This article was downloaded by: [Levi Nieminen] On: 14 September 2012, At: 12:36 Publisher: Psychology Press Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/pewo20 Diagnosing organizational cultures: A conceptual and empirical review of culture effectiveness surveys Daniel Denison a , Levi Nieminen b & Lindsey Kotrba b a International Institute for Management Development, Lausanne, Switzerland b Denison Consulting, Ann Arbor, MI, USA Version of record first published: 28 Aug 2012. To cite this article: Daniel Denison, Levi Nieminen & Lindsey Kotrba (): Diagnosing organizational cultures: A conceptual and empirical review of culture effectiveness surveys, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, DOI:10.1080/1359432X.2012.713173 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2012.713173 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
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This article was downloaded by: [Levi Nieminen]On: 14 September 2012, At: 12:36Publisher: Psychology PressInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
European Journal of Work and OrganizationalPsychologyPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/pewo20
Diagnosing organizational cultures: A conceptual andempirical review of culture effectiveness surveysDaniel Denison a , Levi Nieminen b & Lindsey Kotrba ba International Institute for Management Development, Lausanne, Switzerlandb Denison Consulting, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
Version of record first published: 28 Aug 2012.
To cite this article: Daniel Denison, Levi Nieminen & Lindsey Kotrba (): Diagnosing organizational cultures: A conceptualand empirical review of culture effectiveness surveys, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology,DOI:10.1080/1359432X.2012.713173
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2012.713173
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematicreproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form toanyone is expressly forbidden.
The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contentswill be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses shouldbe independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims,proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly inconnection with or arising out of the use of this material.
Diagnosing organizational cultures: A conceptual and empirical review of culture
effectiveness surveys
Daniel Denison1, Levi Nieminen
2, and Lindsey Kotrba
2
1International Institute for Management Development, Lausanne, Switzerland2Denison Consulting, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
This review traces the development of survey research methods within the organizational culture tradition and focusesspecifically on those instruments that measure the aspects of culture that are related to organizational effectiveness. Ourreview suggests that the reliability and validity of most instruments in this category is quite limited. This review outlinesthe recommended logic for the development and validation of culture effectiveness surveys and identifies three keychallenges for future culture researchers to address: (1) the confirmatory testing of nested models, (2) the guidelines foraggregating data to the organizational level, and (3) the establishing of criterion-related validity. Using data from theDenison Organizational Culture Survey, we present an empirical illustration of the three challenges identified above andconclude by considering limitations and opportunities for future research.
Since the early days of organizational culture research,scholars interested in the impact of culture onorganizational effectiveness have faced a dilemma:Case studies and theoretical models are plentiful, butmany of the core measurement issues required to docomparative research on culture and effectiveness haveremained relatively undeveloped. Nonetheless, over thepast decade the number of instruments has grownsignificantly (Jung et al., 2009), and research on thelink between culture and effectiveness has continued todevelop (Hartnell, Ou, & Kinicki, 2011; Lim, 1995;Siehl &Martin, 1990; Wilderom, Glunk, &Maslowski,2000). In a recent review, Sackmann (2011) identified55 empirical studies, 45 of which had been publishedduring the last decade. Importantly, the review alsotraces growing evidence supporting the direct effects oforganizational culture on organization-level financialperformance and effectiveness.
Given the progress that has occurred in the culture-effectiveness domain and with no signs of declininginterest for the foreseeable future (Ashkanasy,
Wilderom, & Peterson, 2011; Sackmann, 2011), it iscrucial that methodological research keeps pace withthe field’s substantive development. The goals of thisstudy were to closely examine the set of instrumentsthat have been advanced to better understand theculture-effectiveness relationship and to highlight thekey issues and gaps in the research that has beenconducted to establish their reliability and validity.Accordingly, our focus in this study was on effective-ness profiling instruments. By assessing facets ofculture directly linked to organizational effectivenessoutcomes, surveys of this type are the most direct,diagnostic assessments of organizational culture.However, prior reviews suggest that relatively littleattention has been paid to their systematic evaluation(Ashkanasy, Broadfoot, & Falkus, 2000). It iscritically important that this limitation be addressedin order to clarify the current state of measurement inthe culture-effectiveness domain, as well as to clarifythe appropriate set of methodological considerationsthat future studies should attempt to satisfy.
Please address all correspondence to Daniel Denison, International Institute for Management Development, Chemin de Bellerive, 23,
This article begins by presenting an overview of theuse of survey instruments within the organizationalculture research tradition and examines the role ofsurveys in the investigation of the link betweenorganizational culture and effectiveness. Next, wesummarize the conclusions of several key metho-dological reviews and provide an update, focusingspecifically on effectiveness profiling surveys. Basedon our update, we identify and describe several keyconsiderations that must be addressed in the valida-tion process: (1) the confirmatory testing of nestedmodels, (2) the guidelines for aggregating data to theorganizational level, and (3) the establishing ofcriterion-related validity. The final section providesan empirical illustration of our approach to each ofthese challenges using archival data from the DenisonOrganizational Culture Survey.
MEASURING THECHARACTERISTICS OF
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURES
Organizational culture was first described by ElliottJaques in his 1951 book, The Changing Culture of aFactory. Jacques invoked culture—described as in-formal social structures—as a way to explain thefailure of formal policies and procedures to resolvethe unproductive dynamic between managers andemployees at the Glacier Metal Company. AndrewPettigrew (1979) reintroduced the concept to the fieldby pointing to culture as the ‘‘social tissue’’ thatcontributes to collective sense making in organiza-tions (p. 574). Informal social structures and collec-tive sense making are still reflected in moderndefinitions of organizational culture. Schein’s (1992)definition of culture is probably the most widelyaccepted, but nearly all organizational scholars agreethat the core content includes the values, beliefs, andassumptions that are held by the members of anorganization and the way in which they guidebehaviour and facilitate shared meaning (Alvesson,2011; Denison, 1996; Smircich, 1983). The potentialfor multiple cultures (or subcultures) within a singleorganization is also generally acknowledged indefinitions (Martin, 1992; Martin & Meyerson, 1988).
Measurement perspectives on organizational cul-ture have evolved greatly over time. Early scholarshipreflected the anthropological origins of the cultureconcept and therefore emphasized qualitative, ethno-graphic research methods (Rousseau, 1990). Simi-larly, culture was conceptualized mainly from an emicperspective, in which cultures are viewed as unique,rather than etic perspective, in which cultures areviewed as comparable. Hence, the historical andepistemological forces guiding early scholarshipmainly discounted the possibility that organizationalcultures could be studied within a nomothetic
framework using standardized survey instruments(Martin & Frost, 1996; Martin, Frost, & O’Neill,2006; Trice & Beyer, 1993). The culture–climate‘‘debate’’ also shaped researchers’ thinking aboutthe appropriateness of surveys, with methodologicalpreference seen as one factor in differentiatingculture, as a qualitative tradition, from climate, as aquantitative tradition (Denison, 1996; Ostroff,Kinicki, & Tamkins, 2003).
More recently, these ‘‘culture wars’’ have givenway to a more eclectic, multi-method perspectiveamong culture researchers (Ashkanasy et al., 2011;Hofstede, Neuijen, Ohayv, & Sanders, 1990; Ostroffet al., 2003; Rousseau, 1990; Sackmann, 2006). Forcomparative research, surveys most often provide thefoundation for quantitative assessment and cross-organization comparison (Xenikou & Furnham,1996). Additionally, surveys are less resource inten-sive than clinical or ethnographic methods, canprovide normative information about an organiza-tion’s culture, facilitate the benchmarking andorganizational change process, and allow for directreplication (Ashkanasy et al., 2000; Cooke &Rousseau, 1988; Tucker, McCoy, & Evans, 1990).
Researchers have generally acknowledged twomain limitations of survey methodologies: theirinability to access ‘‘deeper’’ cultural elements suchas symbolic meaning, semiotics, and fundamentalassumptions (Rousseau, 1990; Schein, 1992; Smircich,1983; Van Maanen, 1988), and their use of a prioricontent—predefined, standardized questions—whichmay fail to capture the most relevant aspects ofculture in a given situation. In addition, the surveyapproach also assumes that respondents’ perceptionsof the culture are meaningful when aggregated to thegroup level (Sackmann, 2006). Thus, culture surveysare most appropriate when the focus is on the‘‘observable and measurable manifestations of cul-ture’’, such as values and behavioural norms, andwhen the research purpose calls for making compar-isons across organizations using the same set ofculture concepts (Ashkanasy et al., 2000, p. 132). Inher review, Sackmann (2011) describes how the widevariety of survey instruments used makes it difficult toestablish clear patterns across studies, instead creating‘‘a rather broad and colorful picture of the linkbetween different culture dimensions and perfor-mance measures’’ (p. 196). This diversity is a healthyform of pluralism, but it also represents severalchallenges.
Theoretical diversity: the wide-rangingcontent of organizational culture
Most culture surveys assess specific behaviouralnorms and values to characterize an organization’sculture (Ashkanasy et al., 2000). These specific norms
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and values are grouped into meaningful themes ordimensions, and often integrated into a model thatdescribes the interrelationship among those dimen-sions. But surveys differ significantly in their nominalcategorizations of the content of culture. Ott (1989)revealed 74 unique dimensions, and van der Post, deConing, and Smit (1997) identified 114! Beyond thesuperficial differences in labelling, several studieshave sought to determine the conceptual overlapof culture dimensions across surveys (Delobbe,Haccoun, & Vandenberghe, 2002; Detert, Schroeder,& Mauriel, 2000; Ginevi�cius & Vaitk�unait _e, 2006;Xenikou & Furnham, 1996).
For example, Xenikou and Furnham (1996) used aquantitative approach to test the convergent validityof the dimensions of the Organizational CultureInventory (OCI; Cooke & Lafferty, 1989), the Cul-ture Gap Survey (Kilman & Saxton, 1983), theOrganizational Beliefs Questionnaire (OBQ; Sashkin,1984), and the Corporate Culture Survey (Glaser,1983). Their findings showed that the 30 dimensionsclustered into six factors. Detert et al. (2000)expanded on this study by examining the dimensionaloverlap among 25 culture frameworks. The resultingmodel included eight broadly defined themes. Thesestudies provide support for the idea that thedimensions assessed by different culture surveys canoften be described in terms of a simpler set of higherorder culture dimensions. Higher order frameworksseem particularly useful in light of the difficulty ofaccumulating research findings based on differentsurvey instruments (Sackman, 2011). Xenikou andFurnham also suggest that the broad themes identi-fied in their research may provide a useful basis fordeveloping new scales. Ashkanasy et al. (2000)describe some of the tradeoffs between simple andmore complex models.
One possible solution to this dilemma may be theuse of ‘‘nested’’ factor structures, in which surveyresults are interpretable at more than one level ofspecificity. First-order dimensions can be specificenough to facilitate clear statements about beha-vioural norms and values, whereas the higher orderfactors are broad enough to allow conceptuallinkages to other instruments and theoretical models.Examples of culture surveys with a nested structureinclude Cooke and Lafferty’s (1989) OCI, Woodcockand Francis’s (1989) Organizational Values Ques-tionnaire, and the Denison Organizational CultureSurvey (Denison & Neale, 1996).
The importance of research purpose
Differences in the content of the instruments oftenreflect the specific purpose of the research (Rousseau,1990). For example, Ashkanasy et al. (2000) distin-guished between typing and profiling instruments.
Typing instruments categorized organizations intomutually exclusive culture types. For example, thecompeting values framework identified four types ofcultures—clans, adhocracies, hierarchies, and mar-kets (Quinn & Rohrbaugh, 1981). Ashkanasy and hiscolleagues critiqued the typing approach, arguingthat it could lead to overly simplistic, stereotypicalviews of culture. Furthermore, the proposition thatculture types are discrete has not received muchempirical support. A recent meta-analysis by Hartnellet al. (2011) demonstrated moderate to strongpositive interrelationships among descriptors ofculture. These authors concluded that, ‘‘the CVF’sculture types in opposite quadrants are not compet-ing or paradoxical. Instead, they coexist and worktogether’’ (p. 687).
Consistent with these findings, profiling instru-ments describe culture using a set of nonorthogonaldimensions within a profile. Organizations can behigh or low on each dimension assessed, and thepattern of scores across dimensions provides acomplex representation of an organization’s culture.Ashkanasy et al. (2000) identified three types ofprofiling instruments, each with a unique researchpurpose. Person–culture fit measures are designed tounderstand the value congruence between an indivi-dual and the organization and better understand howthese factors influence individual-level outcomes suchas effectiveness and turnover (e.g., O’Reilly, Chat-man, & Caldwell, 1991). Descriptive measures focuson differences in organizational cultures withoutdefining the impact that these differences have onorganizational effectiveness. Effectiveness instru-ments capture cultural differences that can help toexplain differences in the effectiveness of organiza-tions (Sparrow, 2001).
Descriptive instruments typically focus on theinternal reliability and validity of the survey mea-sures. In addition to this form of validity, effective-ness instruments must also demonstrate that thedimensions are linked to organizational effectiveness.Thus, effectiveness measures are generally morefocused than descriptive measures, retaining onlythose dimensions with a strong theoretical orempirical linkage to effectiveness outcomes (Gine-vi�cius & Vaitk�unait _e, 2006; van der Post et al., 1997).Effectiveness instruments are also normative. Purelydescriptive instruments may remain value-neutral,but effectiveness instruments must be rooted in atheory of how specific behavioural norms and valueslead to higher effectiveness.
Reliability and validity
Several authors have reviewed the reliabilityand validity of culture surveys (e.g., Ostroff et al.,2003; Sackmann, 2006; Scott, Mannion, Davies, &
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Marshall, 2003; Walker, Symon, & Davies, 1996).Ashkanasy et al. (2000) reviewed a sample of 18culture surveys, finding that evidence of reliabilityand validity was generally lacking for most instru-ments. No evidence was found for 10 of theinstruments, and two others reported only minimalsupport. Only two instruments—the OrganizationalCulture Profile (O’Reilly et al., 1991) and the OCI(Cooke & Lafferty, 1989)—were supported in allevidence types reviewed. Among the three effective-ness surveys reviewed, two possessed no evidence ofreliability or validity and the third possessed minimalevidence. Overall, the most common evidence typewas criterion-related validity (available for 33% ofsurveys) and the least common was consensualvalidity (available for 22% of surveys).
More recently, Jung et al. (2009) presented acomprehensive review of 70 culture instruments, 48 ofwhich were quantitative survey measures. The resultsshowed that evidence was available for only aminority of the key reliability and validity criteriaby which culture survey are evaluated. For example,60% of all ‘‘judgements’’—across all surveys re-viewed and all evaluative criteria considered—indi-cated that no statistical analyses could be located,27% of judgements fell into the marginal or mixedsupport category, and 13% of all judgementsindicated that an adequate level of evidence hadbeen attained. Across all surveys, predictive validitywas reported for 54% of surveys, and internalconsistency was reported for 46% of surveys. The
least commonly reported type of evidence includedtest–retest reliability and convergent/discriminantvalidity. These types of evidence were available foronly 10% of surveys.
LINKING CULTURE ANDEFFECTIVENESS: A REVIEW OF
EFFECTIVENESS PROFILINGMEASURES
For this review, we identified six effectiveness surveysfrom prior reviews and three additional surveys fromour review of the recent literature. Instruments werereviewed according to the criteria of validitydescribed by Jung et al. (2009). Table 1 describesthe structure of the nine instruments and summarizesreliability evidence. Table 2 summarizes validityevidence.
This review shows more research evidence foreffectiveness instruments than identified by Ashka-nasy et al. (2000), but it also points to severalproblematic trends. Five of nine instruments hadlittle or no research following the initial publication,including the three reviewed by Ashkanasy et al. (i.e.,OBQ, Organizational Values Questionnaire, andOrganizational Culture Survey or OCS) and twoothers—the OASIS Culture Questionnaire (Cowherd& Luchs, 1988) and the Organization AssessmentSurvey (OAS: Usala, 1996a, 1996b). Aside from thetwo studies we located—one by Muldrow et al. (2002)reporting use of the OAS as part of a culture change
TABLE 1Summary of reliability evidence for culture effectiveness profiling instruments
Instrument Structure Internal consistencyaTest–
retest Aggregation
Denison Organizational Culture
Survey (Denison & Neale, 1996)
60 items, 12 dimensions,
4 traits
4.70 (Fey & Denison, 2003); .88 to
.97 (Gillespie, Denison, Haaland,
Smerek, & Neale, 2008)
n/a Adequate rwg, ICC(1), and
ICC(2) (Gillespie et al.,
2008)OASIS Culture Questionnaire
(Cowherd & Luchs, 1988)
33 items, 5 dimensions n/a n/a n/a
Organizational Assessment Survey
(Usala, 1996a)
100 items, 17 dimensions n/a n/a n/a
Organizational Beliefs Questionnaire
(Sashkin, 1984)
50 items, 10 dimensions .35 to .78 (Xenikou & Furnham,
1996)
n/a Low within-organization
variance (Sashkin &
Fulmer, 1985)Organizational Culture Survey (van
der Post et al., 1997)
97 items, 15 dimensions .79 to .93 (van der Post et al.,
References shown in italics are unpublished sources. aValues shown indicate lower and upper bounds of alphas reported across dimensions
or factors.
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TA
BL
E2
Su
mm
ary
of
va
lid
ity
ev
ide
nce
for
cult
ure
eff
ect
ive
ne
ssp
rofi
lin
gin
stru
me
nts
Instrument
Dim
ensionality
Convergent/discrim
inantvalidity
Cross-culturalapplication
Predictive
validity
Sensitivity
tochange
DenisonOrganizational
Culture
Survey
(Denison
&Neale,1996)
Factoranalyticsupport
for
indexes
(Bonavia,Gasco,&
Tomas,2009;Fey
&
Denison,2003;Taylor,Levy,
Boyacigiller,&
Beechler,
2008);factoranalyticsupport
forsecond-order
model
(Gillespie
etal.,2008)
Leadership
(Block,2003);
commitment(Tayloret
al.,
2008);knowledge
managem
ent,org.structure,
strategy(Zheng,Yang,&
McL
ean,2010)
Asia,Australia,Brazil,Japan,
Jamaica,andSouth
Africa
(Denison,Haaland,&
Goelzer,2003);Russia
(Fey
&Denison,2003);Spain
(Bonavia
etal.,2009)
Longitudinalevidence
linking
culture
tosalesandcustomer
satisfaction(Boyce,2010);cross-
sectional
with‘‘hard’’
perform
ance
metrics
(Denison,
1984;Denison&
Mishra,1995;
Gillespieet
al.,2008);cross-
sectionalwithperceived
effectivenessoutcomes
(Denison
etal.,2003;Fey
&Denison,2003)
Longitudinalstudyof95
cardealerships(B
oyce,
2010)
OASIS
Culture
Questionnaire(C
owherd
&Luchs,1988)
n/a
n/a
n/a
Case
studydem
onstratinglink
betweenculture
gapscoresand
profitability(C
owherd&
Luchs,
1988)
n/a
OrganizationalAssessm
ent
Survey
(Usala,1996a)
Factoranalyticsupport
(Usala,
1996a,1996b)
n/a
n/a
n/a
Twocase
studies
dem
onstratingchange
over
time(M
uldrow,
Buckley,&
Schay,2002)
OrganizationalBeliefs
Questionnaire(Sashkin,
1984)
n/a
Other
culture
questionnaires
(Xenikou&
Furnham,1996)
n/a
n/a
n/a
OrganizationalCulture
Survey
(vander
Post
etal.,1997)
Factorandcontentanalysis
(vander
Post
etal.,1997)
Jobsatisfaction,personality
(Liebenberg,2007;Strydom
&Roodt,2006);mentoring
(Rieker,2006)
Australia(Erw
ee,Lynch,
Millett,Smith,&
Roodt,
2001)
15/15dim
ensionscorrelatedwith
financialperform
ance
composite
(vander
Post,deConing,&
Smit,1998)
n/a
OrganizationalCulture
Survey
Instrument
(Harris&
Moran,1984)
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
OrganizationalValues
Questionnaire
(Woodcock
&Francis,
1989)
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
Questionnaireof
Dim
ensionsof
OrganizationalCulture
(Ginevi� cius&
Vaitk
� unait
_ e,2006)
EFA
withlittle
support
for
dim
ensionalstructure
(Aydin
&Ceylan,2008,2009;
Ginevi� cius&
Vaitk
� unait
_ e,2006)
Employee
satisfaction(A
ydin
&
Ceylan,2008;Ginevi� cius&
Vaitk
� unait
_ e,2006)
n/a
2/4
factors
correlate
withoverall
perform
ance
index
(Ginevi� cius&
Vaitk
� unait
_ e,2006);10/10
dim
ensionscorrelate
with
perceived
perform
ance
composite
(Aydin
&Ceylan,
2009)
n/a
ValuePerform
ance
Index
(Schonborn,2010)
EFA
todefinedim
ension
structure
(Schonborn,2010)
n/a
n/a
7/13dim
ensionscorrelatedwith
dichotomousperform
ance
composite
(Schonborn,2010)
n/a
Referencesshownin
italics
are
unpublished.
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intervention with two government agencies and thepreviously described study of the OBQ’s convergencewith other culture surveys (Xenikou & Furnham,1996)—research interest in these five instrumentsseems to have halted altogether.
Research interest appears to have been somewhatstronger for the OCS (van der Post et al., 1997). TheOCS was developed through an extensive literaturereview and synthesis of 114 dimensions of culture. Apreliminary version of the survey, including 169 itemsalong 15 synthesized dimensions, was administered to408 employees from eight organizations. Item relia-bility analyses were used to reduce the total number ofitems to 97. Factor analysis of these items supportedthe presence of 15 correlated factors (van der Postet al., 1997). A second study by van der Post et al.(1998) provided evidence of criterion-related validitybetween the OCS dimensions and financial perfor-mance in 49 organizations. Unfortunately, few detailsregarding the factor analysis, the sampling methods,the number of survey respondents, and the aggrega-tion of culture scores were provided in the secondstudy. Furthermore, this second study relied on two orthree managers per organization to provide a repre-sentative assessment of the organization’s culture.
Four studies have used the OCS since its develop-ment. Erwee et al. (2001) used the OCS, which wasdeveloped in South Africa, with a sample of 326managers from the Australian Institute of Manage-ment. Based on their analysis of reliability, the authorsconcluded that the OCS was valid in the Australiancontext. But an exploratory factor analysis and analpha coefficient of .99 supported a single-factorsolution rather than the 15-factor solution proposedby van der Post et al. (1997). More recent studies byStrydom andRoodt (2006) and Liebenberg (2007) haveused the OCS to link employee satisfaction and affectwith perceptions of organizational culture. One addi-tional individual-level study by Rieker (2006) linkedthe OCS dimensions to the quality of formal mentor-ship relationships in two US Airforce organizations.
Clearly, additional research is needed to establishthe validity of the OCS and clarify the number offactors. The high internal consistency and single-factor solution reported by Erwee et al. (2001) callinto question whether multiple concepts are indeedmeasured (Boyle, 1991). The model’s predictivevalidity also requires a larger and more representativesample than that reported by van der Post et al.(1998). The OCS also raises questions about validityat the aggregate level. With the exception of theoriginal study by van der Post et al., none of the otherstudies assessed organizational culture at the aggre-gate level. They focused on individuals’ perceptionsof organizational culture.
Two other instruments reviewed were in earlystages of development and validation. The
Questionnaire of Dimensions of OrganizationalCulture developed by Ginevi�cius and Vaitk�unait _e(2006) is based on a comprehensive review of thedimensions from other instruments that were corre-lated with effectiveness outcomes. The authors usedthe 12 dimensions and 48 items from their review toproduce the final instrument. A preliminary factoranalysis based on individual respondents from 23organizations supported a four-factor model, andcorrelational analyses provided mixed support for thefour factors predicting subjective performance ratingsand employee satisfaction. Subsequent studies byAydin and Ceylan (2008, 2009) reported significantpositive correlations between overall culture andemployee satisfaction, and between dimensions ofculture and perceived organizational effectiveness.
The Value Performance Index (VPI: Schonborn,2010) was constructed to assess the three levels ofculture specified by Schein (1992). The initial surveywith 135 items was administered to 2873 managersfrom 46 companies in three European countries.Based on an exploratory factor analysis, 13 dimen-sions were identified. Correlational analyses demon-strated significant predictive relationships with adichotomous composite index of financial perfor-mance for seven of the 13 dimensions. As withGinevi�cius and Vaitk�unait _e’s (2006) instrument, theVPI has significant potential as a predictive tool, butalso underscores several key challenges that warrantfurther attention, including the use of individualrather than organization-level analysis and the use ofmanager-only samples that may not be representativeof the total organizations studied.
The final instrument reviewed in our update is theDenison Organizational Culture Survey (DOCS;Denison & Neale, 1996). Based on the amount ofresearch that the DOCS has generated, it is clear thatthis instrument has advanced well beyond the initialstages of scale development. Reviewing the highvolume of unpublished dissertations and technicalreports—we count over 30 dissertations alone—isbeyond the scope of this manuscript, so we havefocused primarily on the published research in ourdiscussion in this article.
The Denison Organizational Culture Survey
The development of the DOCS occurred in tandemwith the development of a theory linking four keycultural traits to organizational effectiveness: invol-vement, consistency, adaptability, and mission(Denison & Mishra, 1995). These traits, presentedin Table 3, grew from a line of research by Denisonand colleagues that combined qualitative andquantitative methods to examine the cultural char-acteristics of high and low performing organiza-tions (Denison, 1984, 1990; Denison et al., 2003;
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Denison & Mishra, 1995; Fey & Denison, 2003).These studies support the idea that the highestperforming organizations find ways to empower andengage their people (involvement), facilitate coordi-nated actions and promote consistency of behaviourswith core business values (consistency), translate thedemands of the organizational environment intoaction (adaptability), and provide a clear sense ofpurpose and direction (mission).
These four individual characteristics have a longhistory among organizational researchers interestedin the characteristics of high performance organiza-tions (e.g., Katz & Kahn, 1978; Kotter & Heskett,1992; Lawler, 1986; Mintzberg, 1989; Selznick, 1957;Spreitzer, 1995, 1996). In Denison’s model, thesetraits are organized into a framework that draws onboth classic and contemporary theories of thedynamic tensions underlying organizational function-ing and effectiveness (Denison & Spreitzer, 1991;Katz & Kahn, 1978; Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967;Parsons, 1951; Quinn & Cameron, 1988). As Schein(1992) has noted, effective organizations need to solve
two problems at the same time: external adaptationand internal integration. The dimensions of stabilityand flexibility and internal and external focus areused to frame these four concepts in a way thatcaptures how organizations balance these dynamictensions. For example, mission and consistencyprovide support for stability, whereas adaptabilityand involvement provide support for flexibility(Denison & Mishra, 1995).
This framework is based on the same dimensions asthe competing values framework (CVF) advanced byQuinn and colleagues (Quinn & Cameron, 1988;Quinn & Rohrbaugh, 1981), but maintains a fewimportant differences. One key difference is that theCVF, originally developed as a leadership framework,has led primarily to assessments of culture types, incontrast to the DOCS’s use of a profile approach. Thiskey choice has several implications. The CVF isdesigned to identify the organizational type, whereasthe trait model developed by Denison and colleaguesfocuses on the balance among cultural elements. Theirmodel proposes that it is not only possible for an
TABLE 3Definitions of culture traits and indexes from the DOCS
Effectiveness traits and corresponding index definitions
Involvement concerns the personal engagement of individuals within the organization and reflects a focus on the internal dynamics of the
organization and on flexibility.
Empowerment—Individuals have the authority, initiative, and ability to manage their own work. This creates a sense of ownership
and responsibility towards the organization.
Team orientation—Value is placed on working cooperatively towards common goals for which all employees feel mutually
accountable. The organization relies on team effort to get work done.
Capability development—The organization continually invests in the development of employees’ skills in order to stay competitive
and meet ongoing business needs.
Consistency refers to shared values, and efficient systems and processes and reflects an internal and stable focus.
Core values—Members of the organization share a set of values which create a sense of identity and a clear set of expectations.
Agreement—Members of the organization are able to reach agreement on critical issues. This includes both the underlying level of
agreement and the ability to reconcile differences when they occur.
Coordination and integration—Different functions and units of the organization are able to work together well to achieve common
goals. Organizational boundaries do not interfere with getting work done.
Adaptability refers to employees’ ability to understand what the customer wants, to learn new skills, and to change in response to demand. The
focus of adaptability is external and flexible.
Creating change—The organization is able to create adaptive ways to meet changing needs. It is able to read the business
environment, react quickly to current trends, and anticipate future changes.
Customer focus—The organization understands and reacts to their customers and anticipates their future needs. It reflects the
degree to which the organization is driven by a concern to satisfy their customers.
Organizational learning—The organization receives, translates, and interprets signals from the environment into opportunities for
encouraging innovation, gaining knowledge, and developing capabilities.
Mission refers to an organization’s purpose and direction, and reflects a focus external to the organization and on stability.
Strategic direction and intent—Clear strategic intentions convey the organization’s purpose and make it clear how everyone can
contribute and ‘‘make their mark’’ on the industry.
Goals and objectives—A clear set of goals and objectives can be linked to the mission, vision, and strategy, and provide everyone
with a clear direction in their work.
Vision—The organization has a shared view of a desired future state. It embodies core values and captures the hearts and minds of
the organization’s people, while providing guidance and direction.
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organization to display strong internal and externalvalues and the capabilities for both stability andflexibility, but that the most effective organizationsare those that display ‘‘full’’ profiles as indicated byhigh levels of all four traits (Denison, 1990).
Another important difference is the second-ordermeasurement model. Each trait is assessed by threeindexes, each of which operationalizes a specific facetof the trait at the measurable level of manifest behav-iours and values. The survey consists of 60 items orfive items per index. With the second-order model,information is provided at two levels of abstraction.The indexes are designed to measure 12 understand-able and actionable content areas (e.g., team orienta-tion, customer focus, goals and objectives), whereasthe traits organize these concepts into broaderprinciples that are portable across organizationalcontexts and support the theoretical grounding ofthe model and instrument (Denison & Mishra, 1995).
The link between the culture measures and effec-tiveness outcomes was central in the early developmentof the survey. Qualitative research helped focusattention on the cultural characteristics of effectiveorganizations and helped to develop the quantitativemeasures. The earliest research focused mainly on thebottom-up aspects of culture and their connection tobottom-line financial performance metrics (Denison,1984). These concepts evolved into the involvement andconsistency traits. Further qualitative research helpedbalance these internal traits, leading to the addition ofthe externally focused traits ofmission and adaptability.Denison andMishra (1995) provided the first empiricaltest of these four traits with data from 764 organiza-tions. This study provided initial evidence of thepredictive validity of the four culture traits with avariety of performance indicators and also supportedthe idea that different cultural traits influence differentaspects of effectiveness. Profitability outcomes werestrongest in stable cultures with a strong sense ofmission and consistency, and growth outcomes werestrongest in flexible cultures with high levels ofinvolvement and adaptability. No other effectivenessprofile that we could find has established differentialprediction of effectiveness outcomes.
More recent studies have demonstrated predictivevalidity across industry and national boundaries.Gillespie et al. (2008) and Boyce (2010) showed a linkto customer satisfaction and sales growth over timeamong home construction firms and franchise cardealerships. Fey and Denison (2003), Denison et al.(2003), Denison, Lief, and Ward (2004), and Bonaviaet al. (2009) examined the survey’s validity withorganizational samples from nine countries outsidethe USA. For example, comparisons between Asianorganizations and ‘‘the rest of the world’’ indicatedsimilar mean levels and predictive patterns betweenthe indexes and effectiveness outcomes, although the
authors also provided examples of how the expres-sion of specific values and behaviour can varysomewhat across contexts (Denison et al., 2003). Asecond study comparing US and Russian organiza-tions demonstrated the importance of all four traits inboth contexts but also indicated that flexibility andinvolvement were more highly correlated with overallperceptions of effectiveness than was mission in thedynamic Russian environment (Fey & Denison,2003). Together, these studies provide initial evidencethat the DOCS has been translated to several otherlanguages and applied with similar support forreliability and validity. Nonetheless, there are ofcourse many unresolved issues regarding applicationin different national contexts.
Despite the strong empirical support for thevalidity of this survey there are also a number of‘‘gaps’’ in the evidence. Several of the studies applieddifferent versions of the current 60-item DOCS(Denison & Mishra, 1995; Fey & Denison, 2003).Gillespie et al. (2008) and Kotrba et al. (2012) havepresented the best evidence of the second-order factorsolution, providing evidence of a good fit to the data.Several of these studies also used single-respondentsamples or manager-only samples (Fey & Denison,2003; Denison & Mishra, 1995). Although theliterature reveals many studies that rely on a smallnumber of respondents (e.g., Birkinshaw, Hood, &Jonsson, 1998; Delaney & Huselid, 1996; Delery &Doty, 1996; Geringer & Hebert, 1989), it raisesobvious questions about the representativeness ofthese samples and cannot capture the level ofagreement throughout the organization.
This discussion has identified three key challengesfor diagnostic assessments of organizational culture.First, they must pass a psychometric test to makecertain that individual respondents can discern theunderlying structure proposed by the theory. Second,the respondents within each organization must showa high level of agreement in order to claim thatorganizational characteristics are being measured.And third, the organizational level characteristicsmust show a close link to the organizational leveloutcomes suggested by the model. Next, we evaluatethe DOCS with respect to these considerations.
AN EMPIRICAL ILLUSTRATIONOF THE THREE KEY
CHALLENGES
This section presents a set of analyses based on datafrom 160 companies from a variety of industries andgeographic locations. These organizations completedthe DOCS between 1997 and 2001. The organizationsin the sample were generally large, ranging from 10organizations with more than 200,000 employees to11 organizations with fewer than 1000 employees.
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The annual revenue also varied, ranging from 11 withmore than 50 billion US dollars to seven with under100 million US dollars. A number of smaller privatefirms were also included. In total, 35,474 individualscompleted the DOCS, with at least 25 respondentssampled per organization. Response rates rangedfrom 48% to 100%, with an average of 60%, well
within the range recommended in the managementliterature (Baruch, 1999). The specific samples drawnfrom each organization varied. Some organizationssurveyed all members and others surveyed specificdivisions, locations, and levels. Table 4 summarizesthe organizational characteristics and demographicsfor individuals in the final sample.
TABLE 4Demographic characteristics of organizational and respondent sample
Organizational category n % of sample Demographic category n % of sample
Industry High school 2,059 5.8Basic materials 23 14.4 Some college 3,983 11.2Consumer cyclical 19 11.9 Associate degree 1,910 5.4Consumer staples 22 13.8 Bachelor’s degree 7,231 20.4Health care 17 10.6 Some graduate work 1,894 5.3Energy 1 0.6 Master’s degree 4,115 11.6Financials 17 10.6 Doctoral degree 710 2.0Capital goods 17 10.6 Other 266 0.7Technology 25 15.6 No response 13,306 37.5Pharmaceuticals 1 0.6 FunctionCommunication Services 10 6.3 Finance and accounting 2,033 5.7Utilities 7 4.4 Engineering 1,863 5.3Transportation 1 0.6 Manufacturing and production 1,928 5.4
Employee populationa Research and development 1,548 4.4Fewer than 1000 11 7.2 Sales and marketing 5,083 14.31000 to 5000 26 17.0 Purchasing 864 2.45001 to 10,000 12 7.8 Human resources 917 2.610,001 to 20,000 16 10.5 Administration 1,031 2.920,001 to 50,000 30 19.6 Support staff 1,973 5.650,001 to 100,000 28 18.3 Professional staff 1,820 5.1100,001 to 200,000 20 13.1 No response 16,414 46.3More than 200,000 10 6.5 Organizational level
Organizational revenueb Nonmanagement 9,018 25.4Under $100 million 7 5.3 Line management 4,960 14.0$100 million–$1 billion 17 13.0 Middle management 4,765 13.4$1 billion–$5 billion 35 26.7 Senior management 1,031 2.9$5 billion–$10 billion 14 10.7 Executive/Senior Vice President 280 0.8$10 billion–$20 billion 15 11.5 CEO/President 71 0.2$20 billion–$30 billion 18 13.7 Owner 12 0.0$30 billion–$50 billion 14 10.7 No response 15,337 43.2More than $50 billion 11 8.4 Years with organization
Less than 6 months 1,042 2.96 months to 1 year 1,432 4.01 to 2 years 2,315 6.52 to 4 years 3,093 8.74 to 6 years 2,017 5.76 to 10 years 2,952 8.310 to 15 years 2,998 8.5More than 15 years 5,989 16.9No response 13,636 38.4
aInformation on employee population was unavailable for seven organizations. bInformation on organizational revenue was unavailable for
29 organizations.
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Surveys with missing data on any of the 60 itemswere excluded from this analysis. All items used a5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 ¼ ‘‘stronglydisagree’’ to 5 ¼ ‘‘strongly agree’’. Respondents alsorated the organization on the following six dimen-sions of effectiveness relative to similar companies:sales/revenue growth, market share, profitability/ROA, quality of goods and services, new productdevelopment, and employee satisfaction. These itemswere rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale rangingfrom 1 ¼ ‘‘low performer’’ to 5 ¼ ‘‘high performer’’.Although less attractive than objective indicators,past researchers have demonstrated that subjectivemeasures of organizational effectiveness can be usefulproxies for objective sales or profitability data (Baer& Frese, 2003; Guthrie, 2001; Wall et al., 2004).
The confirmatory testing of nested models
We considered two key pieces of evidence to test thenested models. First, we examined the internalconsistency of the 12 indexes to determine if the5-item subsets held as reliable scales. Second, we usedconfirmatory factor analysis to see if the pattern ofrelationships between the observed variables andlatent traits support the hierarchical structure of theproposed model.
Table 5 presents the results for the first step in theanalysis. Alpha coefficients for the indexes rangedfrom .70 to .85 indicating an acceptable level ofinternal consistency (Nunnally, 1978). Item-totalcorrelations exceeded .50 for over two-thirds of the60 items in the survey. Item 15 from the capabilitydevelopment index (‘‘Problems often arise because wedo not have the skills necessary to do the job’’)showed an unusually low item-to-total correlation of.23. This negatively worded item was retainedbecause (1) the alpha coefficient for the index itselfstill reaches an acceptable level of .70, and (2) theitem was judged to have adequate content validitybased on its fit with the definition provided for thisindex. Table 6 presents the correlations betweenindexes. Values ranged from .45 to .74 with an overallmean correlation of .59.
Next, a second-order confirmatory factor modelwas tested using the 60 items from the DOCS asobserved variables, the 12 indexes as first-orderfactors, and the four higher order traits as second-order factors. Figure 1 presents the second-ordermodel with the best fit to the data. Item loadingsgenerally fell in the .60 to .75 range, indicatingconsiderable shared variance within those itemsintended to measure the same underlying concepts.Second-order factor loadings (indexes loading ontraits) and intercorrelations range from the low .70sto the mid-.90s, indicating overlap in the varianceexplained by the first-order factors (indexes) and
TABLE 5Alpha coefficients and descriptive statistics for the DOCS
strong relationships between second-order factors.Model fit was evaluated using several fit indices,including RMSEA (Hu & Bentler, 1998), GFI(Joreskog & Sorbom, 1989), NFI (Bentler & Bonnett,1980), and CFI (Bentler, 1990). These results are alsopresented in Figure 1.
In general, these values indicate good fit for thesecond-order model, with RMSEA, NFI, and CFIvalues meeting recommended guidelines. GFI wasslightly lower than the recommended cutoff, but thecollection of indices as a whole suggest that the modelclosely fits the data. We also tested two alternativemodels, to confirm that this second-order model pro-vided the best fit. The first alternative model excludedthe 12 first-order factors—the culture indexes—sothat the 60 items were forced to load directly onto thefour latent traits. The second alternative model forced60 items to load directly onto a single latent factor,eliminating the four culture traits. As shown inFigure 1, both of these alternative models produceda worse fit, indicating that the second-order hierarch-ical model represents the best fit with the data.
Evidence for aggregation to theorganizational level
Aggregating individual responses to create an orga-nizational-level variable requires that those ratingsare sufficiently homogeneous (Dansereau & Alutto,1990; Klein et al., 2000). Several statistical methodsare available for assessing the homogeneity ofresponses within groups (Peterson & Castro, 2006),such as a within and between analysis (WABA;Markham, Dansereau, Alutto, & Dumas, 1983), rwgfor single item measures or rwg(j) for multiitemmeasures (James, Demaree, & Wolf, 1984), andindices of reliability such as ICC(1) and ICC(2)(Shrout & Fleiss, 1979). As is routinely reported inthe culture domain, we focus on agreement andreliability statistics (e.g., Gillespie et al., 2008; Kotrba
et al., 2012). rwg(j) was computed for each organiza-tion as a function of the five items in each index of theDOCS and based on deviation from the uniformresponse distribution (Lindell, Brandt, & Whitney,1999). Values greater than .70 have generally beenrecognized as sufficient response consistency to justifyaggregating individual responses to the group level(Klein et al., 2000). ICC(1) and ICC(2) were com-puted as omnibus indexes of intraorganizationalreliability at the index level. ICC(1) indicates theproportion of total variance attributable to organiza-tion membership, and ICC(2) indicates the extent towhich organizations are reliably differentiated by themeasure (Bryk & Raudenbush, 1992). F-values fromrandom effects one-way ANOVAs provide a statis-tical significance test for the ICC(1) values.
The agreement and reliability indices for eachindex of the DOCS are shown in Table 7. Mean rwg(j)across organizations and culture indexes ranged from.85 to .89. The rwg(j) values observed for individualorganizations all reached the recommended mini-mum, but ranged quite a bit from the mid-.70s to themid-.90s. ICC(1) ranged from .06 to .10 acrossculture indexes indicating that between 6 and 10%of the variance in culture ratings can be accounted forby organization membership. Corresponding F-va-lues demonstrated that this proportion of variancewas statistically significant in all cases (p 5 .001).ICC(2) ranged from .93 to .96, demonstrating highreliability for the organization-level means on eachindex. These results support the aggregation ofindividual ratings of culture to the organization level.
These results also suggest that positioning inter-rater agreement as a threshold to justify aggregation issomewhat misguided. Our results suggest that nearlyall of the organizations met the minimal criteria tojustify aggregation. Nonetheless, there are still signi-ficant variations between the organizations. Thus,internal consistency may be more important to con-sider as a variable rather than as a threshold.
TABLE 6Correlation matrix for the indexes of the DOCS
In addition, as Kotrba et al. (2012) have shown,internal consistency can be an important measure ofculture strength that is closely linked to performance.
Evidence of criterion-related validity
Criterion-related validity holds special importancefor effectiveness profiling instruments. In this section,we evaluate the criterion-related validity of theindexes from the DOCS as organization-level pre-dictors of effectiveness using subjectively ratedindicators. Analyses of objectively defined effective-ness outcomes have been presented in a number ofthe aforementioned studies. Correlations between theculture indexes and ratings of sales growth, marketshare, profitability, quality of products and services,new product development, and employee satisfactionare presented in Table 8. As the table shows, most ofthese validity coefficients were statistically significantat the .01 level and had magnitudes of at least .30.The strongest relationships were observed between
culture measures and employee satisfaction, withcorrelations ranging from .42 to .79 (mean r ¼ .63).Slightly weaker correlations were observed fororganizational ratings of new product development(mean r ¼ .37), quality (.36), sales growth (.26), andprofitability (.25). The weakest relationships wereobserved for culture predicting ratings of marketshare, with correlations ranging from .04 to .26(mean r ¼ .13). When the six effectiveness indicatorswere combined into a unit-weighted composite,correlations between the culture indexes/traits andeffectiveness ratings ranged from .44 to .68 (meanr ¼ .58). Overall, these results support previousstudies demonstrating positive linkages between theDOCS culture indexes and aspects of organizationaleffectiveness. It is important that this evidence beweighted alongside prior studies with objectiveeffectiveness criteria, given that correlations basedon same-source raters are known to be inflated to adegree by common method variance (Spector &Brannick, 1995).
TABLE 7Descriptive statistics and aggregation evidence for the indexes of the DOCS
Index Mean SD Mean rwg(j) Min rwg(j) Max rwg(j) ICC(1) ICC(2) F-value
As in past research, these results also show thatsome features of organizational culture are betterpredictors of specific effectiveness criteria than others(Denison & Mishra, 1995; Gillespie et al., 2008). Thepattern of correlations observed here indicates thatthe internally focused traits involvement and consis-tency are generally better predictors of operatingperformance such as quality and profitability,whereas the externally focused traits mission andadaptability are generally better predictors of salesgrowth. Similarly, mission—and particularly, strate-gic direction and intent—was the only significantpredictor of market share. Other noteworthy trendswere that new product development was leaststrongly correlated with the consistency trait, andinvolvement was clearly the strongest predictor ofemployee satisfaction. Together, these findings in-dicate that the aspects of culture assessed within theDOCS likely contribute to overall organizationaleffectiveness in complementary ways.
DISCUSSION
Perspectives on the measurement of the cultures ofwork organizations have shifted over time (Martinet al., 2006). Researchers and practitioners haveadopted surveys as a useful tool for understandingthe behaviours and values that characterize anorganization’s culture. Growing evidence of the linkbetween culture and bottom-line performance alsosupports the role of surveys in culture research(Sackmann, 2011). The value of surveys in thediagnostic process also supports the more practicalobjectives of organizational development and changeby serving as a means of feedback and benchmarking.Effectiveness profiling instruments are the type ofculture surveys most directly aligned with theseapplications (Ashkanasy et al., 2000).
This review assessed the progress in the develop-ment and validation of instruments in this category.Despite the lack of continued research interest for fiveof the nine instruments, many of their key conceptshave been borrowed or adapted by the four remain-ing instruments. Ginevi�cius and Vaitk�unait _e (2006)and van der Post et al (1997) in particular havesynthesized the dimensions of other culture surveys.In contrast, the approaches taken by the tworemaining instruments represent a blend of inductiveand theory-driven components (Denison & Neale,1996; Schonborn, 2010). This approach allows theresearchers to draw more direct connections betweentheir measurement models and the theories fromwhich they follow, which will be increasinglyimportant as more theory-based perspectives emergeover time.
Criterion-related validity has always been a centralconcern in this literature. Despite recent progress, the
limitations are familiar ones. The need for morelongitudinal research, better effectiveness measuresand more of them, larger and more representativesamples of organizations, and cross-cultural valida-tion remain at centre stage. Researchers will still needto address these issues in future studies, and this willstrengthen the evidence presented for observedrelationships between survey ratings of culture andeffectiveness outcomes. At the same time, a handfulof the other limitations identified reflect specific andperhaps underappreciated considerations in thevalidation of effectiveness instruments.
Generalizability across contexts
Unlike descriptive approaches to measuring culture,the diagnostic approach generally leads to aninference about cultural effectiveness without neces-sarily considering all of the possible contingencyfactors. Showing that a predictive relationship existsin a single context is a major achievement. None-theless, effectiveness instruments ought to be able todemonstrate that the culture–effectiveness relation-ship is robust across a range of contexts. Support canbe demonstrated through a variety of strategies thattest measurement and predictive equivalence acrossnational cultures, industries, or types of organiza-tions (Vandenberg & Lance, 2000).
The stream of research cited for the DOCSillustrates some of the complexity involved in cross-cultural comparative work. For example, these studieshave demonstrated that while the culture conceptsassessed retain similar meanings across nationalsettings, the specific manifestations of these conceptscan differ (Denison et al., 2003). This suggests thateffectiveness instruments may need to be versatileenough to accommodate information about culture atvarying levels of specificity. The second-order frame-work underlying the DOCS provides one possiblesolution. The same line of research also indicates thatalthough all four traits contribute to organizationaleffectiveness across national cultures, the rank order-ing of traits in terms of the magnitude of predictiverelationships also varies somewhat across cultures andcontexts. Thus, generalizability is clearly a multi-faceted issue that requires a programmatic researcheffort in order to fully elucidate the boundaries.
Multilevel considerations
Another set of issues has to do with the shift fromindividuals to organizations as the primary unit ofanalysis (Chan, 1998). Several studies cited in ourreview committed an atomistic fallacy by inferringorganization-level relationships on the basis ofregressions or correlations with individuals (Diez-Roux, 1998). Unfortunately, this type of evidence
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does little to substantiate criterion-related validity foran organizational assessment. Instead, an appropri-ate test involves examining the relationships betweenaggregated culture ratings and firm-level effectivenesscriteria. There are a number of methods available forhandling multilevel data including the approachillustrated here (Bliese, Halverson, & Schriesheim,2002). Whichever analysis strategy researchers adopt,there are two main points of interest: first, demon-strating that individual ratings can be used torepresent the overall culture of organizations in avalid and reliable manner, and second, testing theculture–effectiveness linkages at the organizationlevel.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, our review has identified a total of ninepublished survey instruments whose objective is todiagnose organizational cultures by assessing thosevalues and behavioural norms that are most directlyrelated to organizational effectiveness. The reviewindicated a number of problematic trends andremaining gaps in the types of reliability and validityevidence that support these instruments, underscoringthe need for additional methodological research. Eachof the ‘‘active’’ instruments reviewed appear to be invarying stages of development and evidence gather-ing, and research on several others appears to havefallen off. Our review also identified the DOCS as themost well-researched effectiveness instrument to date.We therefore provided a more in-depth discussion ofthe background, strengths, and limitations thatdifferentiate this particular instrument from otherculture effectiveness surveys. And finally, our empiri-cal illustration helps to clarify several key challengesextracted from our review, while attempting to closesome of the remaining gaps found for the DOCS.
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