Culture in Action: How Is Culture Perceived and Driven in Leading Organizations with a Significant Indian Presence

Abstract

Organizations focus a lot on their culture to attract the best talent to work with them. Leaders of these organizations expound their values on social media, employ PR agents and consulting firms to fine-tune their values, commonly stated through their websites, newsletters, and official communications, but how do people working there actually perceive these values? How are they driven from leadership to the lowest level of employees? This article attempts to address these issues by a qualitative research methodology based on Grounded Theory. Responses of employees working at leading organizations discuss their perceptions of culture in action, how values are driven, their anticipations for the future, and areas of improvement in their organizations. A thematic frequency-based analysis method is used to derive common themes, which can infer common patterns in action across 23 organizations with a strong Indian presence. The respondents span mainly across HR and marketing, with responses from finance, strategy and technology also included.