Understanding and Assessing Organizational Culture

Chapter 7 addresses the topic of culture assessment. A culture assessment entails gaining knowledge about an organization’s culture by analyzing it and its evaluation. First, the chapter outlines those characteristics of organizational culture relevant to its analysis because analysts’ conception of culture and its characteristics influence the approach they choose for a culture analysis, including methods. Second, the chapter explores different kinds of data collection methods, including their strengths and related challenges, for collecting information about an organization’s culture. Third, the chapter addresses standards helpful in evaluating the quality of a given culture, and it provides two examples of a culture assessment in practice.

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Notes

In a study of four change agents’ practices, Tichy (1975) found that they used different diagnostic categories that influenced their value orientation and the change techniques they employed.

A paradigm is comparable with a worldview that influences the choice of questions that researchers investigate and the methodology and methods they consider most appropriate for investigating the research question.

Selective perception means that the perceiving person never sees the whole surrounding reality but unconsciously selects excerpts of the reality. For example, personal experience, attitudes, interests, or social status steer this selection process. That explains why, e.g., after a car accident, three witnesses may tell three different stories to describe what happened.

The halo-effect is a type of cognitive bias that describes how people perceive one seemingly central quality in a person and align other assumed characteristics with that quality. So, for example, someone who lies will also steal.

The appendix of Sackmann and Bertelsmann Fondation (2006) provides another checklist for a detailed interview.

Sackmann (2011) describes 25 different methods for analyzing organizational culture, including several questionnaires.

Non-reactive methods use data that the researcher did not influence during their collection, and the data sources did not react to the researcher in the data collection process.

Triangulation refers to using different types of data and data collection methods to ensure the validity of the research findings. For further information, see also Denzin (2012).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

1. Universität der Bundeswehr, Munich, Germany Sonja A. Sackmann

1. Sonja A. Sackmann