Essentials of Organizational Behavior, 14/e

Influencing an Organizational Culture

As we discussed, the culture of an organization is set by its founders and is often difficult to change afterward. It’s true that the ideal scenario is a strong founder (or founders) who carefully plans the organization’s culture beforehand. That’s seldom the case, though; organizational culture usually grows organically over time. When we think of the development of culture as ongoing and conducted through each employee, we can see ways to increase the ethical, positive, and/or spiritual aspects of the environment, as discussed next.

An Ethical Culture

Despite differences across industries and cultures, ethical organizational cultures share some common values and processes.62 Therefore, managers can create ...