Page 330 - Managing Change in Organizations

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Models of organizational culture
The work of Ed Schein

Schein (1996) defines organizational culture as ‘the residue of success’. Of all
organizational attributes it is the hardest to measure and therefore the most dif-
ficult to change. Once changed, Schein argues that the impact of that change will
be long lasting outliving products and services, leaders and founders, buildings
and other physical attributes.
Schein describes culture at three cognitive levels. The first and simplest are
those aspects of the organization which can be directly observed and experienced
by anyone. The second level deals with those aspects of culture professed by par-
ticipants only. Here we talk about mission statements and the like but also about
employee and client surveys. At the third level we deal with tacit assumptions,
‘unspoken rules’ and the like. Much of this is taboo. It cannot be discussed
openly in the organization. Schein suggests that much of this exists without the
conscious knowledge of those involved. This seems likely only in the sense that
we are talking about unspoken rules which are so deeply embedded that we do
not think about them.
Here Schein is offering a line of analysis also developed by Argyris and Schon
(1978) in their discussion of ‘espoused’ theory and ‘theory in use’. The latter dis-
tinction derives from observing differences between what senior executives and
others say is important and what their behaviour actually signals to be impor-
tant. Often in this sense behaviour in organizations is paradoxical. Thus it is
that newcomers to an organization may take a long time to settle into the cul-
ture. More important, it explains why culture change is so difficult in practice.
We shall see that writers working within the critical theory perspective are also
deeply sceptical about whether culture change can be achieved. Nevertheless,
recognizing the complexities ought not to allow us too easily to ignore the point
that many organizations certainly report successful culture change.

Trompenars

For Trompenars (1998) each organization has its own unique culture, probably
created unconsciously, based on actions and behaviours of senior executives,

founders and other core people such as those who built it originally and any who
subsequently changed it. Culture is an acquired body of knowledge about how to
behave and shared mind-sets, and includes cognitive frameworks. His model uti-
lizes the sources of national cultural differences in corporate culture on a num-
ber of dimensions:

■ Universalism vs pluralism. Do we focus on rules and procedures or rely on our
relationships when we seek to get things done?
■ Individualism vs communitarianism. Do we think organizations should focus
attention on individuals or on groups?
■ Specific vs diffuse. Are relationships superficial and transactional or deep and go
beyond the workplace?
■ Inner directed vs outer directed. Is action focused inside the organization or
externally?

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