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Is Orgnaisational Culture An Important Factor For Organisational Change?

For the last few decades, the construct of organisational culture has caused much debate from both practitioners and academics. However the general consensus is that organisational culture can be defined as the values, including attitudes and beliefs. Artefacts, including tangible material elements of the culture, such as logos or mission statements and finally assumptions referring to invisible core elements, which may include the shared collective vision within the organisation (Schein, 1985.)

The way in which culture is projected onto employees can be through subtle pressures from management to act in a certain way. For example if an organisations culture values participative decision-making or strong customer orientation etc. then employees are likely to adopt or at least externally display these values through their behaviours that reflect these values (Furnham, 1999.)

However, if an organisation has particularly dominant and strong values then it seems plausible to suggest that in the event of change culture, may influence how effective the outcome is likely to be. Especially as authors have suggested that to make change effective one also needs cultural change (Morgan, 1986) and further that any significant planned change must refer to the organisational culture if the full benefits of the change are to occur (Smith, 1998).

Therefore due to statements such as these it seems beneficial to further assess the relevant literature to establish the relevance of organisation culture in influencing the outcome of change. Theoretical literature will first be discussed, including what type of culture the organisation can be said to have, followed by an examination of empirical and applied evidence.
According to Handy (1985), culture can be categorised into one of four types, however, these four types focus on both culture and the structure of the organisation. The 1st type is role cultures that are considered typical of bureaucratic organisations, being...