Organizational Culture

Abstract

This study empirically examines assumptions of the competing versus configural values frameworks for assessing organizational culture. It presents a series of experiments that investigate relationships between cultural archetypes in the Competing Value Framework (CVF). Experiment 1 confronts competing versus configural perspectives and evaluates the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument’s (OCAI) ability to account for plurality in cultural orientations. Experiment 2 draws on Experiment 1 to develop a simplified CVF measure. Experiments 3a and 3b validate and evaluate temporal stability of the revised measure using person-organization fit theory. This research critically investigates CVF assumptions and proposes an alternative simplified measure attentive to complementary and configural cultural dynamics. Findings aim to enrich conceptualization of culture’s complexity and appropriate techniques for quantitative assessment. The results provide support for the proposed configural approach and the importance of cultural fit across multiple dimensions rather than fit with a singular archetype.