Culture, as we know, is a word with several meanings. It can be applied to an individual (“a cultured person”), an era or place (say, “Celtic culture”), or to something much smaller (a pure culture of Staphylococcus aureus – why not?). A properly formed organizational culture, oddly enough, on this scale is closer to microorganisms than to manifestations of human essence. What’s even more interesting is that the “cleaner” it is, the better it is, the more inconspicuous it looks. However, let’s start in order.

We all encounter organizational culture every day. This may be a manifestation of that very world of state-controlled enterprises that should have died long ago, when on the way to work you pass through the barrier with a fierce-looking and gloomy face by a guard, convincing him that you are you, and you go where you are going. Very close, a hundred meters away, you can meet representatives of another world, in a bright, spacious office, ready to help you, their client, manage your money. Having passed these worlds, you find yourself in your office, where friends and colleagues are waiting for you, ready to share their joys and rejoice in yours, pleasant coffee with marshmallows and cookies, and several paternally warm and at the same time demanding letters from your project manager.

A good, strong organizational culture, like a garden bed, requires regular maintenance. Responsible and mature employees, coming to the team, give it new shades, organically complementing it. Young, proactive and agile employees add the missing links. Careless people, on the contrary, can destroy everything – this is where caring gardeners, managers and HR managers come to the rescue. The seeds of organizational culture are concentrated in the company’s “mission and vision” document.

In order not to go far, let’s consider this using the example of the company Teqniksoft . Its mission (it is not called a “mission” on the website, but that’s exactly it, it’s impossible to make a mistake here) is formulated extremely briefly: focus on quality, protection of intellectual property, transparency of the development process for customers and creating the best working conditions for employees. In life, this manifests itself in careful selection of personnel (out of a dozen or two candidates, only one can pass), the use of proven development environments, customer access to an internal bug tracker and, if necessary, direct interaction with developers, as well as in an almost family-like friendly work environment, where you can easily talk about life with both a fellow developer and a director. Yes,I already wrote about the view from the window.

Scientists identify several types of organizational culture. Thus, the organization’s focus on compliance with established internal procedures and rules gives rise to a bureaucratic (or hierarchical) culture. Its variant, which implies greater flexibility in relation to external factors, can be called clan culture; here the moral climate and team cohesion come first. Market culture arises in results-oriented companies, where there is competition within, and the reward for employees is the success of their common cause. Finally, an innovative culture that encourages personal initiative, creativity and freedom is characteristic of start-ups, and is characterized rather by the absence of explicit rules of behavior.

An important influence on organizational culture is exerted by the territorial affiliation and national composition of employees, determining several key parameters at once: power distance (strict subordination or interaction), the individualism-collectivism axis, rejection of uncertainty (and the desire to avoid it through rules, traditions, ideology, religion, etc.) etc.), focus on the future, distribution of roles between the sexes (rigid consolidation of roles – masculine culture – focus on success, weak – feminine culture – concern for the team), finally, indulgence or restraint. This division was proposed by the Dutch scientist Geert Hofstede and is based on data from surveys of employees from dozens of different countries .

Another study, also conducted by Geert Hofstede in 30 countries, found a significant correlation between “territorial” dimensions and personality dimensions measured by the Big Five test.. Thus, 55% of the differences between countries in the “neuroticism” parameter can be explained by a combination of “uncertainty avoidance” and “masculinity”. In practice, this means that, for example, when planning labor immigration, you can choose the country that is most comfortable for your particular personality type, since there will be a predominance of companies with the type of organizational culture suitable for you. Another good news is that personality parameters, like national culture, change very little over time: you can take the test, decide on the country, and begin the multi-year process of moving, confident that you have made the right choice.

Perhaps this is all that is actually of practical interest in the term “organizational culture”. Knowledge of the protective, integrating, regulating, adaptive, orientation, motivational and image functions of organizational culture will not help you in any way, unless, of course, you are the head of an organization or an HR director involved in the formation of this very culture. But even in this case, you cannot control the entire culture, because it is created by everyone in the organization. You can, of course, suggest taking the Big Five test before hiring – but are you ready to do this and will you be able to interpret its result correctly?

With this rhetorical question, I say goodbye, and once again I recommend looking at the original source Hofstede’s Model in Context: Parameters of Quantitative Characteristics of Cultures – perhaps it contains something interesting for you, especially if you work in a multinational corporation.