Professional Documents
Culture Documents
A Symposium Proposal
By
Dave O’Connell
College of Business
St. Ambrose University
Davenport, IA 52803
Phone: (563) 333-6092 Fax: (563) 333-6268
E-Mail: doconnel@sau.edu
Presenters:
Introduction
Dave O’Connell
St. Ambrose University
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“We began to realize that these companies had cultures as strong as any Japanese organization.
And the trappings of cultural excellence seemed recognizable, no matter what the industry.
Whatever the business, by and large the companies were doing the same, sometimes cornball,
always intense, always repetitive things to make sure all employees were buying into their
culture—or opting out.” (Peters and Waterman, 1982, p. xx)
So, just 20 years ago, corporate culture was pushed strongly to center stage for managers
and academics alike. The 1982 book was a central part of a stream—no, a torrent—of popular
and academic business publications. Preceded by Theory Z (Ouchi 1981), and concurrent with
Corporate Cultures (Deal & Kennedy, 1982), Peters and Waterman offered explanations and
recipes for success. While the popular press explored culture, management researchers dove in
with full furor, as evidenced by the special organizational culture issue of the Administrative
Science Quarterly in 1983, and then the landmark book Organizational Culture (Frost, Moore,
Now, 20 years later, what is the place and purpose of culture research? Have all the
questions been answered? Have all the debates been settled? Has a hot topic rightfully cooled in
the Academy?
Symposium Purpose
We propose that a number of key issues still need to be explored, and offer three papers
that look at culture as a key variable in organizational life. Our symposium is the fruit of a
for the field of organizational culture: 1) What is organizational culture? 2) Where does it come
from? 3) How, exactly, is culture related to performance? 4) How should we research culture?
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What methods are appropriate? 5) What are the key levers for changing organizational culture?
organizational culture research may still provide direction for practitioners and academics alike.
These areas—which connect organizational culture to other key phenomena, help sketch the
edges of the frontier in culture research. As we look at one paper which connects like-level
constructs (culture and mentoring), another which connects culture across organizational sectors
(private and public enterprise), and a third which connects levels (organizational and national),
we believe the presentations and discussion may spur others to set up research outposts on the
Much of the research in the Academy has focused on the for-profit sector, leaving the
not-for-profit and governmental sectors relatively understudied. Yet, for the past 3 decades,
public sector organizations around the world have undergone a series of progressive management
new public management (NPM). This movement has involved the advocacy of private sector
business concepts and styles (McHugh, 1997). Despite the movement toward NPM, we still lack
such a lack of cultural awareness and sensitivity in this sector may be leading to some of the
organizational cultures, within the public sector can provide the basis for evaluating appropriate
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change strategies, and hopefully improved outcomes in the public sector organizations. (Parker
Piamlarb Natrujirote, a DBA student at St. Ambrose University, will raise this challenge.
Her interest in the connection of organizational and public sector reform comes in part from her
experience as a trade officer and Assistant to the Deputy Minister of Commerce in Thailand.
not been extensively researched. This paper suggests that a typology of organizational culture
may be used to help predict the successful implementation of a mentoring program. Building on
the Goffee and Jones (1998) culture classification approach, this paper connects organization
sociability and solidarity with the probable success of mentoring programs—formal and
informal. Propositions and a methodology for testing them are suggested. Marc points out that
while there has been significant criticism of formal mentoring programs (Allen, Russell &
Maetzke, 1997), the effect of culture on the efficacy of such programs has not been clearly
considered.
Marc Parise is the Regional President for First Midwest Bank. Marc has overall
responsibility for the commercial loan portfolio and commercial sales functions for four banking
centers stretching from Iowa to Indiana, accounting for 25% of the company's commercial
banking assets. Marc's bachelor's degree is in finance from Northern Illinois University and he
has a graduate degree in finance from DePaul University. His interest in mentoring and
organizational culture stems directly from his experience with the mentoring program he
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culture/mentoring relationships that may help explain the mixed success many organizations
culture is a multi-layered construct. While researchers identify these layers using different
terms, a common theme throughout the culture literature is to label the observable culture
phenomena as “practices” or “artifacts” and the deeper, more tacit phenomena as “values ” or
“assumptions”. In addition, a growing body of research shows that organizational culture may
be closely related to practices, whereas national culture is more closely related to values. If this
This research examines the ways in which national culture is related to and even a partial
determinant of organizational culture. This research calls for approaching cultural research in
multinational organizations using a specific frame of mind and suggests several ways through
which the influence of national culture on organizational culture formation might be understood
once the connection between the two is recognized. Integrating the work of Schein (1992),
Martin (2002), Trice and Beyer (1993), Hofstede (1993; 1999) and Hofstede, Neuijen, Daval
Ohayv, and Sanders (1990), this paper proposes an integration of the layers of national and
organizational cultures.
Support, with John Deere at the Worldwide Headquarters. He received his BS from Clarke
College, majoring in Mathematics and Computer Science, and his MBA from St. Ambrose
University.
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References
Allen, T. D., Russell, J. E., & Maetzke, S. B. (1997). Formal peer mentoring: Factors
Dann, S. (1996). Public sector reform and the long-term public servant. Journal of Public
Deal, T. & Kennedy, A. (1982). Corporate cultures: The rites and rituals of corporate life.
Frost, P., Moore, L., Louis, M., Lundberg, C., & Martin, J. (Eds.). (1985). Organizational
Goffee, R., & Jones, G. (1998). The character of a corporation. New York: Harper-Collins.
Hofstede, G. (1999). Problems remain, but theories will change: The universal and specific in 21st
Hofstede, G., Neuijen, B., Daval Ohayv, D., & Sanders, G. (1990). Measuring organization
cultures: A qualitative and quantitative study across twenty cases. Administrative Science
Martin, J. (2002). Organizational culture: Mapping the terrain. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
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McHugh, M. (1997). Trouble in paradise: Disintegrated strategic change within a government
Ouchi, W. (1981). Theory Z: How American business can meet the Japanese challenge.
Parker, R. & Bradley, L. (2000). Organization culture in the public sector: Evidence from six
Peter, T., & Waterman, R. (1982). In search of excellence: Lessons from American’s best-run
Schein, E. (1992). Organizational culture and leadership (2ndEd.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Trice, H., & Beyer, J. (1993). The cultures of work organizations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice Hall.