A study on the Effect of good organisational culture

on employee effectiveness

a case study of .......................

A project Report submitted

in partial fulfillment of the requirement for

the award of the degree of

BACHELOR OF SOCIAL WORK

Specialized in

Human Resource Management

submitted by

CHRISSY KAUMBA

( 081251023)
Department of Social Work

DMI ST EUGENE UNIVERSITY

P.O BOX 320225, NYATWA ROAD

Woodlands, Lusaka, Zambia

JANUARY 2011

DECLARATION

I Chrissy Kaumba hereby declare that this project report entitled” a study on the Effect of good
organisational culture on employee effectiveness ” is an independent research work carried out by me
under the guidance of .................................... in partial fulfullment of my degree in Social Work.

This Research Work has not been formed from the basis of any other similar titles or awarded for any
other degree.
Lecturer’s Signature:........................... Student’s Signature:...............................

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research would not have been possible without the energetic support of many friends and
lecturers. I benefited from the in-put of these people. I would like to convey my heartfelt gratitude to all
those who made this research come to fruition. I am highly indebted to them owing to the fact that they
gave up their scarce time to help me improve in writing my dissertation.

Special thanks to my family for the emotional and financial support that is always given to me and to the
almighty God for his guidance and protection.
LIST OF TABLES

TABLE NOTITLEPAGE NUMBER

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION……………………………………………………….. i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT……………………………………………... ii

LIST OF TABLES.....................................................................................iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS.......................................................................... iv
CHAPTER ONE………………………………………………………..

1.0 INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………...….

1.1 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM……………………………………………….…….

1.2 STUDY OBJECTIVES…………………………………………………………...………

1.2.1 GENERAL OBJECTIVE……………………………………………….…………

1.2.2 SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES………………………………………………………… 1.3

LIMITATIONS……………………………………………………………………...

1.4 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM..............................................

1.5 OBJECTIVES.......................................................................................................

1.6 SCOPE OF STUDY..........................................................................................

1.7 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY..............................................................................

CHAPTER TWO……………………………………………...……….. 6

2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW………………………………………………………….

2.1 Defination of Terms.................................................................................................

CHAPTER THREE……………………………………………...…… 14

3.1 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY...........................................................................

3.2 RESEARCH DESIGN............................................................................................

3.3 SOURCES OF DATA...........................................................................................

3.4 TARGET POPULATION AND SAMPLE.........................................................

3.5 SAMPLING METHODS........................................................................................

3.6 RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS..............................................................................

3.7 DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS......................................................

CHAPTER FOUR

4.0 DATA PRESENTATION AND INTERPRETATION...............................................

4.1 DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF THE RESULTS.......

CHAPTERFIVE

5.0 CONCLUSION...................................................................................................

5.1RECOMMENDATIONS............................................................................................

5.2BIBLIOHRAPHY....................................................................................................

5.3APPENDIX.....................................................................................................................

CHAPTER ONE

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Every Organisation has a culture. It has its own cultural forms that constitute the expected, supported
and accepted way of behaving. These norms are mostly unwritten and tell employees the way things
really are. These influence everyone's perception of the business from the Chief Executive to the lowest
rank. Employees from all cadres of any organisation contribute to the success or failure of the
organisation, to the norms by accepting and supporting them.

Organization development is concerned with the analysis and diagnosis of the factor that determine
organizational effectiveness, planning and delivery of programmes to increase that effectiveness.

Organizations want to obtain the commitment of their employees. Management would like its
employees to identify with the values, norms and artefacts of the organization, hence the need for
organizational culture. Management needs to explain and imbibe its culture in its employees; this will
enable the employee to get familiar with the organizational system. During this process of explanation,
the employee learns about the organizational culture and decides whether he can cope with it or not.
This means that each organization is a learning environment. It is the proper understanding of the
organizational culture that the performance of the employee in the organization. Performance is the
extent to which an individual is carrying out assignment or task. It refers to the degree of
accomplishment of the task that makes up an employee’s job (Cascio, 2006). Job performance is the net
effect of an employee’s effort as modified by abilities and roles or task perceptions (Jones, 2003).

The culture of the organization should be developed to support continuous improvement, improve
employees’ style of performing their job and thus develop quality awareness.

To operate successfully across cultures, it is important to be able to recognize cultural differences and
be adaptable (Deter, Schroeder, and Mauriel, 2000). Organisational culture finds expression through the
thoughts, intentions, actions and interpretations of members of the organization (Hallett, 2003).

Academic interest in corporate culture is evidenced by the level of attention it has received over the last
few decades. The relationship between corporate culture and performance has been the subject of
abundant research in several fields, including strategic management, organisational behaviour, and
industrial organizations. While this topic is rich in studies, many researchers concur on the fact that
there is no agreement on the precise nature of the relationship between corporate culture and
performance.

Despite the plethora of studies on corporate culture in the last few decades, there is no widely accepted
causal relationship between corporate culture and performance. The empirical evidences emerging from
various studies about the effect of corporate culture on performance have so far yielded mixed results
that are inconclusive and contradictory.

Because of these contradictory results, the question of whether corporate culture improves or worsens
employee’s performance is still worthy of further research such as the one being undertaken in this
study.

1.2 PROFILE OF THE COMPANY

1.3 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

With efforts being spent in creating a good organisational culture, there is always the need to get value
for money for effort and made. In all such organisations, there is need to assess the importance and
effects of the existing culture on employees. What is of paramount importance is simply to learn it, find
out its effectiveness and contributions towards the achievement of desired goals.The sooner one finds
out its effectiveness and importance, the sooner one can manage the realities of it and find ways of
improving the entire culture or change it if it is not necessary. If the organisational is not beneficial to
the concerned persons, then something must be done about it, for failure to do so has a negative
repercussions on the daily operation of the organisation. It should be borne in mind that a non beneficial
culture in the organisation or institution leads to the collapse of the organisation. Thus, the statement of
the problem is to underscore the effect of a good organisational culture.

1.5 OBJECTIVES

1.5.1 GENERAL OBJECTIVES

Primary objective of the study is to analyze and assess the effect of a good organisational culture on
employee effectiveness.

1.5.2 SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES

In line with the primary objective, the secondary objectives are as follows:

1. To ascertain if organizational culture affects employee job performanceSeeks to recommend

possible ways improving the organisational culture.

2. To determine empirically the relationship between a good organisational culture and employee
effectiveness.

3. To formulate recommendations regarding organisational culture and employee job performance

1.6 SCOPE OF STUDY

The study was restricted to the employee ........... and encompassed men and women.................. The
target population was

1.7 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The study seeks to assess the effectiveness and offer solutions and suggestioon on how to improve the
organisational culture as a whole. Consequently, employer and the employees will enjoy their
relationship and participate fully in the day to day operation of the organisation and therefore facilitate
improved results.

The study should especially enhance policy effectiveness in regard to implementation, monitoring and
evaluation, maitainance and facilitation of the creation and/or change of organisational culture.
Additionally it should contribute to the already existing literature, on the subject and also as partial
fulfillment for the completion of a degree in Social Work (Human Resource Management).

1.8 LIMITATIONS

Even though an organisational culture is a very important activity in any insitution and its importance on
the livelihood of people is vivid, there has been less documentation on the problem. This makes it
difficult for the researcher to find specific literature dealing with the above mentioned problem.
Furthermore, the culture of silence that is usually experienced in obtaining information from institution
on matter concerning employment details, has made it difficult to access the necessary information.

In addition, the other limitation of the study arised from language barriers when communicating with
the respondents during the process of data collection, inadequate resources restricted the sample size,
and lack of enough time made it difficult to carry out a satisfactory pre-test. However, the highlighted
limitations will be overcomed by utilizing all the available literatures at hand, which are books,
magazines, internet, Newspapers and electronic media.

1.9 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

This research study is poised towards providing answers to the following questions:

1. Does the organisational culture have any effect on employee effectiveness?

2. In what way does organisational culture impacts on employee effectiveness?

1.10 RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

In order to answer the research questions and achieve the objectives of the study, the following
hypotheses are advanced and will be tested in the course of this study.

Hypothesis 1

H0: There is no positive relationship between organisational culture and employee effectiveness

H1 There is a positive relationship between organisational culture and employee effectiveness.

Hypothesis 2

H0 There is no positive relationship between organisational culture and organizational productivity

in ..........................

H1 There is a positive relationship between organisational culture and organizational productivity

in .......................

CHAPTER TWO
2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW

Organizational culture has been defined as the “normative glue” that holds an organization together
(Tichy, 1982). Forehand and von Gilmer (1964) suggest that culture is the set of characteristics that
describe an organization and distinguish it from others. Schein (1990), in a more comprehensive fashion,
defines culture as values and behaviors that are believed to lead to success and are thus taught to new
members.

Central to the culture definition is the idea that culture must be learned and shared (Titiev, 1959).

The culture of a group can be defined as: “A pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned
as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has 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, 1990).”

In other words, as groups evolve over time, they face two basic challenges: integrating individuals into
an effective whole, and adapting effectively to the external environment in order to survive. As groups
find solutions to these problems over time, they engage in a kind of collective learning that creates the
set of shared assumptions and beliefs we call “culture.”

Morgan (1997) describes culture as “an active living phenomenon through which people jointly creates
and recreates the worlds in which they live.”

There are many ways to visualize the concept of organizational culture. One popular conceptualization is
the onion model. If you cut an onion in half and look at it, you will see many layers.

When we walk around an organization, there are elements of the organization’s culture that are ‘on the
surface’ and are relatively easily visible. We can see many cultural symbols (e.g., whether your office is
on a floor close to the top or the bottom of the building, how big your office is), artefacts (e.g.,
computers), and patterns of behaviour (e.g., how and where people interact, how they behave in formal
and informal meetings).

Equally important, but the less visible aspects of culture are norms, values and basic assumptions people
make.

Another way of conceptualizing organizational culture is in terms of its ‘hard’ and its ‘soft’ sides.
Organizational culture is ‘supported’ by both social/psychological aspects (e.g., stories, symbols, rituals)
and by some more concrete elements such as power structures, hierarchical structure and control
systems (e.g., financial, measurement and reward systems).

Organizational culture has been linked to economic performance and organization viability/success
(Denison & Mishra, 1995; Pothukuchi, Damanpour, Choi, Chen, and Park 2002; Sorensen, 2002; Devis,
2007). For example, organizations dedicated to continuous improvement, with visionary leaders who
‘walk their talk’ and focus on a set of core values, have been shown to be more financially successful in
the long-term ( Kotter & Heskett, 1992). Organizational culture has also been shown to be important for
successful new product/process innovation and organizational change (Plakhotnik and Tonette, 2005;
Umiker, 1999).

‘Culture is one of the most precious things a company has, so they must work harder on it than anything
else,’ says Herb. Various studies indicate that companies with strong cultures are more likely to be
successful, but only under a particular set of conditions. The effect of organizational culture depends
partly in its strength. Corporate culture strength refers to how widely and deeply employees hold the
company’s dominant values and assumptions. In a strong organizational culture, most employees across
all subunits hold the dominant values. These values are also institutionalized through well-established
artefacts, thereby making it difficult for those values to change. Furthermore, strong cultures tend to be
long-lasting; some can be traced back to company founder’s values and assumptions. In contrast,
companies have weak culture when the dominant values are short-lived and held mainly by a few
people at the top of the organization. A strong corporate culture potentially increases a company’s
success by serving three important functions:

i. Control System: Organizational culture is a deeply embedded form of social control that influences
employee decision and behaviour. Culture is pervasive and operates unconsciously.

ii. Social glue: Organizational culture is the ‘social glue’ that bonds people together and makes them
feels part of the organization experience. Employees are motivated to internalize the organization’s
dominant culture because this helps fulfil their need for social identity. This social glue is increasingly
important as a way to attract new staff and retain top performers.

iii. Sense-making: Organizational culture assists the sense-making process. It helps employees
understand what goes on and why things happen in the company. Corporate culture also makes it easier
for them to understand what is expected of them and to interact with other employees who know the
culture and believe in it.

People are constantly surrounded by culture. It forms the background (often invisible) of our work-lives,
colouring everything in an organization. Organizational culture also provides a powerful mechanism for
controlling behaviour by influencing how we attach meaning to our world and how we interpret events.
Other literature defines Organizational culture as an idea in the field of organizational studies and
management which describes the psychology, attitudes, experiences, beliefs and values (personal and
cultural values) of an organization. It has been defined as "the specific collection of values and norms
that are shared by people and groups in an organization and that control the way they interact with
each other and with stakeholders outside the organization."

It is also concerned with organizational values, also called as "beliefs and ideas about what kinds of goals
members of an organization should pursue and ideas about the appropriate kinds or standards of
behavior organizational members should use to achieve these goals. From organizational values develop
organizational norms, guidelines, or expectations that prescribe appropriate kinds of behavior by
employees in particular situations and control the behavior of organizational members towards one
another."

Strong culture is said to exist where staff respond to stimulus because of their alignment to
organizational values. In such environments, strong cultures help firms operate like well-oiled machines,
cruising along with outstanding execution and perhaps minor tweaking of existing procedures here and
there.

Conversely, there is weak culture where there is little alignment with organizational values and control
must be exercised through extensive procedures and bureaucracy.

Where culture is strong people do things because they believe it is the right thing to do, there is a risk of
another phenomenon, Groupthink. "Groupthink" was described by Irving L. Janis. He defined it as "...a
quick and easy way to refer to a mode of thinking that people engage when they are deeply involved in
a cohesive in-group, when members' strive for unanimity override their motivation to realistically
appraise alternatives of action." This is a state where people, even if they have different ideas, do not
challenge organizational thinking, and therefore there is a reduced capacity for innovative thoughts. This
could occur, for example, where there is heavy reliance on a central charismatic figure in the
organization, or where there is an evangelical belief in the organization’s values, or also in groups where
a friendly climate is at the base of their identity (avoidance of conflict). In fact group think is very
common, it happens all the time, in almost every group. Members that are defiant are often turned
down or seen as a negative influence by the rest of the group, because they bring conflict.

CULTURE : CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Basic concepts and definitions

Culture has been defined differently by various scholars. According to Kroeber and
Kluckholn (1952) culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behaviour acquired and
transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their
embodiment in artifacts. The essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e., historically derived and
selected) ideas and especially their attached values. Culture systems may, on the one hand, be
considered as products of action, and as conditioning elements of future action.

In the words of Hofstede (1980) culture is, “ The collective programming of the mind which distinguishes
the members of one human group from another …. The interactive aggregate of common characteristics
that influences a human group’s response to its environment.” Anthropologist Symington (1983) has
defined culture as, “… that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, customs
and capabilities and habits acquired by a man as a member of society.”

The Indian perspective of culture given by Sinha (2000) suggests that “Culture consists of totality of
assumptions, beliefs, values, social systems and institutions, physical artifacts and behaviour of people,
reflecting their desire to maintain continuity as well as to adapt to external demands.”

What these descriptions suggest is a set of value systems that are equally shared by all the members.
They take a long time to evolve and are sustained over a long period of time. They form a common core
which binds people together.

Work culture, on the other hand, is a totality of various levels of interaction among organisational
factors (boundaries, goals, objectives, technology, managerial practices, material and human resources,
and the constraints) and organismic factors (skills, knowledge, needs, and expectations) interact among
themselves at various levels. Over a period of time they develop roles, norms and values focusing work
and is called work culture.

NATURE OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE

The culture of an organisation may reflect in various forms adopted by the organisation. These could
be :

Ø The physical infrastructure

Ø Routine behaviour, langauge, ceremonies

Ø Gender equality, equity in payment

Ø Dominant values such as quality, efficiency and so on

Ø Philosophy that guides the organisation’s policies towards it employees and customers like ‘customer
first’ and ‘customer is king’, and the manner in which employees deal with customers.
Individually none of these connote organisational culture, however, together, they reflect organisational
culture. Although organisational culture has common properties, it is found that large organisations
have a dominant culture and a number of sub – cultures. The core values shared by the majority of the
organisational members constitute the dominant culture. Therefore, whenever one refers to the culture
of an organisation one actually talks about the dominant culture of an organisation one actually talks
about the dominant culture. Subcultures within an organisation are a set of shared understandings
among members of one group/department/geographic operations. For example, the finance
department of an organisation may have a sub – culture which is unique to this department vis–a–vis
other departments. This means that this department will not only have the core values of the
organisation’s dominant culture but also some unique values. If an organisation does not have a
dominant culture and is comprised only of various sub – cultures, its effectiveness would be difficult to
judge and there will be no consistency of behaviour among departments. Hence, the aspect of common
or shared understanding is an essential component of organisational culture. Also, organisational culture
exists at various levels.

LEVELS OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE

One comes across a number of elements in the organisation which depict its culture. Organisational
culture can be viewed at three levels based on manifestations of the culture in tangible and intangible
forms.

1. At Level One the organisational culture can be observed in the form of physical objects, technology
and other visible forms of behaviour like ceremonies and rituals. Though the culture would be visible in
various forms, it would be only at the superficial level. For example, people may interact with one
another but what the underlying feelings are or whether there is understanding among them would
require probing.

2. At Level Two there is greater awareness and internalisation of cultural values. People in the
organisation try solutions of a problem in ways which have been tried and tested earlier. If the group is
successful there will be shared perception of that ‘success’, leading to cognitive changes turning
perception into values and beliefs.

3. Level Three represents a process of conversion. When the group repeatedly observes that the method
that was tried earlier works most of the time, it becomes the ‘preferred solution’ and gets converted
into underlying assumptions or dominant value orientation. The conversion process has both
advantages. The advantages are that the dominant value orientation guides behaviour, however at the
same time it may influence objective and rational thinking.
These three levels range on a scale of superficial to deeply embedded. As cultural symbols get converted
to shared assumptions, they move from a superficial level to a real internationalised level which may
include;

Ø Cultural Symbols

Ø Shared Behaviour

Ø Cultural Values

PATTERNS OF ORGANISATIONALS CULTURE

Types of Organizational Culture

Organisational culture can vary in a number of ways. It is these variances that differentiate one
organisation from the others. Some of the bases of the differentiation are presented below :

1. Strong vs weak culture : Organisational culture can be labelled as strong or weak based on sharedness
of the core values among organisational members and the degree of commitment the members have to
these core values. The higher the sharedness and commitment, the stronger the culture increases the
possibility of behaviour consistency amongst its members, while a weak culture opens avenues for each
one of the members showing concerns unique to themselves.

2. Soft vs hard culture : Soft work culture can emerge in an organisation where the organisation pursues
multiple and conflicting goals. In a soft culture the employees choose to pursue a few objectives which
serve personal or sectional interests. A typical example of soft culture can be found in a number of
public sector organisations in India where the management feels constrained to take action against
employees to maintain high productivity. The culture is welfare oriented; people are held accountable
for their mistakes but are not rewarded for good performance. Consequently, the employees consider
work to be less important than personal and social obligations. Sinha (1990) has presented a case study
of a public sector fertilizer company which was established in an industrially backward rural area to
promote employment generation and industrial activity. Under pressure from local communities and the
government, the company succumbed to overstaffing, converting mechanised operations into manual
operations, payment of overtime, and poor discipline. This resulted in huge financial losses (up to 60
percent of the capital) to the company.

3. Formal vs informal culture : The work culture of an organisation, to a large extent, is influenced by the
formal components of organisational culture. Roles, responsibilities, accountability, rules and
regulations are components of formal culture. They set the expectations that the organisation has from
every member and Shared Assumptions indicates the consequences if these expectations are not
fulfilled. Table 2.1 presents some of the components of formal culture and their implication for
organisations.

TABLE 2: FORMAL COMPONENTS OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE Component Description Effect on

Organisational Culture

1 Mission/Vision The milestones to be reached Could be unrealistic

2 Policies Statements designed to be guidelines to bahavioural decision Policies, if not drafted properly
can provide leeway

3 Procedures Methods of providing specific guidelines Can facilitate or create obstacles in smooth
functioning

4 Rules Specific instructions for performing a task Rules could be a means or an end in themselves

5 State of Organisational Development Organisation at young, growing, maturing, or mature stage of

development State of organisational development has direct impact on work culture

Typologies of organizational cultures

Several methods have been used to classify organizational culture. Some are described below:

Hofstede (1980) demonstrated that there are national and regional cultural groupings that affect the
behavior of organizations.

Hofstede identified four in his study of national influences:

Ø Power distance - The degree to which a society expects there to be differences in the levels of power.
A high score suggests that there is an expectation that some individuals wield larger amounts of power
than others. A low score reflects the view that all people should have equal rights.

Ø Uncertainty avoidance reflects the extent to which a society accepts uncertainty and risk.

Ø Individualism vs. collectivism - individualism is contrasted with collectivism, and refers to the extent
to which people are expected to stand up for themselves, or alternatively act predominantly as a
member of the group or organization. However, recent researches have shown that high individualism
may not necessarily mean low collectivism, and vice versa. Research indicates that the two concepts are
actually unrelated. Some people and cultures might have both high individualism and high collectivism,
for example. Someone who highly values duty to his or her group does not necessarily give a low priority
to personal freedom and self-sufficiency

Ø Masculinity vs. femininity - refers to the value placed on traditionally male or female values. Male
values for example include competitiveness, assertiveness, ambition, and the accumulation of wealth
and material possessions.

Deal and Kennedy

Deal and Kennedy defined organizational culture as the way things get done around here.In relation to
its feedback this would mean a quick response and also measured organizations institution, such as oil
prospecting or military aviation.

· The Process Culture occurs in organizations where there is little or no feedback. People become
bogged down with how things are done not with what is to be achieved. This is often associated with
bureaucracies. While it is easy to criticize these cultures for being overly cautious or bogged down in red
tape, they do produce consistent results, which is ideal in, for example, public services.

Charles Handy

Charles Handy(1985) popularized the 1972 work of Roger Harrison of looking at culture which some
scholars have used to link organizational structure to organizational culture. He describes Harrison's four
types thus:

Ø a Power Culture which concentrates power among a few. Control radiates from the center like a web.
Power and influence spread out from a central figure or group. Power desires from the top person and
personal relationships with that individual matters more than any formal title of position. Power
Cultures have few rules and little bureaucracy; swift decisions can ensue.
Ø In a Role Culture, people have clearly delegated authorities within a highly defined structure.
Typically, these organizations form hierarchical bureaucracies. Power derives from a person's position
and little scope exists for expert power. Controlled by procedures, roles descriptions and authority
definitions. Predictable and consistent systems and procedures are highly valued.

Ø By contrast, in a Task Culture, teams are formed to solve particular problems. Power derives from
expertise as long as a team requires expertise. These cultures often feature the multiple reporting lines
of a matrix structure. It is all a small team approach, who are highly skilled and specialist in their own
markets of experience.

Ø A Person Culture exists where all individuals believe themselves superior to the organization. Survival
can become difficult for such organizations, since the concept of an organization suggests that a group
of like-minded individuals pursue the organizational goals. Some professional partnerships can operate
as person cultures, because each partner brings a particular expertise and clientele to the firm.

Edgar Schein

According to Schein, culture is the most difficult organizational attribute to change, outlasting
organizational products, services, founders and leadership and all other physical attributes of the
organization. His organizational model illuminates culture from the standpoint of the observer,
described by three cognitive levels of organizational culture.

At the first and most cursory level of Schein's model is organizational attributes that can be seen, felt
and heard by the uninitiated observer - collectively known as artifacts. Included are the facilities, offices,
furnishings, visible awards and recognition, the way that its members dress, how each person visibly
interacts with each other and with organizational outsiders, and even company slogans, and other
operational creeds.

The next level deals with the professed culture of an organization's members - the values. At this level,
local and personal values are widely expressed within the organization. Organizational behavior at this
level usually can be studied by interviewing the organization's membership and using questionnaires to
gather attitudes about organizational membership.

At the third and deepest level, the organization's tacit assumptions are found. These are the elements of
culture that are unseen and not cognitively identified in everyday interactions between organizational
members. Additionally, these are the elements of culture which are often taboo to discuss inside the
organization. Many of these 'unspoken rules' exist without the conscious knowledge of the membership.
Those with sufficient experience to understand this deepest level of organizational culture usually
become acclimatized to its attributes over time, thus reinforcing the invisibility of their existence.
Surveys and casual interviews with organizational members cannot draw out these attributes—rather
much more in-depth means is required to first identify then understand organizational culture at this
level. Notably, culture at this level is the underlying and driving element often missed by organizational
behaviorists.

Using Schein's model, understanding paradoxical organizational behaviors becomes more apparent. For
instance, an organization can profess highly aesthetic and moral standards at the second level of
Schein's model while simultaneously displaying curiously opposing behavior at the third and deepest
level of culture. Superficially, organizational rewards can imply one organizational norm but at the
deepest level imply something completely different. This insight offers an understanding of the difficulty
that organizational newcomers have in assimilating organizational culture and why it takes time to
become acclimatized. It also explains why organizational change agents usually fail to achieve their
goals: underlying tacit cultural norms are generally not understood before would-be change agents
begin their actions. Merely understanding culture at the deepest level may be insufficient to institute
cultural change because the dynamics of interpersonal r