Page 407 - Cultures and Organizations

372 CULTURES IN ORGANIZATIONS

FIGURE 10.2 Relationships Among Strategy, Structure, Control,
and Culture

STRATEGY STRUCTURE

CONTROL CULTURE

outcome is modified by the organization’s culture—and all four of these

elements influence each other.
The IRIC study has shown that, as long as quantitative studies of
organizational cultures are not used as isolated tricks but are integrated
into a broader approach, they are both feasible and useful. In a world of
hardware and bottom-line figures, the scores make organizational culture

differences visible; by becoming visible, they move up on management’s
priority list.
Practical uses of such a study for managers and members of organiza-
tions, as well as for consultants, are listed here:

■ Identifying the subcultures in one’s own organization. The exten-
sion of the IRIC project to the insurance company demonstrated the
importance of this application. As Figure 10.3 illustrates, organi-
zations may be culturally divided according to hierarchical levels:
top management, middle- and lower-level managers, professional

employees, and other employees (office or shop floor). Other potential
sources of internal cultural divisions are functional area (such as sales
versus production versus research), product/market division, country
of operation, and, for organizations having gone through mergers,