Culture change

In plain terms

Every organization has a culture: the shared, mostly unspoken sense of how things are done. It shows up in who speaks first in meetings, what happens to someone who admits a mistake, which rules are really enforced and which deadlines are really fixed.

Culture change is the attempt to shift that on purpose. It is often confused with changing what the organization says about itself, a new values statement or a new slogan. Those are part of culture, but the shallower parts.

Cameron and Quinn describe culture as the taken-for-granted values, underlying assumptions, expectations and definitions present in an organization, or "how things are around here." They add that people are often unaware of their culture until it is challenged, until they experience a new one, or until it is made explicit (Cameron & Quinn, 1999).

Where it came from

Edgar Schein collected his culture work in Organizational Culture and Leadership, first published in 1985, which went through five editions between 1985 and 2017 (Schein, 1985; P. Schein, 2023). He also published an article titled "Organizational culture" in American Psychologist in 1990 (Schein, 1990). See Edgar Schein.

A second line of work sorts cultures into types. The competing values framework, which Cameron and Quinn applied to culture after Quinn and Rohrbaugh's 1983 model of effectiveness (Quinn & Rohrbaugh, 1983), names four culture types and comes with a survey, the OCAI, for comparing the current culture with a preferred one (Cameron & Quinn, 1999).

How it works

Schein's three levels. Schein describes culture at three levels (Schein, 2010; Sutcliffe, 2013):

1. Artifacts. What you can see and hear: language, dress, procedures, office layout. Easy to observe, hard to interpret without knowing what lies behind them.
2. Espoused beliefs and values. What people say they believe, in public and in writing.
3. Basic underlying assumptions. The deepest level: taken-for-granted beliefs that shape what members notice and how they act. An organization shows many artifacts but only a few deep assumptions.

The practical point is that change aimed at the top two levels can leave the third untouched. A company can repaint its offices and rewrite its values while its people go on assuming that raising a problem is dangerous.

Culture and the rest of the organization. Culture sits among the transformational factors in the Burke-Litwin model, alongside mission, strategy and leadership (Burke & Litwin, 1992). In that model, transformational factors such as culture affect the transactional ones, structure, systems, management practices and climate, in turn.

What the research says

The Evidence Library holds no trial of a culture change program. It holds reviews that link culture to how change goes, a case survey of mergers, and a review of how culture is measured.

Some cultures go with easier change. A systematic review of 35 studies from developing countries reported that clan cultures were linked with change going well, through empowerment, trust and participative decisions, while hierarchy cultures were linked with it going badly, through centralized authority, information hoarding and suppressed psychological safety (Kaleke et al., 2026, rated Medium from its abstract). A companion review of 34 studies identified six mechanisms through which culture appears to shape resistance to change, among them preserving hierarchy, avoiding uncertainty and saving face; hierarchy was the only mechanism that appeared in every region (Kaleke & Mitonga-Monga, 2026, rated Medium from its abstract). Both are narrative syntheses without pooled effects, and the abstracts do not say which designs the included studies used.

Shared culture went with shared activity. In a case survey of 50 mergers and acquisitions, 23 domestic in the US, 15 domestic in Sweden and 12 Swedish cross-border deals, acculturation was best achieved when the buying firms relied on social controls: introduction programs, training, cross-visits, retreats, celebrations and similar rituals. The authors report that by taking part in such activities, employees will create, of their own volition, a joint culture, regardless of the relative size of the firms or differences in nationalities and cultures (Larsson & Lubatkin, 2001, rated Medium from its abstract). The coding of published cases is correlational.

Communication and involvement. A systematic review of resistance in change programs found lack of communication and lack of involvement to be significant contributors, and found both related to organizational culture (Canning & Found, 2015, rated Medium from its abstract). The supporting case evidence came from one organization.

Middle managers' voice. In a telecom takeover described in one case study, senior leaders who left out middle managers' voices ran into trouble implementing change; the authors argue that resistance can be a safeguard against over-optimistic change (Fronda & Moriceau, 2008, an Atlas study rated low).

Culture is hard to measure. A systematic review of measures of organizational culture, climate and implementation climate in behavioral health found several promising measures, but judged the overall state of measurement poor, with limited evidence that the measures detect change or predict outcomes (Powell et al., 2021, rated Medium from its abstract).

Where the evidence is thin

1. No trials of culture change programs. The sources here show which cultures go with easier change. None tests a program designed to move a culture from one type to another.
2. Measurement. Powell and colleagues (2021) found limited evidence, in behavioral health measures, that culture measures detect change, so a before-and-after culture survey may be weak evidence that a culture changed.
3. The deepest level. Schein's basic assumptions are by definition taken for granted. The graded sources here are reviews and case studies, and their abstracts do not say that any of them measured basic assumptions directly.

How it maps to the Unfrozen Loop

1. Week 0
   Before you start
2. 1
   Surface both ways
3. 2
   Make sense together, top included

   In the merger case survey below, acculturation was best achieved where buying firms relied on joint activities such as training, cross-visits and retreats (abstract read).

4. 3
   Start it close to the work

   Culture shows up in daily work, not only in statements. One place to start is what people do close to the work.

5. 4
   Review on a rhythm, then hold the pace
6. 5
   The middle’s own weather
7. Ring
   Safe to speak, and speaking changes something

   The Loop's ground is a culture where it is safe to speak and speaking changes something. In the review below, hierarchy cultures were linked to change going badly, through centralized authority, information hoarding and suppressed psychological safety.

Highlighted parts are the ones this idea speaks to. The mapping is my reading, not a tested finding. See the whole Loop and the evidence for each part.

Common misreadings

"Culture change is a communications campaign." Values statements and slogans sit at the espoused level of Schein's model. The assumptions underneath are what shape behavior (Sutcliffe, 2013).

"Leaders set the culture and everyone follows." In the merger case survey, acculturation was best achieved when buying firms relied on activities employees took part in, such as training, cross-visits and retreats (Larsson & Lubatkin, 2001, abstract read).

"A strong culture is a good culture." The reviews above compare culture types, not culture strength. They link hierarchy cultures with change going badly, and say nothing about whether a strong culture is good or bad.

Using it well

1. Find the assumption, not just the behavior. Pick one behavior you want to change, such as people not raising problems early. Ask a few people, privately, what happens to someone who does. The answer can bring up assumptions that a survey may not.
2. Change something people do together. The merger case survey found acculturation best where employees took part together in activities such as training, cross-visits and retreats. Joint work on a real problem, across the groups whose cultures need to meet, is one way to apply that.
3. Change the systems that reward the old behavior. If the culture you want involves speaking up, check what happens in reviews, promotions and budget meetings to people who bring bad news.
4. Measure behavior, not only attitudes. Track something you can count, such as how many problems are raised in team meetings each month, alongside any culture survey.