Culture in Organizations

A critical review of theories of the nature of organisational culture, including how it may impact on innovation, and how it may be affected by the leaders of an organisation

Like many other social categories, culture has as many definitions as there are people who tried to describe its meaning and manifestations (Groseschl and Doherty, 2000). Starting from the early definitions, such as “complex whole of knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom and any other capabilities and habits, acquired by a man” (Taylor, 1871, cited by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), culture was always regarded as a sort of “collective programming of the mind that distinguishes people of one group or category from another” (Hofstede, 2001). These wide definitions express not only the difficulty to describing such a broad social category, but also emphasizes on the differences in the research approach, the level at which we explore it, its scope, manifestations, its relations to other social phenomena and etc.
Different assumptions about the nature of organizational culture and approaches to culture research, such like the ones McDonald and Foster (2013) suggest - integration, differentiation and fragmentation, provide different perspectives to studying culture. Rugman at al. (2006) for example suggest studying culture through the knowledge of its nature, elements and scope. The exact elements we take into account, as well as the field we explore, would however lead to different conclusions about its nature, or more specifically, the aspect of its nature that would better fit the concrete research in the wide range of social encounters, culture influences. This shows certain danger of engaging the analysis with the researcher’s own cultural and subcultural perspectives, which undoubtedly has to be avoided.
Terpstra and David (1991) try to stay on the safe side, suggesting language, religion, values, attitudes and ethics to be the main determinants of culture, along with

Bibliography: Beech, N., Macintosh, R. (2012). Managing Change: Enquiry and Action. Cambridge University Press. Bezlepkin, M. (2008). The Influence of the Organizational Culture on the Personnel 's Innovation Activity. St. Peterburg: ENGECON. Brill, P., Worth, R. (1997). The Four Levers of Corporate Change. NY: AMACOM (American Management Association). DeGraff, J., Bacevice, P. (2006). Make Innovation Work in Your Workplace. American Society for Training and Development. Evans, J. R. (2014). Quality and Performance Excellence: Management, Organization and Strategy, 7th Ed. South-Western CENGAGE Learning. French, R. (2010). Cross-Cultural Management in Work Organizations, 2nd Ed. Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Galpin, T. (1996). Connecting Culture to Organizational Change. HR Magazine, March, p. 84. Groseschl, S., Doherty, L. (2000). Conceptualizing Culture. Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal, 7, 12-17. Gutterman, A. (2010). Organizational Management and Administration: A Guide for Managers and Professionals. Thomson Reuters/West. Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture 's Consequences: Comparing values, Behaviours, Institutions, and Organisations Across Nations. London: SAGE. Johnson, G. (1987). Strategic change and the management process. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Johnson, G., Scholes, K. (2002). Exploring Corporate Strategy, 6th Ed. Prentice Hall. Landy, F., Conte, J. (2007). Work In the 21st Century: An Introduction to Industrial and Organisational Psychology. Blackwell Publishimg. McDonald, S., Foster, R. (2013). The Use of Johnson 's Cultural Web to Improve Understanding of Organizational Culture: A Critical Review. International Journal of Management, Vol.30 No. 4. Minkov, M., Hofstede, G. (2013). Cross-Cultural Analysis: The Science and Art of Comparing the World 's Modern Societies and Their Cultures. SAGE Publications, Inc. Mintzberg, H. (1983). Power In and Around Organizations. Prentice Hall. Mintzberg, H., Quinn, J., Ghoshal, S. (1995). The Strategy Process. Prentice Hall. Pardey, G. A. (2006). Introducing Leadership. Taylor&Francis Ltd. Pearson, A. (1991). Managing Innovation: an uncertainty reduction process. SAGE Publ. Rosenfeld, R., Servo, J. (1988). Innovation Through Investment in People: Making Ideas Connect . Seven Valleys Press. Schein, E. (1997). Organizational Culture and Leadership, 2nd Ed. Jossey-Bass. Schlaegel, Ch., He, X., Engle, R. (2013). The Direct and Indirect Influences of National Culture on Enterpreneurial Intentions. International Journal of Management, Vol. 30 No. 2 Part 2. Schneider, S., Barsoux, J. (1997). Managing Across Cultures. Prentice Hall. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (n.d.). Retrieved August 23, 2013, from Culture and Cognitive Science: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/culture-cogsci/ Tellis, G., Jaideep, P., Chandy, R Tidd, J., Bessant, J., Pavitt, K. (2001). Managing Innovation: Integrating Technological, Market and Organizational Change. Wiley. Toedtling, F., Van Reine, P., Doerhoefer, St. (2011). Open Innovation and Regional Culture - Findings from Different Industrial and Regional Settings. European Planning Studies, Vol. 19. Trompenaars, A. (1993). Riding the Waves of Culture: Understanding Diversity in Global Business, 2nd Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill. Trompenaars, F., Woolliams, P. (2003). Business Across Cultures. Wiley. Wilson, D. (1992). A strategy of change: Concepts and Controversies in the Management of Change. Routledge. Yukl, G. A. (2013). Leadership in Organizations. Prentice Hall.