Organizational culture change: An inter‐group attributional analysis

Abstract

Attempts by researchers to quantify organizational culture and culture change have been severely hindered by a lack of theoretical models to aid empirical investigation. This paper has two aims. First, a socio‐cognitive model of organizational culture is discussed which defines ‘culture’ as the product of a dynamic and collective process of ‘sense‐making’ undertaken by members of a group or organization. Second, an empirical case study is presented which uses attributional analysis to quantify the beliefs held by key stakeholder groups involved in a culture change programme within a multi‐national manufacturing organization. A total of 1230 attributional statements were coded using a modified version of the Leeds Attributional Coding System (LACS), which included four main dimensions: stable‐unstable, global‐specific, internal‐external, controllable‐uncontrollable. Results indicated considerable inter‐group differences between managers, trainers and trainees in their cognitive maps as sense‐making heuristics of this planned change process. The implications of this model and the usefulness of attributional analysis as a method for evaluating dynamic aspects of organizational culture and culture change are discussed.