Organizational Culture in the Context of National Culture

Abstract

In this chapter, we first outline the importance of organizational culture from a work-family perspective by reviewing extant research on how an employer’s work-family culture influences individual outcomes such as employees’ job-related attitudes, contextual performance, experience of work-family conflict, and utilization of work-family benefits. Next, we examine the role of national culture in shaping work-family perceptions via culture frameworks and work-family role preferences. We go on to discuss the relationship between national culture and organizational work-family culture, before discussing the consequences of cultural alignment or misalignment – the match or mismatch between an employee’s work-family role preferences and the role demands of an organization set forth by their work-family culture and policies. We posit that when there is no shared national culture framework influencing both individual preferences and organizational role demands, the propensity for mismatch will be higher. Finally, we present a new model of global work-family culture and briefly introduce its implications for theory and practice.