, adaptability, and innovation, enabling institutions to thrive amidst external pressures. Conversely, a fragmented or misaligned culture can hinder progress, amplify conflicts, and jeopardize long-term sustainability. Understanding and cultivating an inclusive, adaptable, and forward-looking culture is essential for HEIs aiming to remain competitive in an increasingly interconnected world.
Work values represent the principles and ethics that guide employees' attitudes, behaviors, and professional interactions. In higher education, faculty members, administrators, and support staff often bring diverse work values shaped by their unique experiences, backgrounds, and professional aspirations. These differences, when aligned with institutional goals, can create a harmonious and productive environment. However, misaligned work values can lead to dissatisfaction, decreased morale, and underperformance. Exploring strategies to align individual values with institutional culture is imperative for fostering a motivated and committed workforce capable of driving innovation and excellence.
Organizational performance in the context of HEIs encompasses a broad spectrum of indicators, from research output and teaching quality to financial health, student satisfaction, and societal impact. Traditional metrics of performance are increasingly complemented by measures of inclusivity, sustainability, and social responsibility. The dynamic interplay between culture and work values significantly influences these performance indicators. A strong alignment can enhance productivity, innovation, and stakeholder trust, whereas misalignment can undermine institutional effectiveness and reputation.
This conference aims to address the critical questions surrounding the alignment of culture, values, and performance in higher education. Through an interdisciplinary lens, it seeks to facilitate a global dialogue among academics, policymakers, administrators, and industry experts to explore strategies for integrating organizational culture and work values into institutional performance frameworks.
By addressing these themes, the conference seeks to contribute meaningfully to the global discourse on higher education's role in shaping a better future. It invites stakeholders to reimagine the foundations of excellence in higher education collaboratively, ensuring institutions remain resilient, relevant, and impactful in the years to come.
Authors are invited to submit original, previously unpublished research papers describing particular challenges or experiences or proposing novel solutions relevant to the scope of the conference. Papers must present original and unpublished work and should not be currently under review by any other conference or journal. Papers should be written in English and formatted according to the Springer Smart Innovation, Systems, and Technologies one-column page format. Papers must be 8-10 pages long in Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies format. For more detailed guidelines, please visit the official Springer Guidelines website.
Major tracks and sub-themes, included but not limited to, are as follows:
Day 1:
Organizational Culture: Societal imperatives, institutional vision and organizational mission<
Subthemes include the Pursuit of Excellence in Higher Education Institutions, Relevance of Organizational Culture, Synergy of and Intersection Between Culture, Values, and Performance; Building Inclusive Cultures in Multicultural Academic Communities with a focus on Balancing Tradition and Innovation in Organizational Culture; The Role of Governance and Policy in Shaping Organizational Culture; and Impact of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning on Higher Education.
Subthemes include evolving Work Values in Academe, The Role of Academic Freedom in Shaping Work Values; Motivating Students, Faculty, and Staff towards advancing humanity by facilitating aligning personal values and goals with institutional goals; Importance of ethics, integrity, and work values in a digital academic world while pursuing institutional excellence; Contextualizing success while attending to interdisciplinary collaboration in organizational performance; Presenting of case studies of exemplar higher education institutions that facilitate or inhibit transformational changes; Juxtaposing of institutional financial sustainability while Upholding Institutional Values.
Subthemes include a vision for excellence in higher education with a focus on global trends in shaping higher Education that provides opportunities and challenges; the Role of higher echelon leadership and organizational culture that guide institutional success with a focus on actualizing goals in the strategic plan; Recruitment and Retention of Top Talents that is consistent with institutional goals; the importance of consensus building and addressing diverging views; mobilizing individual resilience towards the building of resilient academic Institutions while attending to conflict resolution; Navigating Change in the context of the impact of globalized higher education; Leadership and succession planning: while keeping Institutional Identity enter of it all.
The International Conference on Organisational Culture, Work Values, and Organisational Performance in Higher Education Institutions (ICOC'25) invites original research contributions from various fields, as outlined in the listed topics. We encourage you to articulate the context of your research clearly. Please make sure to submit your abstracts by the final deadline, as submissions will only be accepted on this date. While you won't be able to submit new papers after the deadline, you will still have the chance to make changes to any papers you have already submitted.
Authors of select papers presented at the conference will be offered an opportunity to modify their paper for publication as a chapter in a forthcoming edited book to be published by a Scopus-indexed publisher. The authors will be provided clear guidelines as to how their manuscripts should be formatted for them to be included as a chapter.
All submissions must be made electronically through Microsoft's CMT platform. Authors are advised not to submit any abstracts directly via email. By submitting your abstract, you agree to comply with the policies set forth by ICOC'25. It is the responsibility of the primary author to ensure that the details of all contributors (including co-authors) are added to the CMT portal, allowing for essential updates to be communicated to everyone involved. During the submission process, the corresponding author is required to select at least one primary area that corresponds to their paper. Once your paper is submitted, you will receive a unique paper ID. Please keep this ID handy and refer to it in any future correspondence.
Articles with original and or novel research contributions on the theme of the conference should be submitted to ICOC'25. We do not encourage authors to submit Review articles to ICOC'25.
The default language style at ICOC'25 is standard English only. Authors should submit manuscripts in English language only.
The review process of the conference will be strictly confidential. The practice of keeping all information confidential during the review is part of the standard communication at ICOC'25. Misuse of confidential information is a severe professional failure, and appropriate measures will be taken when brought to the attention of the Conference Organizers. It should be noted that the Conference Organizers will not be responsible for the consequences when reviewers break confidentiality.
The manuscript selection will undergo a two-stage review process. First, a scientific committee made up of experts in management, economics, industrial/organizational psychology, and behavioral sciences will evaluate the manuscript's relevance to the conference. If the manuscript is deemed suitable, it will then proceed to the second stage, which features a double-blind review conducted by two independent reviewers. These reviewers will generate reports, and their scores will be averaged to decide if the manuscript qualifies for publication. If there's a significant difference in their scores, the scientific committee will seek a third review to reach a final decision. The final decision of the scientific committee will be informed to the authors, and those selected authors will be asked to submit the full paper for oral presentation or poster presentation during the conference. Those authors then will be asked to revise the manuscript based on the comments received during the conference. The authors will be then provided clear guidelines as to how their manuscripts should be formatted and will then be asked for their consent for them to be included as a chapter in the book.
ICOC' 25 respects Intellectual Property Rights. Plagiarism consists of the wrong appropriation of someone's content, thoughts, and ideas by representing one's original work. This type of violation of ethical principles will not be entertained by the conference at any cost. It should be noted that papers having more than 18% similarity will not be processed, hence they will be summarily rejected. For a single source, the similarity index should not be greater than 2%.
The goals of our conference are to publish exciting new work for the first time and to avoid duplicating the efforts of reviewers. By submitting a manuscript to the conference, the authors acknowledge that it has not been previously published or accepted for publication in substantially similar form in any peer-reviewed venue. Violation of any of these conditions will lead to rejection and will be reported to the other venue to which the submission was sent. Any submission to the conference should not overlap with prior publications or other concurrent submissions. If you need to cite a different paper of yours that is being submitted concurrently to the conference, the authors should cite these papers, argue in the body of your paper why your paper is non-trivially different from these concurrent submissions, and include those papers in the supplemental material. Authors are encouraged to contact the Program Chairs for any clarifications.
The authors agree that if the paper is accepted, at least one of the authors will register for the conference and present the paper there. Acceptance of a paper does not claim for final publication. Only presented papers will be forwarded and considered for publication. Presenters will be provided a certificate of paper presentation.
All presented papers will be submitted for publication to our publication partner (preferably in SCOPUS-indexed proceedings). Before final publication, the publication partner may send the proofs to the corresponding author. Make sure the email id of the corresponding author is correctly mentioned in the manuscript. Keep visiting the conference website for more updates regarding publication details.
