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MEASURING ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AND CHANGE RAJEEV KUMAR Abstract Organizational change invariably entails some impact on organizational culture. However, organizational culture must be qualitatively and/or quantitatively measured to comprehend the changes. After briefly introducing the concepts of organizational culture and sub-culture, various qualitative and quantitative techniques for interpreting the nuances of organizational culture are reviewed in this paper. Practitioners can make more informed decisions about occurrences of cultural change based on this review. As early as 1965, the concept of culture was gaining prominence in business education and research (Wadia, 1965). Over the last four decades, culture has become a buzzword in social sciences. Executives and researchers both recognize its role in any organizational change effort. Since the germinal study of Pettigrew (1979), a number of research studies have used organizational culture as a variable. Both qualitative and quantitative techniques have been employed to measure organizational culture. This paper presents a brief introduction to the concept of organizational culture and sub-culture. An evaluative review of techniques used to interpret organizational culture is presented subsequently. Rajeev Kumar, a Fellow from IIM, Ahmedabad, and an MBA from IIFM Bhopal, is an Assistant Professor of HRM at the Institute of Management and Technology, Ghaziabad .He has previous work experience of more than 4 years across Hewitt Associates and an NGO-Society for the Promotion of Wastelands Development . Culture The concept of culture was originally used in anthropology (Wadia, 1965). Culture, as initially used in anthropology and later in sociology, referred to a way of life, shared norms and values. It was supposed to operate at subconscious levels, and yet in a powerful manner. Scholars offered several definitions of culture, and Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952, as quoted in Detert, Schroeder and Mauriel, 2000) identified several common elements in the different definitions of culture. Combining these commonalities with another review provided by Wadia (1965) yields the following attributes of culture: • Culture is historically created • Culture guides the behaviors of individuals • Culture is inherent in explicit and tacit beliefs, customs, values and morals. • Individuals acquire the constituent elements of a culture as they live in a society. Sub-culture In a society or a group, there may be some characteristics that distinguish one group from another. The term sub-culture is often used to denote such categories. Sub-cultures develop to address some common problems or experiences of a group (Daft, 2008). The need to distinguish between culture and sub-culture is particularly important during the change efforts in a large and complex culture. A more directed discussion on culture and subculture is presented below while describing organizational culture. 70 November 2007 NHRD Journal
Organizational Culture and Sub-Culture Organizations have been conceptualized as socio-technical systems (Parikh and Garg, 1992). People who constitute an organization (employees, managers, owners, etc.) come from a societal culture, or possibly sub-culture. The interplay between this "social" reality and "technical" rationality of organizations is a defining feature of organizations. This view of organizations makes culture an integral part of any organizational change effort. The concept of culture in organizational research is more than two decades old now. The credit for introducing culture in organization theory generally goes to Pettigrew (Detert et al., 2000). However, the concept has often been used vaguely (O'Reilly and Chatman, 1996). At the same time, the realization of the importance of organizational culture in the context of organizational change has also grown (Detert et al., 2000). A wide variety of specifications of organizational culture prevail in literature. But over the years, some agreement has emerged around the following key features: • Organizational culture contains some combination of artifacts, values and beliefs and underlying assumptions that organizational members share about appropriate behavior. (Cook and Rousseau, 1988) • These shared conceptions act as a normative guide for behavior (Daft, 2008). • Organization culture is holistic, historically determined, socially constructed and exists at variety of levels (Hofstede, Neuijen, Ohavy and Sanders, 1990). The many levels of organizational culture are depicted in the following picture (Schein, 1985): It should be noted here that the real interpretation of organizational culture in the context of organizational change efforts is quite complex. A renowned expert in the domain of organizational change and culture, Edgar H. Schein, has aptly summarized these complexities when advising consulting psychologists to avoid the trap of assuming "…that your client knows what culture is and does, and, worse, you assume that you know what culture is and does" (Schein, 2003: 79). Nevertheless, it is useful to be aware of the techniques that can provide some grip over the different nuances of culture in an organization. Therefore, a review of such techniques is presented here. Overview of Techniques The methods to measure culture can be broadly put in two categories, qualitative and quantitative. It should be noted that some scholars advocate the use of multiple methods to measure organizational culture (Martin, 1992). Blalock and Blalock (1968) suggested that firstly one should use qualitative techniques, to be supplemented by quantitative assessment subsequently. In the following sections, a review of various methods is provided. Qualitative Techniques Qualitative methods do not attempt to ascribe a number to various aspects of organizational culture. They allow researchers and practitioners the flexibility of digging deeper into various aspects of organizational culture. Some of the classic approaches used to study organizational culture involve the following: • Case studies: A case study focuses on understanding the nuances of a single setting in depth. Case studies can be done at multiple level of analysis, i.e., individual, group or organization. Typical techniques of data collection for case studies include interviews, archives, observations, etc (Yin, 1994; Eisenhardt, 1989). November 2007 NHRD Journal 71
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NHRD Journal Organizational Change
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ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE INDIRA J PARI
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give subtle shape to the organizati
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to be tempered by a sense of humor,
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Although the result did not spell o
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the Project Sponsor to engage the C
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• Consultative - The target popul
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Now they are confronted with change
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Page 111 and 112: Conclusion There is a broad agreeme
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• Cross Functional Teams (CFTs) o
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i. Technology • Plant location
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consolidates in a short period of f
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PBIT (Rs in crores.) The Company ha
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concepts in an organizational conte
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APPEAL TO CONTRIBUTORS The National
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