ASSESSING CORPORATE CULTURE 1. Scheins approach to assessing organizational culture a. Strengths of scheins approach to assessing organizational culture
Schein defines and describes culture as any one of many elements of organizational culture. The culture of an organization can be viewed and treated like other structures within an organization. Certain organizations such as by-laws, committees, and chain of command flow charts, may serve to answer basic questions such as “how do we interact with the external environment?” and “how do we order ourselves internally?” As an organization responds to these questions, the responses become core assumptions. These core assumptions become the frames through which the organization interprets the world round it.
In place of questionnaire or instrument that utilizes typologies, Schein prefers clinical research model of assessing organizational culture. In this model of organizational culture investigation, the researcher gets much more directly involved within the organization by acting as participant observer or ethnographer. He suggests that members of the organization will more openly respond to the researcher and the investigation because the members of the organization think they have something to gain by collaborating with the researcher. Schein believes that valid data on the culture of the organization will only be collected when the researcher is perceived as the consultant who is seeking to help the organization and has the best interest of the organization in mind.
Schein admits that the clinical model of evaluating organizational culture assumes that the researcher intervenes in the culture of the organization. If the organization perceives that the researcher is helping to make changes that will benefit the organization, then the research will accurately yield the cultural dynamics of the organization.