How do i go about doing a brief secondary investigation of a question of interest to me related to organizational culture?

Answer 1

Organizational culture is a pretty hard thing to define, much less assess it's current problems, issues and opportunities. Let's start with a definition: Organizational culture consists of the actions, behaviors, systems, values and beliefs that persist over time. Please note that "persistent" also implies hard to change. There are volumes and volumes written on assessing (or diagnosing) organizational culture. Some of those references are below. There are three main methods of assessing organizational culture: archival methods, that use historical data, such as absenteeism, turnover, customer relations and retention, productivity records, etc.; The second is to gather information via surveys, whether they be numerical surveys, open-ended surveys, or some combination of both; and observation, where a consultant systematically observes meetings, discussions, individuals, etc. Usually a combination of all three will allow you to "triangulate" and come up with a thorough assessment of culture. Some of the books below will help. In addition, there are a couple of articles on websites that summarize much of the information. They are included in the web link to this article. Some references: Organizational Dynamics: Diagnosis and Intervention (Addison-Wesley Series on Organization Development) by John P. Kotter Organizational Diagnosis and Assessment: Bridging Theory and Practice by Michael Harrison and Arie Shirom Diagnosis for Organizational Change: Methods and Models by Ann Howard and and Associates No More Darn Buzzwords: Keys to Successful Organized Change. David Chaudron. PhD