Leading Across Boundaries: Creating Collaborative Agencies in a Networked World

The Puzzle of Culture

Since the 1980s, organizational theorists have placed a great emphasis on culture as a key to understanding organizational performance. These theorists offer many definitions of organizational culture: the values espoused by an organization; the “unwritten rules of the social game” (Hofstede and Hofstede, 2005, p. 4); organizational ceremonies, language, and rituals; and others. One of the most significant aspects of culture relates to group members’ fundamental assumptions about how their organization works and about the environment that affects it. Whatever the definition, there’s no question that organizational culture is a major factor in determining performance.

Collaborative leaders frequently deal with partners ...