Organizational culture

Origin of culture

Schein (1984) characterizes the concept of organizational culture as follows:

 “Organizational culture is the pattern of basic assumptions that a given group has invented, discovered, or developed in learning to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, and that have worked well enough to be considered valid, and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems.” (Schein, 1984)

According to Schein (1984) three levels can be distinguished with regard to the culture of an organization, which interact with each other (basic assumptions, values ​​and artifacts & creations).

“Organizational culture can be analyzed at several different levels, starting with the visible artifacts — the constructed environment of the organization, its architecture, technology, office layout, manner of dress, visible or audible behavior patterns, and public documents such as charters, employee orientation materials, stories. This level of analysis is tricky because the data are easy to obtain but hard to interpret. We can describe “how” a group constructs its environment and “what” behavior patterns are discernible among the members, but we often cannot understand the underlying logic — “why” a group behaves the way it does.” (Schein, 1984)

Culture formation therefore arises when people gain experiences and then (jointly) indicate meaning. There is an important relationship here with co-creation, according to the cycle 'acting, contemplating, thinking, deciding and acting again' (Wierdsma & Swieringa, 2011) and with the cycle 'observing, (re)valuing, wanting and realizing' as described by Kloosterboer (2012).

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