The IABC Handbook of Organizational Communication: A Guide to Internal Communication, Public Relations, Marketing, and Leadership

Defining Culture

In its basic definition, culture is how an organization accomplishes all that it has to do to fulfill its mission or purpose. Culture can be observed in the ways that things get done—in the processes that everyone in the organization knows must be followed for work to be successfully accomplished. This meaning of culture is embodied in the statement “This is the way we do things around here.”

A pragmatic approach was framed by Fons Trompenaars, who defined culture as “the way in which a group of people solves problems and resolves dilemmas” (Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 1997, p. 6). Geert Hofstede (1994) described culture in a more philosophical way: “Culture is a deeply rooted value or shared norm, moral or aesthetic principles ...