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Jump to: Importance | Foundational Works | Research Areas | TAOP Resources | References
Importance of Organizational Culture Research in Organization Studies
The study of organizational culture is about understanding “how things are done around here.” It includes most anything that addresses how members of the organization behave within the organizational setting or represent the organization to the outside world. Some authors have described organizational culture as the “personality” of an organization (as opposed to organizational climate that describe the organization’s “mood”).
The traditional framework used in the organizational culture discourse comes from Edgar Schein (1990) who describes it as three levels of: (1) artifacts, (2) beliefs, norms, and values and (3) underlying assumptions. These manifest into the words and actions that are accepted or rejected among a collective, but while the artifacts are easy to change, the underlying assumptions — those embedded beliefs that are difficult to observe and describe — are not. This may mean that changing the artifacts, such as removing or replacing a symbol or custom in the organization, may have little effect if the embedded beliefs are not modified in kind. One certainly has seen cases where changing out the company logo or the systems used for budgeting and reimbursing business travel was supposed to indicate a change in direction for the company. However, should the members of the organization maintain their attitudes and beliefs about who the organization is and what it rewards, and so on, the changes may have little effect.
Thus, for practical purposes, organizational culture change is a significant topic for managers. “Culture” may be treated as an umbrella term that represents a wide range of intangibles — often therefore conflated with organizational climate, organizational identity, and organizational communication in practical settings. Thus, rising scholars in the field would do well to clarify the specific subject of interest. A common trope is to view organizational culture as the personality of the organization, whereas the climate is a measure of its mood, the identity is its self-concept, and its communication is a reflection of the organization’s capacity for change. This paradigm is inspired by one of the earlier theories that integrated the human element into organization studies — sociotechnical systems, which we covered in Episodes 34 and 114.
Managers and scholars alike are very interested in what enhances or detracts from organizational performance, member commitment to the organization, and responses or resistance to transformational change. In the former, we have discussed many classic studies that uncovered the complexities of interpersonal dynamics and how they enabled or confounded managerial attempts at improving efficiency in industrial settings such as the Hawthorne Studies (Episodes 9 and 109). The Hawthorne Effect, as it became to be known, captured the idea that just the act of paying attention to the workers’ context can influence performance. But there can also be a dark side to culture as exhibited in our episodes of corporate culturism and managerial control (Episodes 30 and 49, among others). Imposing artifacts and norms on the members might lead to changes in underlying beliefs, however this can also lead to counterproductive or even destructive norms that are harmful to members or the company.
Researchers from numerous fields — anthropology, sociology, psychology, and management — have collaborated and studied organizational culture using virtually every methodology available, qualitative and quantitative. Scholars have tried to develop frameworks and tools for measuring culture and translating those measurements into predictions and trends in member behaviors and overall organizational performance and commitment. Others have preferred to capture rich descriptions of organizational phenomena and analyze the lived experiences of members in hopes of eradicating barriers or disincentives to performance. No matter which angle you might choose, there is plenty of work to be done in the vast field of organizational culture studies.
Some Foundational Works on Organizational Culture
The key word in the title is “some.” Organizational culture is such a diverse subfield that there is no summary list of so-called “foundational works” that avoids leaving someone’s favorite reading out. We offer the below in part to present some of the texts that we have covered in our program along with others that are perhaps high on our priority list for the future.
Edgar H. Schein – Organizational Culture and Leadership (1985, and several editions since)
Schein’s book is among the first books that organization culture scholars reach for. Schein’s work does an excellent job of breaking down the ways that “culture” works and how leaders shape it. His book begins with a great discussion about the problem of defining culture (2016: 3) in which sociologists, anthropologists, and others have presented “cultural elements” such as observed behaviors, climate, rituals, celebration, espoused values, philosophies, norms, rules, self-conceptions, habits, shared meanings, and symbols all contribute to a sense of what “culture” means in an organization. He then systematically organizes all these and other factors into a general three-layer framework of culture.
A frequently-used metaphor to describe this framework is of the iceberg — where the “artifacts” (culture’s visible manifestations) are the most visible but the smallest part. Norms, beliefs, and values are below the water line, conveying that they are perceptible but harder to change. Underlying assumptions are the main body of the iceberg well below the water’s surface and represents the deeply held beliefs among members and the organization as a whole that are difficult to perceive or change.
Gareth Morgan – Images of Organization (2006)
We covered this book in Episode 41. This lengthy volume synthesizes an incredible range of organization theories and concepts over the previous century and presents them under the umbrella of eight distinct metaphors. Each metaphor represents a different way of understanding the existence and dynamics of organizations, their members, and their interactions with the environment. They stem from distinct literature streams and management practice, and many will be familiar to our listeners — organizations as machines, organisms, political systems, and five others.
Geert Hofstede, et al. – Measuring Organizational Cultures: A Qualitative and Quantitative Study Across Twenty Cases (1990)
We examined this famous article in Episode 54. Fresh off a study that identified key factors for comparing national cultures, organizational psychologist Geert Hofstede and his team set off to determine whether similar constructs could be deduced for organizational cultures. Through surveys and interviews among members of twenty units within ten large organizations, Hofstede’s team proposed six distinct determinants of organizational culture that could be compared and contrasted across all organizations..
Gideon Kunda — Engineering culture: Control and commitment in a high-tech corporation (2006)
See Episode 49. Switching over to methodological considerations, Gideon Kunda’s “Engineering Culture” is an excellent example of studying organizational culture using ethnography (see Rack AF). “Tech,” the firm being studied, was a firm on the rise and saw itself as a leader and ground breaker in the rapidly growing high-tech industries of the 1980s. But as the firm grew from a modest couple hundred members in a single location to tens of thousands of employees and multiple sites, Tech undertook an effort to indoctrinate its members with its tried-and-true formula for success — hard work, sacrifice, and belief in the company. The degree to which this indoctrination occurred was extensive, from the choreographed leader messages, trained cultural experts and internal publications to the highly competitive and cut-throat nature of project work. Through the ethnographic approach that involved long-term immersion in the company, Kunda captured it all in gripping detail.
The centerpiece of Kunda’s thesis was Tech’s exercise of normative control. This was ironic in a way given how Tech’s professed culture valued self-determination and autonomy. But, the rewards and sanctions were constructed to enforce a particular form of autonomy, one in which Tech extracted the most out of its people while breaking their lives in the process. A great read on how to study a large organization’s culture.
Joanne Martin (1992) – “Cultures in Organizations: Three Perspectives”
The study of culture in organizations has also been likened to examining a tapestry — there is not one “culture” but several, and different groups may form within the organization that operate under different norms, beliefs, and shared understandings from anyone else. When one considers the behaviors and habits of sales people and accountants respectively, it is not hard to see that different parts of the organization may need different cultures to perform their respective tasks or perhaps serve as checks against the excesses of other groups. But also, these cultures are not static or consistent, and the relationships among different groups can vary.
Martin (1992) captured this in her three-perspective framework of integration, differentiation, and fragmentation to help researchers navigate the complication cultural terrain of the organizations they are studying. Integration is suggestive of a stronger central culture that dominates the whole organization. Differentiation is the process of splitting cultures into subcultures — how such groups form and establish their own ways of doing things while staying in harmony or alignment with the whole. Fragmentation accounts for more countercultural movement or where there is ambiguity or strong tension among the groups.
Daniel Denison and Aniel Mishra (1995) – “Toward a Theory of Organizational Culture and Effectiveness” and Denison (1990) – Corporate Culture and Effectiveness
Obviously, a major concern and interest for managers is how culture manifests in organizational performance, but the complexity of its definition made it difficult for scholars and practitioners to develop generalizable models of effectiveness. Denison & Mishra (1995) uses extensive case studies and survey data to examine the connection between culture and effectiveness and broke it down into four broad factors — involvement, consistency, adaptability, and mission — which are arranged in a 2×2 matrix of external orientation vs. internal integration and change/flexibility vs. stability/direction.
Denison would develop what became known as the “Denison model” where the four factors were expanded and surveys developed to measure an organization’s culture and its impacts on performance (Denison, 1990). Adaptability (external-change) became a measure of how well the organization embraces and responds to changes in the environment — to what extent it drives change, stays focused on the marketplace, and exercises learning. Mission (external-stability) covers the organization’s “blueprint” or sense of direction and includes goal clarity, intent, and vision. Involvement (internal-change) includes empowerment, professional development, and team orientation. Finally, consistency (internal-stability) concerns the structures and processes and how well the organization coordinates, shares values, or manages conflict.
Kim S. Cameron & Robert E. Quinn – Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture (2006)
Finally, our very (very) brief introduction to organizational culture concludes with a model of changing culture. After all, one can measure cultural factors all they want, but then what? Cameron & Quinn (2006) examines the extensive work already done in organizational culture and concluded that the ability to change culture amidst the growing is often a defining factor in whether firms succeed or fail in the marketplace. But how to change culture was a difficult question to answer.
The authors developed the competing values framework to capture cultural “profiles” of organizations. Using similar dimensions as Denison (1990), Cameron & Quinn assigned narrative descriptions to organizational behaviors exhibited when a company prioritized or gravitated toward particular quadrants. An organization that valued internal focus and flexibility might behave as a “clan” — with “strong concern for people and sensitivity to customers” — while one that were externally focused and greater control might have a “market” culture, characterized by competitiveness and positioning. This framework can help managers identify differences between espoused values and enacted behaviors or conflicts between managerial competencies and weaknesses against the dominant organizational culture. They conclude the book with a diagnostic framework to identify and correct deficiencies and monitor the results.
Contemporary Areas of Research
Organizational culture research continues to evolve, especially investigations into the impacts of major changes or shocks in the environment. Whether it is global trends such as digitization, local or national social movements, emergence of new business practices (or “fads”), or political change, just about anything inside or outside the organization can impact culture. The challenge with so much energy in contemporary issues is the difficulties in demonstrating the novelty of a research project. The following are filtered for the macro (or upper meso) level of analysis — such as large organizations or industries/ecosystems. There are many associated topics at the micro and meso levels — individual behaviors (especially leaders) that influence culture or team subcultures that are embedded in the organization. So if you don’t see your areas of interest below, perhaps look in Racks BB1 and BB2.
The Meaning of Virtual or Digital Culture. This is related to digitization and related matters (see Rack CD). As firms digitize and remote work and virtual collaboration continue to grow, how does one explain and analyze the resulting organizational “culture.” Is the culture the same construct or is it something else entirely? In the absence of common organizational artifacts such as the break room, weekly or regular meetings, and office layouts, how is the organization’s culture transmitted? And how is it received among the outstations?
Scholars are greatly interested in how culture manifests when people rarely or never meet in person, how digital tools shape communication patterns and relationship formation, and what new cultural artifacts emerge in virtual spaces. One study investigates how leadership in a remote/digital environment shapes “digital culture,” which Deuze (2006) describes as “an emerging set of values, practices, and expectations regarding the people act and interact within a contemporary digital culture” (Shin et al., 2023).
Cultural Adaptation in Global and Cross-Cultural Contexts. has gained renewed importance as organizations become increasingly global while also recognizing the need for local cultural sensitivity. Recent studies highlight the challenges that traditional organizational cultures face in harmonizing with contemporary business models and globalization trends, examining constructs such as research and innovation, teamwork, decision-making, risk-taking, market orientation, and adaptation. This research explores how organizations balance global consistency with local cultural adaptation, and how multinational companies develop what some scholars call “glocal” cultures.
This area connects organizational culture research with broader questions about cultural intelligence, cross-cultural communication, and the management of cultural diversity. Researchers are examining how global organizations develop cultural competencies that allow them to operate effectively across different national and regional cultures while maintaining some degree of organizational coherence.
Culture and Member Well-Being and Commitment. The connections between an organization’s culture and member commitment to the organization has a long history (for example, see Episode 101 on employee motivation and our special release on Milton Hershey). Partly due to digitization and partly from other dynamics of the contemporary work environment, scholars are increasingly interested in examining relationships between an organization’s cultures and employee wellbeing, mental health, overall organizational effectiveness, and so on. Among the goals are helping business and HR leaders with practical insights for building engaged and productive work environments and for workers to navigate what is becoming a more challenging work environment where “loyalty” and other values are losing salience, leading to conflicts between commitment to one’s work organization and one’s individual identity.
Psychological safety is an example of a relevant area of research interest here. One example is a study that examined psychological safety in fostering knowledge sharing and engagement within organizations (Matsuo et al., 2023). Other scholars are interested in employee engagement, or the degree to which employees demonstrates their commitment to the organization, as a way of seeing how an organization’s culture can be made resilient in tough times (Manjaree & Shakyara, 2023). Can managers develop cultures that increase commitment (taking care of people, perhaps) while sustaining overall performance?
Sustainability and Purpose-Driven Culture. Another area of interest is sustainability and organizational culture barriers that enable or detract from it (for more, see Rack CS). Researchers are examining how organizations develop and maintain cultures that either prioritize sustainability, social impact, and stakeholder capitalism; bypass it in favor of traditional profit motives; or seek a balance between the perspectives. Of note is how to enact a coherent organizational culture that may involve adopting behaviors and values that alienates parts of the customer base due to political polarization and other factors. In this way, sustainability discussions often coincide with those about the organization’s reputation.
As but one example, Hue and Luong (2024) examined how integrating ecological values into organizational culture may help firms align with their own corporate sustainability and overall performance goals (Hue & Luong, 2024). This research exemplifies the desire among researchers to investigate how organizational cultures can facilitate or hinder so-called “green” or sustainable practices. This is pertinent as organizations may face increasing pressures from different groups to simultaneously adopt or repudiate sustainable practices.
Related Episodes from the Talking About Organizations Podcast
68: Globalization and Culture Clashes — “American Factory” (Documentary)
54: Measuring Organizational Cultures – Hofstede
49: Engineered Culture and Normative Control – Gideon Kunda
47: Organizational Identity — Albert & Whetten
Milton Hershey and an Organization’s Commitment to its Members
30: Corporate Culturalism — Hugh Willmott
11: Culture and High Reliability – Bierly and Spender
Related Resource Pages
Rack BA — Classic Organization and Management Theory
Rack BB1 – Organizational Behavior (Micro-Individual)
Rack BB2 — Organizational Behavior (Meso-Groups and Teams)
Rack BB3 — Organizational Behavior (Macro-Org/System)
Rack BC — Contingency Theory
Rack BD — Organizational Design
Rack BG — Organizational Development and Change
Rack BH – Human Dimension – Culture, Climate, Identity
Rack BI — Institution Theory
Rack BL — Leadership Theories
Rack BM – Modern Management Theories
Rack BQ — Postmodern and Critical Theories
Rack BS — Sociology & Anthropology
References
Anthropic. (2024). What is the study of organizational culture all about? What are the books or articles that students of organizational culture should read first? What are some important and active areas of contemporary research in the field of organizational culture? Claude (March 2024 version) [Large Language Model].
Cameron, K. S. & Quinn, R. E. (2005). Diagnosing and changing organizational culture: Based on the competing values framework, revised edition. John Wiley & Sons.
Denison, D. R. (1990). Corporate culture and organizational effectiveness. John Wiley & Sons.
Denison, D. R., & Mishra, A. K. (1995). Toward a theory of organizational culture and effectiveness. Organization science, 6(2), 204-223.
Deuze, M. (2006). Participation, remediation, bricolage: Considering principal components of a digital culture. The Information Society, 22(2), 63-75.
Hofstede, G., Neuijen, B., Ohayv, D. D., & Sanders, G. (1990). Measuring organizational cultures: A qualitative and quantitative study across twenty cases. Administrative Science Quarterly, 286-316.
Hue, T. T., & Dinh‐Hai, L. (2024). Scientific mapping of green organizational culture: Main schools of thought and topical trends. Business Strategy & Development, 7(4), e70031.
Kunda, G. (2006). Engineering culture: Control and commitment in a high-tech corporation, Revised Edition. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Martin, J. (1992). Cultures in organizations: Three perspectives. Oxford University Press.
Matsuo, A., Tsujita, M., Kita, K., Ayaya, S., & Kumagaya, S. I. (2024). Developing and validating Japanese versions of psychological safety scale, knowledge sharing scale and expressed humility scale. Management and Labour Studies, 49(3), 375-388.
Morgan, G. (2006). Images of organization, Updated edition. Sage.
Schein, E. H. (2017). Organizational Culture and Leadership, 5th ed. Wiley.
Scite. (2024). What is the study of organizational culture all about? What are the books or articles that students of organizational culture should read first? What are some important and active areas of contemporary research in the field of organizational culture? Scite (April 2024 version) [Large Language Model].
Shin, J., Mollah, M. A., & Choi, J. (2023). Sustainability and organizational performance in South Korea: The effect of digital leadership on digital culture and employees’ digital capabilities. Sustainability, 15(3), 2027.
The inclusion of external links is for informational purposes only and does not necessarily constitute endorsement by TAOP or any of its members.
Jump to: Importance | Foundational Works | Research Areas | TAOP Resources | References
Rack BH (Human Dimension): Care & Care Ethics (BH.C) | Gender and Feminism (BH.G) | Human Relations School | Organizational Culture (BH.O) | Org. Climate | Org. Identity
Aisle B (Major Theories): Classical Theories (BA) | Org. Behavior – Individual (BB1) | Org. Behavior – Groups & Teams (BB2) | Org. Behavior – Systems & Culture (BB3) | Contingency Theories (BC) | Org. Design (BD) | Org. Development & Change (BG) | Human Relations Theories (BH) | Institution Theories (BI) | Leadership Theories (BL) | Modern Management Perspectives (BM) | Postmodern & Critical Theories (BQ) | Sociology & Anthropology (BS)
Resources: Main Page | Research Methods (A) | Major Theories (B) | Issues and Contemporary Topics (C) | Professional Community (D)