Content area
Abstract
This research examined why organizational subcultures with their own varied systems of meaning emerged in the multinational organization. The focus of this study was on investigating the mechanisms through which shared understanding, the basis for the existence of organizational subcultures, formed among organizational members. Three theoretical perspectives of cultural agreement: the demographic perspective, the structuralist perspective, and the social interactionist perspective, were developed and contrasted in order to identify the underlying factors that influenced the formation of shared understanding. In evaluating the influence of these three perspectives, this study also examined why the influence of these factors varied across different organizational settings.
The setting for this research study was a multinational software consulting firm. The methodology that I employed was based on a two-phased research design that merged quantitative and qualitative approaches. During the first phase of the study, qualitative data from interviews, observations, and documents were collected and analyzed. Based upon the results from this first phase of data collection, a questionnaire was developed to systematically assess cultural understanding, network relationships, and demographic information. Organizational members from five offices in four different countries completed the questionnaire.
In general, support was found for each of the three theoretical perspectives on cultural agreement. In addition, organizational context consistently influenced the relationship between the three perspectives and cultural agreement. Demographic similarity only had a significant influence on cultural agreement when there was sufficient between-group heterogeneity and within-group homogeneity. Structural similarity only had a significant influence on cultural agreement when the represented structural groups were situated in different information fields and there was limited interaction between the groups. Although social interaction did not mediate the relationship between demographic similarity and cultural agreement and structural similarity and cultural agreement, social interaction did have the most consistently significant influence on cultural agreement. The influence of social interaction was also affected by organizational context. Social interaction only had a significant influence when the organizational structure was highly centralized or highly decentralized.
The findings from this study have implications for organizational culture, network theory, and comparative management.
