The Unintended Consequences of Culture Interventions: A Study of Unexpected Outcomes

Abstract

The topic of managing culture has been central to organizational culture research for the last two decades. Although critical theorists argue that culture management efforts are prone to unintended consequences, few empirical studies have explicitly explored this issue. The study reported in this article is designed to redress this imbalance in the literature through focusing on the exploration and description of the unintended consequences of culture management interventions. The aims of the study are to locate and describe how management actions during culture change initiatives result in unintended consequences and then subsequently to explore and describe these effects. The article begins with an overview of contemporary research into the nature of culture, the rationale, approaches and perspectives on culture management as well as research into unintended consequences. After a discussion of the research design and methods employed, the results of the study are presented. These findings review and elucidate eight forms of management action during culture change programmes that resulted in unintended consequences, which had serious consequences for the organizations concerned. The article concludes with the discussion of implications and conclusions for theorists and practitioners.