Issue 1
Organisational Culture
February 2015
APS Human Capital Matters: Organisational Culture
February 2015, Issue 1
Editor’s Note to Readers
Welcome to the first edition of Human Capital Matters for 2015—the digest for leaders and
practitioners with an interest in human capital and organisational capability. This edition focuses
on Organisational Culture.
Human Capital Matters seeks to provide APS leaders and practitioners with easy access to the
issues of contemporary importance in public and private sector human capital and organisational
capability. It has been designed to provide interested readers with a monthly guide to the national
and international ideas that are shaping human capital thinking and practice. The inclusion of
articles is aimed at stimulating creative and innovative thinking and does not in any way imply
that the Australian Public Service Commission endorses service providers or policies.
There is no single definition of Organisational Culture. The essence of what people mean by it
was captured by a discussion on LinkedIn reported in the Harvard Business Review in May
2013. Aspects discussed are summarised below.

Culture is consistent, observable patterns of behaviour in organisations.

Culture is powerfully shaped by incentives.

Culture is a process of “sense-making” in organisations.
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Culture is a carrier of meaning.
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Culture is a social control system.
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Culture is a form of protection that has evolved from situational pressures.

Organisational culture is shaped by and overlaps with other cultures—especially the
broader culture of the societies in which it operates.

The cultures of organisations are never monolithic. There are many factors that drive
internal variations in the culture of business functions and units.

Cultures are dynamic. They shift, incrementally and constantly, in response to external
and internal changes.
The above aspects also form the basis of the articles presented in this edition of Human Capital
Matters.
The first article emphasises the importance of foundational history and periods of transition in
influencing or creating an ‘imprint’ on the life in organisations. It emphasises the importance of
understanding the present through considering the past.
The second article presents an academic review of organisational culture and climate. In the
article organisational climate is briefly defined as the meanings people attach to interrelated
bundles of experiences they have at work. Organisational culture is briefly defined as the basic
assumptions about the world and the values that guide life in organisations. The authors
concluded that an integration of climate and culture theory and research has useful implications
for practice.
The third article refers to a publication that was written for organisational leaders in the
Victorian Public Sector-specifically, people working in executive and senior management roles.
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Organisational Culture is defined as the shared values and beliefs that guide how members of an
organisation approach their work and interact with each other. The publication is a collection of
ideas designed to stimulate and inform leadership thinking, judgement and decision making in
the face of specific situations, opportunities and dilemmas.
The fourth article is built around three major steps central to changing the culture of an
organisation. The author argues that executives in the organisation must support the cultural
change, and in ways beyond verbal support. They must show behavioural support for the cultural
change. Executives must lead the change by changing their own behaviours. It is extremely
important for executives to consistently support the change.
The fifth article makes observation about culture change and transformation of the public sector
in the context of recent UK government imposed changes.
Thank you to those who took the time to provide feedback on earlier editions of Human Capital
Matters. Comments, suggestions or questions regarding this publication are always welcome and
should be addressed to: humancapitalmatters@apsc.gov.au. Readers can also subscribe to the
mailing list through this email address.
APS Human Capital Matters: Organisational Culture
Marquis, Christopher and Tilcsik, András. Imprinting: Toward A Multilevel Theory
(March 1, 2013). Academy of Management Annals, 7: 193-243, 2013.; Harvard Business
School Organisational Behaviour Unit Working Paper No. 13-061; Rotman School of
Management Working Paper No. 2198954
Nearly half a century has passed since Stinchcombe (1965) introduced the concept of imprinting
to organisational research, describing how organisations take on elements of their founding
environment and how these elements persist well beyond the founding phase. This article is a
working draft paper that attempts to clarify the nature of imprinting, to integrate the disparate
literatures that have engaged with the concept, and to guide research toward a multilevel theory
of imprinting.
The authors advance a three-part definition of imprinting that emphasises:

brief sensitive periods of transition during which the focal entity exhibits high
susceptibility to external influences

a process whereby the focal entity comes to reflect elements of its environment during a
sensitive period

the persistence of imprints despite subsequent environmental changes.
The first unique feature of the imprinting argument is that an imprint is stamped onto the focal
entity in limited time intervals during which the entity exhibits intensified receptivity to external
influence. The authors suggest that while each sensitive period is relatively short, an entity might
experience multiple sensitive periods over time. Similarly, research at the individual level
suggests that, during periods of role transition—including periods of organisational and
professional socialisation—individuals are particularly susceptible to influence. Overall across
levels of analysis, the authors suggest that sensitive periods should be conceptualised as periods
of transition. In this view, the founding period remains the key sensitive period for organisations,
as it marks the fundamental transition from nonexistence to existence; similarly, the beginning of
an individual’s career constitutes an important sensitive period because it represents a critical
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transition from the world of education to the world of work. Yet the possibility of multiple
sensitive periods opens the way for discovering imprinting in a wider variety of instances.
A second important element of imprinting is that core features of the environment exert a
significant influence on the focal entity during sensitive periods. In the case of organisations, for
example, a “mapping of an environmental condition onto the organisation” takes place at this
time. Organisations are initially structured to fit the existing environment and then, because of
subsequent inertia and institutionalisation, continue to exhibit traces of the founding context.
The third element of the imprinting hypothesis is that imprints persistence even if significant
changes take place in the environment. At the organisational level, Stinchcome suggested a
number of reasons for the persistence of structures:

they may still be the most efficient form of organisation for a given purpose

traditionalising forces, the vesting of interests, and the working out of ideologies may
tend to preserve the structure

the organisation may not be in a competitive structure in which it has to be better than
alternative forms of organisation in order to survive.
The authors note that numerous studies have shown that organisational collectives bear imprints
of their founding environment, including the stamp of economic, technological, and institutional
conditions and the mark of founding individuals. Such collectives can be defined on the basis of
organisational and market characteristics (e.g., industries), geography (e.g., organisational
populations embedded in particular nation-states and geographic communities) or shared
organisational form. In general, imprinting occurs in these collectives because the founding
environmental conditions serve as constraints for early entrants, and the patterns that are
established at that time are then perpetuated by subsequent organisations’ emulation of the
collective’s older members.
By conceptualising imprinting in a theoretically grounded way, the author’s goal has been to
unpack how and why the history of organisations and the individuals within them matters for
understanding the present.
Editor’s Note to Readers
Schneider, B. Ehrhart, Mark G. Ehrhart,2 Macey, William H. (2013) Organisational
Climate and Culture
This article presents an academic review of organisational culture and climate. In the article
organisational climate is briefly defined as the meanings people attach to interrelated bundles of
experiences they have at work. Organisational culture is briefly defined as the basic assumptions
about the world and the values that guide life in organisations.
A brief history of climate research is presented, followed by the major accomplishments in
research on the topic with regard to levels issues, the foci of climate research, and studies of
climate strength. A brief overview of the more recent study of organisational culture is then
introduced, followed by samples of important thinking and research on the roles of leadership
and national culture in understanding organisational culture and performance and culture as a
moderator variable in research in organisational behaviour.
The final section of the article proposes an integration of climate and culture thinking and
research and concludes with practical implications for the management of effective
contemporary organisations.
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A major outcome of the climate research for psychology has been the acceptance of a level of
theory and data other than the individual as relevant and important in organisational
psychological research and practice.
Pettigrew (1979) added new dimensions to the study of organisational behaviour when he
promoted a culture focus for organisational research. His emphasis on the relevance of myths,
values, and history for understanding what organisations are was instructive to both researchers
and practitioners. Although there were debates for decades about how to study organisational
culture, including on what facets of organisations one might focus and whether culture should be
expected to be related to organisational performance, since the turn of the millennium survey
approaches have become more common, and increasingly there is an emphasis on the
organisational performance consequences of organisational culture.
The work of Schein (1985, 2010) indicates that it is agreed by most that a major building block
for organisational culture is attributable to the early decisions founders make about structures
and organising principles and to what ends valuable resources will be expended.
The authors also devote time to outlining the Competing Values Framework (CVF) of Quinn &
Rohrbaugh (1983). CVF is a way to summarise the wide range of issues that have been studied
under the culture rubric, revealing how they combine to produce particular foci for organisations
on outcomes. The finding that the cells in the framework are positively related suggests that
organisations that do some things appropriately also are likely doing many other things
appropriately.
The authors concluded that an integration of climate and culture theory and research has useful
implications for practice, especially vis-`a-vis practice that yields data suggestive of
organisational changes that might yield improvements in organisational behaviour and
performance.
Editor’s Note to Readers
Victorian Public Sector Commission (2013) “Organisational Culture. A publication from
the Leading Public Organisations series”
This publication was written for organisational leaders in the Victorian Public Sectorspecifically, people working in executive and senior management roles.
The publication is presented as an 'ideas sourcebook' rather than a step-by-step 'how to' guide. It
is a collection of ideas designed to stimulate and inform leadership thinking, judgement and
decision making in the face of specific situations, opportunities and dilemmas.
Organisational culture is the shared values and beliefs that guide how members of an
organisation approach their work and interact with each other.
The paper notes that since the 1960’s workforces have become more diverse and it cannot be
assumed that everyone shares the same values. It argues that culture matters because it impacts
on most other organisational dynamics; it influences how organisations and their staff manage
complexity, ambiguity and change. When organisational cultures are dysfunctional, staff become
disengaged, and serious underperformance becomes a risk. A functional organisational culture is
credited with improving organisational performance.
The paper suggests that the five top ways in which leaders can contribute to organisational
culture include:

recognising their role in organisational culture
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seeing and sharing the bigger picture
establishing cooperation and collaboration as the norm
understanding the power of symbols and messaging
acknowledging the different experiences and perspectives of staff across the organisation.
Organisational culture surveys and other empirical data sources provide a useful starting point
for explorations of culture. But an understanding of the dynamics and subtleties of organisational
culture will come from a leader’s own observations and intuition.
Editor’s Note to Readers
Heathfield, Susan (viewed 2015) “ How to change your culture: Organisational culture
change ”.
The author notes that when people in an organisation realize and recognize that their current
culture needs to transform to support the organisation's success and progress, change can occur.
The article is built around three major steps involved in changing an organisation’s culture.
These include:

Take steps to understand the current culture.

Define the organisation’s vision, strategic direction and values.

Individuals in the organisation must then change behaviour to create the desired
culture—it is recognised that this is the most difficult part of the process.
It is recognised that it is more difficult to change the culture of an existing culture than to create
the culture of a new organisation. When an organisational culture is already established, people
must unlearn the old values, assumptions, and behaviours before they can learn the new ones.
The two most important elements for creating organisational cultural change are executive
support and training.
The author argues that executives in the organisation must support the cultural change, and in
ways beyond verbal support. They must show behavioural support for the cultural change.
Executives must lead the change by changing their own behaviours. It is extremely important for
executives to consistently support the change.
Employees must clearly understand what is expected of them, and must know how to perform
according to the new behaviours, once they have been defined. Training can be useful in both
communicating expectations and teaching new behaviours.
The author notes that other ways to encourage change to organisational culture includes:

creating value and belief statements

practicing effective communication

reviewing organisational structure

redesigning the approach to rewards and recognition

reviewing all work systems.
The author doesn’t try to oversimplify the complexity of changing organisation culture. It is
recognised that it requires time, commitment, planning and proper execution.
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Susan Heathfield is a management and organisation development consultant who specialises in
human resources issues and in management development to create forward thinking workplaces.
Susan is also a professional facilitator, speaker, trainer, and writer. Susan has worked many
years in HR. Since 1987, Susan has managed her own consulting company: she has consulted
with over 100 clients and facilitated over 2,000 training and planning sessions.
Editor’s Note to Readers
CIPD in collaboration with PPMA (2012) Leading culture change - employee engagement
and public service transformation
This report was written in the context of the UK Government wanting to oversee a
transformation in public services so that service providers work collaboratively to deliver
integrated services, and communities and individuals do more for themselves and on their own
behalf.
The public sector leaders face significant challenges as they respond to the twin pressures of
reducing spending and providing more customer-focused services. This involves looking at new
ways of delivering services, for example increased commissioning of services and greater
involvement of the private sector and non-profit organisations such as mutuals and co-operatives,
as the role of the state is reduced and communities play a more active role. The chief executives
and HR directors interviewed for this report recognise that to succeed they need to change the
prevailing public service model to deliver greater value for money and more bespoke and
localised service delivery.
Key points that emerge from the study include:

Cost reduction and service delivery transformation are two sides of the same coin

Public service ethos remains key

Staff involvement underpins buy-in

The ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of communication is critical

Culture change needed if service transformation is to be realised

Organisational development and leadership development lie at the heart of the change
process

Values are important

Employee engagement is a valuable framework for values-based culture change

Employers need to build a new psychological contract

Engaging leadership starts at the top

Values form the foundation of leadership development

All managers need leadership skills

You can’t manage what you can’t measure

HR’s role in developing wider organisational leadership capability is critical

Employee voice key to service transformation

Industrial relations with unions are pragmatic
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Public Sector People Managers’ Association (PPMA) serves and represents the professional
interests of members working across the HR/OD professions within the public sector. The
Association influences and contributes to the development of public policy and legislation in this
respect, constantly advocating the need for higher standards of people management and
development to further enhance the delivery of public services.
Editor’s Note to Readers
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