Corporate Cultures 1

A Review of Corporate Cultures in

Research and Development

Internet Article Review Week #4 (for Week #3 topics)

Chenista Rae Straubel

MGT 330

Beverley M. Harris, Faculty

March 25, 2010

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Abstract

The following represents a review of an article authored by Ronda F. Reigle titled

Measuring Organic and Mechanistic Cultures published by the Engineering Management

Journal in December of 2001.

The article focuses on high-tech organizations including Research and

Development with Reigle (2001) stressing, “Culture is an important factor in successful

technology implementation, innovation, mergers, acquisition, job satisfaction,

organizational success, and team effectiveness.”

Reigle explains that the challenges faced by organizations forces workers to find

their “stability and security” in the culture of their organization adding that this culture

affects employee retention citing a study conducted that emphasized interpersonal

relationships and work task values.

This paper includes a review of findings as they apply to corporate cultures.

 Corporate Cultures 3

A Review of Corporate Cultures in

Research and Development

Internet Article Review Week #4 (for Week #3 topics)

Tools for Measuring Corporate Cultures

Global competition has made it necessary for companies to increase their

efficiency and competence in the marketplace. In order to exude the confidence

necessary to succeed in this new market, companies must continually review their

cultures in an air of evolution – the corporate culture is a living entity all its own and

deserving of much respect. This efficiency can be measured with the author highlighting

that companies practicing the participative culture enjoy nearly a 2:1 return ratio on their

human capital investment.

An OCA tool used to measure culture provides a five-dimensional score that

represents five cultural elements as defined by the author: language; tangible artifacts and

symbols; patterns of behavior, rites, and rituals, behavioral norms; espoused values; and

beliefs and underlying assumptions.

The 45-question OCA survey is divided into five sections with the score

representing an average. A score closer to 1.0 represents a mechanistic culture and a

score closer to 8.0 reflects an organic culture.

The results of the survey indicate that out of thirty high-tech organizations

surveyed totaling 275 participants sixteen had sufficient data to perform the analysis.

Survey participants completed the OCA and the POC (Likert Profile of Organizational
 Corporate Cultures 4

Characteristics – this was used for validation). Scores for participating organizations

range from approximately 3.8 to 6.2.

Reliability of the data and survey was established by applying the split-half

reliability and Cronbach’s alpha that accurately reflects consistent results with each

section or element.

Validity was determined by comparing the results of the OCA to the POC. Using

the POC, Likert examines four management systems based on a continuum with System

1 as exploitive authoritative; System 2 as benevolent authoritative (rewards and

punishment); System 3 as consultative (less punishment and more rewards for

motivation); and System 4 as participative group where team involvement is focused and

a group-developed reward system is used to motivate. POC is divided into six sections:

leadership, motivation, communication, decisions, goals, and control. The POC measures

slightly different aspects of organizational culture when compared to the OCA tool

however correlations between OCA and POC data is .95 reflecting their interrelationships

and accuracy.

Further analysis regarding validity of the data included demographics and

participants were asked how they view their respective organizations based on a very

negative to very positive scale with very negative indicating a mechanistic culture. This

opinion was converted into a five-point scale and compared to the OCA scores. The

correlation measured .82 and establishes validity of the OCA scores.

When analyzing the participating organizations, it was found that organizations in

the upper OCA range have reputations reflecting innovative, flexible, and loose

organizational structures – reflecting organic cultures, while those with lesser score have
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reputations for being bureaucratic, rigid, and rules oriented – reflecting a mechanistic

culture.

The data collected ranks organizations into four subsets: mechanistic,

mechanistic-organic, organic-mechanistic, and organic. Culture types were studied using

the Levene test for variances with a level reported as .538. Duncan’s multiple range test

reported a level of .05 and therefore it was concluded that the culture type model is

accurate.

Conclusion

According to the author the results indicate that 1) OCA is reliable for measuring

organizational culture, and 2) there are four types of cultures. The results of the tests are

merely indicative of whether or not managers need to make a decision to change the

cultures. The author offers the following tips to consider when researching a change in

the corporate culture:

• Minimize jargon

• Refrain from derogatory terms for management, staff, personnel,

customer’s, vendor’s, etc.

• Offer praise; celebrate accomplishments

• Implement the “open-door” policy

• Informal attire or similar attire between management and staff

• Comfortable work areas with updated equipment

• Focus on performance rather than office hours

• Encourage open-minded and team oriented problem solving skills

• Focus on quality of work rather than quantity

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• Encourage innovative ideas and quickly adapt new technologies

• Praise good performance and offer training opportunities

• Provide support to employees to reach organizational goals

• Assume employees are responsible, capable, and vital organizational

assets

• Empower decision making at lower levels

After change in the cultural environment has been implemented and

accepted, conducting the OCA again will provide feedback regarding the impact

of the changes.
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References

Reigle, Ronda F. (Dec 2001). Measuring organic and mechanistic cultures. Engineering

Management Journal. (p. 3).