Four Organizational Culture Types
Four Organizational Culture Types
Bruce M. Tharp
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE WHITE PAPER
04.09
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE WHITE PAPER
Four Organizational Culture Types
Acknowledging that organizational culture is an important aspect for space planners, this paper provides an overview of four organizational culture types: Control (hierarchy), Compete (market), Collaborate (clan), and Create (adhocracy). This typology reflects the range of organizational characteristics across two dimensions that were found critical to organizational effectiveness. The spatial implications for each type are presented so that workspace planners might be able to interpret the results of an organizational culture assessment in their process of designing environments that support the way companies THE COMPETING VALUES FRAMEWORK work and represent themselves. The first dimension places the values of flexibility,
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE Through decades of empirical research, scholars have established abundant links between organizational culture and organizational performance. While previously businesses were either unaware of culture’s importance or believed it too difficult to manage, today they recognize that it can be used for competitive advantage. This is something that Apple Computer gets. By leveraging their culture of innovation toward product as well as internal processes, they have been able to survive — despite incredible competition — as well as venture into new and profitable markets. But in order to use culture strategically, a company first needs to understand its culture. And there’s the rub. Culture is a complex issue that essentially includes all of a group’s shared values, attitudes, beliefs, assumptions, artifacts, and behaviors. Culture is broad — encompassing all aspects of its internal and external relationships—and culture is deep in that it guides individual actions even to the extent that members are not even aware they are influenced by it. Scholars tend to agree
Bruce M. Tharp
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE WHITE PAPER
04.09
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE WHITE PAPER
Four Organizational Culture Types
Acknowledging that organizational culture is an important aspect for space planners, this paper provides an overview of four organizational culture types: Control (hierarchy), Compete (market), Collaborate (clan), and Create (adhocracy). This typology reflects the range of organizational characteristics across two dimensions that were found critical to organizational effectiveness. The spatial implications for each type are presented so that workspace planners might be able to interpret the results of an organizational culture assessment in their process of designing environments that support the way companies THE COMPETING VALUES FRAMEWORK work and represent themselves. The first dimension places the values of flexibility,
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE Through decades of empirical research, scholars have established abundant links between organizational culture and organizational performance. While previously businesses were either unaware of culture’s importance or believed it too difficult to manage, today they recognize that it can be used for competitive advantage. This is something that Apple Computer gets. By leveraging their culture of innovation toward product as well as internal processes, they have been able to survive — despite incredible competition — as well as venture into new and profitable markets. But in order to use culture strategically, a company first needs to understand its culture. And there’s the rub. Culture is a complex issue that essentially includes all of a group’s shared values, attitudes, beliefs, assumptions, artifacts, and behaviors. Culture is broad — encompassing all aspects of its internal and external relationships—and culture is deep in that it guides individual actions even to the extent that members are not even aware they are influenced by it. Scholars tend to agree
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