ABSTRACT
The central purpose of my research was to determine how for-profit subsidiaries, which were established to deliver online education, were governed in relation to their nonprofit university parents. Because many of the key concerns about for-profit subsidiaries in higher education center on values and beliefs, I used organizational culture as the theoretical lens to view the subsidiaries. I wanted to determine why each parent institution created a for-profit subsidiary, how the governance of these companies occurred in practice, and how the governance structures and processes of the subsidiary reflected or diverged from the culture and values of the nonprofit parent. Finally, I sought to explore and determine the effects of congruence or divergence between the parent and the subsidiary.
