Home > business and economics, management, psychology and sociology, University of California > Organizational Culture and Performance and High-Technology Firms: The Effects of Culture Content and Strength

Organizational Culture and Performance and High-Technology Firms: The Effects of Culture Content and Strength

October 9, 2012

Organizational Culture and Performance and High-Technology Firms: The Effects of Culture Content and Strength (PDF)

Source: University of California-Berkeley

Organizational researchers have long debated the meaning and consequences of organizational culture but the relationship between culture and organizational performance is still not well understood. Conventional wisdom suggests that a strong culture that aligns members’ behavior with organizational objectives should boost performance. A more recent view is that, because strong cultures are associated with greater adherence to routines and behavioral uniformity, they are less effective than weaker culture firms in dynamic environments. Both views fail to recognize that culture as a construct encompasses three dimensions: the content of norms (e.g., teamwork, integrity), how forcefully they are held by organizational members (its intensity), and how widely members agree about the norms within the organization (consensus). We hypothesize that strong cultures will boost performance in dynamic environments if a norm of adaptability is intensely held and cultural norms are widely shared among members. We find an additive interaction such that firms characterized by higher cultural-norm consensus and intensity about adaptability perform better than those characterized by lower consensus, lower intensity about adaptability, or both. We discuss the theoretical implications of differentiating between the content of cultural norms and their strength.

See: Organizational culture matters on the bottom line: Evidence from the high-tech industry (EurekAlert!)

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Categories: business and economics, management, psychology and sociology, University of California
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