Continuing to reflect on the conversations surrounding my (Christa Sathish) recent Edward Elgar Publishing 40^thanniversary podcast on the relationships between academic journeys and the cultures we collectively create within our institutions.

In my previous post, “There is No Single Way to Build an Academic Life,” I reflected on the need to embrace the diverse journeys that bring us into academia. One idea that emerged from that reflection was that our academic lives are shaped not only by our individual choices but also by the people and communities we encounter along the way. Looking back on my own journey, I realize that many of the moments that changed the direction of my career were not created by formal institutional processes. They emerged through conversations, encouragement, mentorship, collaboration, and countless everyday interactions that helped me believe I belonged. As I continued reflecting on these experiences, another question gradually emerged. If your academic careers are so profoundly shaped by relationships, might the same also be true of organizational culture? This question has become increasingly central to my thinking and has shaped the way I approach Positive Academia.

One of the foundational ideas underpinning Positive Academia is that organizational culture is not something we simply inherit from our institutions; it is something we continuously co-create. This perspective does not ignore the structural challenges of our institutions, nor does it suggest that goodwill alone can resolve them. Instead, it recognizes that meaningful organizational change requires both institutional commitment and everyday human (inter)action. Structures matter because they create possibilities, but relationships determine how those possibilities are experienced. Every interaction, therefore, becomes more than an isolated moment. It becomes an opportunity to enact values we wish to see reflected in our academic communities. Becoming a culture-maker is therefore not about taking on another responsibility in an already demanding profession. It begins with recognizing that we already contribute to organizational culture every day through the ways we treat others, supervise, collaborate, teach, and, importantly, care for one another. By this, I mean not a care that creates dependency but a care that enables flourishing independently. The question is not whether we influence academic culture, but what kind of culture our everyday actions help to create.

As I continue reflecting on this question, I realize that much of our conversations about organizational culture begins from an understandable assumption: if organizational problems exist, organizations themselves must solve them. Consequently, universities develop strategies, introduce new policies, redesign promotion frameworks, and launch initiatives intended to improve academic life. I strongly believe these efforts matter because structures shape opportunities, distribute resources, and influence the conditions under which we work. However, I have also become increasingly aware that structural change alone rarely transforms how organizations actually feel. Universities with similar policies, missions, and visions can foster entirely different experiences of collegiality, trust, and belonging. This observation encourages me to think about organizational culture less as something that institutions possess and more as something people continuously cultivate together. I deliberately use the word ‘cultivate’ and not ‘enact’ because cultures are not ‘measurable achievements,’ they are interdependent accomplishments that change over time. Policies undoubtedly establish the framework within which we work, but they acquire meaning only through the relationships and interactions that bring them to life. Organizational culture, therefore, cannot be understood solely by examining and more so measuring the performance of institutional ‘structures’; it must also be understood through our everyday little actions that shape how those structures are experienced and lived.

This shift in perspective has significantly influenced how I think about Positive Academia. Our work has never been about suggesting that small individual actions alone can ‘resolve’ the systemic challenges in academia. Such a position would overlook the realities of unequal power relations, excessive workloads, precarious employment, and the many structural pressures that affect academic life. Instead, Positive Academia begins from a different standpoint. Enduring organizational change requires both institutional commitment and individual and collective human (inter)action. Structures create possibilities, yet relationships determine whether those possibilities become lived realities. It is through our interactions that organizational values become visible, trust and care are established, and communities begin to flourish. Instead of positioning institutional reform and everyday (micro)practices as competing approaches, I see them as fundamentally interconnected. One without the other is unlikely to achieve the kind of enduring cultural transformation many of us hope to see within our universities.

Throughout my career, whether in multinational organizations or academia, I have remained convinced that organizational culture is ultimately about people. This belief has shaped both my professional practice and the development of a more positive academia. My vision has never been to create an academia that is inherently happier or a more comfortable place to work. Nor do I believe that cultivating cultures of care means avoiding challenges, disagreements, or intellectual rigor. Quite the opposite. I believe that care provides the conditions in which our scholarship can flourish. When people feel respected, trusted, and valued, they are more willing to question assumptions, engage in difficult conversations, collaborate across disciplinary and institutional boundaries, and pursue innovative ideas. Care, therefore, is not an optional addition to our organizational lives or a personal quality demonstrated by a few ‘compassionate’ individuals. It is a way of thinking about how we organize academic communities so that people and scholarship flourish together.

This understanding has fundamentally shaped how I think about organizational change. Too often, care is positioned as separate from organizational performance, as though universities must choose between creating supportive environments and achieving excellence. I have never accepted this as an inevitable trade-off. Instead, I see cultures of care as creating the relational foundations upon which enduring accomplishments depend. They encourage trust rather than fear, collaboration rather than unnecessary hyper-competitiveness, and learning rather than defensiveness. They create environments where people feel sufficiently safe to ask questions, challenge thinking, and contribute fully, and where they also have the freedom to be themselves and belong to an academic community. From this perspective, organizational change is about creating conditions in which we can flourish individually and collectively while constructing knowledge that helps solve societal challenges. For me, this is the aspiration at the heart of a more positive academia and continues to shape my understanding of what meaningful cultural transformation might look like.

If we accept that organizational culture is created collectively and that care creates the conditions for people and scholarship to flourish together, the obvious question is: where do we begin? For me, the answer has never been to search for a single transformative intervention capable of changing an entire institution overnight. Universities are complex organizations, shaped by histories, structures, relationships, and competing priorities. Meaningful organizational change is therefore unlikely to emerge from a single initiative or a new leadership program alone. Instead, I have become increasingly interested in the cumulative synergy of our small actions. These are not intended to replace institutional reform but to complement it. Every interaction becomes an opportunity to reinforce the values we hope will characterize our academic communities. The challenge, therefore, is to translate and enact that vision consistently in how we research, teach, supervise, collaborate, review, lead, and support one another.

 One of the practices that has become increasingly important in my work is learning to replace judgment with curiosity. Academia rightly values critical thinking. It encourages us to question assumptions, evaluate evidence, and engage in robust intellectual debates. Yet I have often reflected on how easily critical thinking can become critical behavior. In our busy academic environments, it is tempting to respond quickly, to defend our own perspectives, or to identify weaknesses before we have fully understood another person’s thinking. Increasingly, I have tried to approach these moments differently. Before responding, I ask myself what I might still have to learn, especially from difficult experiences and challenges. What assumption am I making? How might asking another question deepen rather than close a conversation? Curiosity does not weaken academic rigor. On the contrary, it strengthens our scholarship by creating the mental conditions in which ideas can be explored, challenged, and refined without diminishing the people who express them.

 A second practice concerns generosity. Throughout my career, both within and beyond academia, I have been fortunate to encounter friends and colleagues who quietly transformed my experience through acts that were neither dramatic nor formally recognized. They made introductions, shared opportunities, offered encouragement, and created space for collaboration without expecting anything in return. Looking back and ahead, I realize that these actions have not been merely expressions of personal kindness; they have also contributed to organizational culture. They demonstrate that knowledge grows through collaboration and that academic success need not be understood as a finite resource to be protected from challenges and unprecedented situations. This has encouraged me to think more intentionally about how I recognize others’ contributions. A thoughtful acknowledgment, an introduction between colleagues, a recommendation for an opportunity, or simply expressing gratitude for work that often remains invisible can reinforce a culture in which generosity becomes the norm rather than the exception. These actions may appear modest, yet when repeated consistently, they influence how communities understand what it means to belong and contribute.

Perhaps the practice that resonates most strongly with me is creating cultures of belonging. Universities often speak about inclusion, but belonging is something that people experience rather than something institutions can simply declare. It develops through repeated encounters in which individuals feel seen, heard, and valued for who they are and what they contribute. I have become increasingly convinced that belonging is not peripheral to academic excellence but one of its essential foundations. People are more willing to contribute ideas, ask difficult questions, take intellectual risks, and collaborate across boundaries when they believe that their presence genuinely matters. Creating such environments does not always require significant institutional resources. Often it begins with the ordinary moments that shape our academic lives—noticing who has not spoken during a meeting, welcoming a new colleague into an established community, taking time to understand a colleague or a student, or engaging with care during editorial and review processes. Such actions communicate a clear message: you belong, and you matter.

 As I reflect on these practices, I am reminded that none of them is particularly revolutionary. But perhaps that’s not the goal of this post. These practices do not require new organizational structures, substantial financial investment, or formal authority. What they require is intentionality. They require us to recognize that organizational culture is continually being created through everyday choices, and that those choices either reinforce the culture we currently have or contribute to the culture we hope to build. Positive Academia emerges when ordinary people consistently choose to enact and live the values they wish to see reflected in their academic communities. Change, therefore, is less about waiting for the perfect moment and more about recognizing the possibilities that already exist within the interactions we experience every day.

When I began reflecting on my academic journey, I did not anticipate that it would lead me to think so deeply about organizational culture. Yet the more I considered the people who have influenced my path, the more I realized they have been doing far more than supporting my individual development. Through their everyday actions, they have shown me another way of imagining academic life. They demonstrate that excellence and care are interrelated, that generosity strengthens rather than weakens scholarship, and that the quality of our relationships matters as much as the quality of our research. Those experiences continue to shape both my work and my hopes for the future of academia.

 There may never be a single way to change academic culture, just as there is no single way to build an academic life. Universities are complex communities, and meaningful organizational change will always require institutional leadership, structural reform, and collective commitment. However, I remain convinced that transformation also begins with the conversations we choose to have, the relationships we choose to nurture, and the values we choose to embody through our everyday work. Positive Academia has been teaching me that creating cultures of care is not about making academia less rigorous; it is about creating the conditions in which both people and scholarship can cultivate and flourish together and, over time, endure. Perhaps that is where meaningful organizational change has always begun—not through one grand intervention but through many people, acting together.