Ethical and Leadership Challenges by Organizational Culture Type

Abstract

Most scholars agree that organizational or corporate culture affects employee behavior and corporate performance for better or for worse. Few researchers have investigated in a systematic way corporate or organizational culture types and their relationship to ethics and leadership. In this chapter, I draw upon one well-known systematic approach to culture assessment with a view to identifying the different ethical and leadership challenges faced by leaders within corporations characterized by various types of culture. The Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI-Online, https://www.ocai-online.com/about-us, 2019) has been widely used by corporations and consultants to identify four dominant organizational culture types. Working through each of OCAI’s four dominant types, I identify distinctive ethical strengths and weaknesses and leadership opportunities and challenges arising in connection with each cultural type. Part 1 provides a brief overview of the four culture types in the OCAI 2 × 2 matrix. Part 2 delves more deeply into each culture type and specifies the associated ethical and leadership challenges arising in each type of culture. Part 3 identifies some limitations with the OCAI approach, limitations that point to areas for future research.KeywordsCorporate/organizational culture typesOrganizational culture assessment instrumentEthical and leadership challenges