Understanding and Measuring Organizational Culture Evaluation and Analysis of Methods

Conducting any research on a complex phenomenon as that of organizational culture requires a strong and solid conceptual framework. Various thinkers, pending their specialization, area of interest, and personal experiences, have individually proposed different typologies for understanding and measuring of organizational culture. Which one of these typologies can best help us in understanding and in controlling the manner by which organizational culture undergoes change? By conducting a careful examination on different kinds of typologies concerning organizational culture, this paper attempts to present a set of meaningful criteria for the evaluation of those typologies. By utilizing these criteria the paper then goes on to evaluate the examined typologies. The identified criteria are as the following: simplicity and understandability, capacity to be applicable to various research methods, flexibility in understanding cultural changes, advantage of a conceptual and theoretical framework, applicability to various organizations and identification of dominant themes. This paper provides researchers of organizational culture with a rather comprehensive framework in order to be able to utilize a more suitable typology for understanding, measurement, and drawing a profile for organizational culture in both existing and desired situations.