Organizational Culture and Leadership, Fourth Edition

Chapter 16. WHAT LEADERS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HOW CULTURE CHANGES

This chapter deals with the natural processes by which culture evolves and changes as organizations grow and age. Leaders need to understand these processes to be able to steer them. The emphasis here is on evolution; in later chapters, we will look at managed change, which leaders may need to initiate if the evolutionary process is too slow or going in the wrong direction.

The way in which culture can and does change depends on the stage at which the organization finds itself. Table 16.1 shows these stages and identifies the particular change mechanisms that are most relevant at each stage. These mechanisms are cumulative in the sense that at a later stage, all the prior change mechanisms ...