--An Analysis ofCulture Dimensions and Culture Types
This article studies about organizational culture in China through the analysis of culture dimensions and culture types. It divides firms in China into three distinctive types- state-owned companies, private domestic companies and foreign-invested companies. It uses three studies to answer the questions whether organizational culture varies among three types of firms and whether it relates to firm performance or employee attitudes.
Study 1 is designed to identify common culture dimensions across different types of Chinese firms. Managers who were from various private firms and foreign-invested companies in China participated in this study. They were asked answer an open-end question to describe the organizational culture of their own company. Based on Xin et al’s study (2002) in terms of organizational culture in Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs), the authors find the results of culture values of three enterprises and categorize the values into two categories, internal adaption values and external adaption values.
The results identified five common culture dimensions, which are employee development, harmony and customer orientation, social responsibility and innovation. Three types of enterprises share common values and have their own unique values. For example, shared vision and communication are common dimensions for private domestic firms and foreign-invested companies for internal integration value. For external adaption value, future orientation and entrepreneurship are respectively unique to the SOEs and private domestic firms.
Study 2 identified organizational cultural types and found relationship between the culture types and firm performance. In the study, the authors derived an empirical taxonomy of four organizational culture types embracing highly integrative culture, market oriented culture, moderately integrative
References: Tsui, Anne S., Wang, Hui, & Xin, Katherine R, J. (2006). Organizational Culture in China: An Analysis of Culture Dimensions and Culture Types. Management and Organization Review, 2, 345-376. Connaughton, S. L., & Shuffler, M. (2007). Multinational multicultural distributed teams: A review and future agenda. Small Group Research, 38, 387-412. Gibson, C. B., & Zellmer-Bruhn, M. E. (2001). Metaphors and meaning: An intercultural analysis of the concept of teamwork. Administrative Science Quarterly, 46, 274-303. Goodman, R. A., Phillips, M. E., & Sackmann, S. A. (1999). The complex culture of international project teams. In R. A. Goodman (Ed.), Modern organizations and emerging conundrums: Exploring the post industrial subculture of the third millennium (pp. 23-33). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Stohl, C. (2001). Globalizing organizational communication. In F. M. Jablin & L. L. Putnam (Eds.), The new handbook of organizational communication (pp. 323-375). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.