Geert Hofstede University of Limburg Bram Neuijen University of Groningen Denise Davat Ohayv Institute for Research on intercultural Cooperation Geert Sanders University of Groningen This paper presents the results of a study on organizational cultures in twenty units from ten different organizations in Denmark and the Netherlands. Data came from in-depth interviews of selected informants and a questionnaire survey of a stratified random sample of organizational members. Data on task, structure, and control characteristics of each unit were collected separately. Quantitative measures of the cultures of the twenty units, aggregated at the unit level, showed that a targe part of the differences among these twenty units could be explained by six factors, related to established concepts from organizational sociology, that measured the organizational cultures on six independent dimensions. The organizational culture differences found resided mainly at the levei of practices as perceived by members. Scores of the units on the six dimensions were partly explainable from organizational idiosyncrasies but were also significantly correlated with a variety of task, structural, and control-system characteristics of the units.

Measuring organizational cultures: A qualitative and quantitative study across twenty cases.

Social Psychology of Organizations

What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

https://bsms-inc.com/articles/Towards_a_model_of_safety_culture.pdf

Towards a model of safety culture

This study investigated the relationship between two industry characteristics, technology and growth, and organizational culture. We examined this relationship by comparing the cultures of organizations within and across industries. Using 15 firms representing four industries in the service sector, we found that stable organizational culture dimensions existed and varied more across industries than within them. Specific cultural values were associated with levels of industry technology and growth. One implication of this finding is that the use of organizational culture as a competitive advantage may be more constrained than researchers and practitioners have suggested.

/pdf/assessing-the-relationship-between-industry-characteristics-1n871kz7ol.pdf

Assessing the Relationship between Industry Characteristics and Organizational Culture: How Different can You Be?

An analytic framework which relates cultural variables to structural and technoecono mic factors, both inside and outside the organization, is derived from the methods employed by cultural anthropologists to generate a functional theory. The framework divides variables into two classes — social and organization, and along three different subsystems — technoeconomic, structural, and cultural. Useful in reconciling previously inconsistent or incompatible theories of organization, the framework is offered as a coordination device to integrate the results of divergent approaches to organizational culture studies.

Christopher G. Gresov

Papers

Technoeconomic and Structural Correlates of Organizational Culture: An Integrative Framework