You are wondering why everyone is talking about business culture. You look it up on Google. You read what it says. You fall asleep or say, “I already do that,” but you still do not know what a Clan Culture is. What do you do? Where do you begin? Do you have to read a textbook or a bunch of academic articles? No. Understanding a basic framework for organizational culture is easy.
Euchner (2017) suggested that Organizational Cultures should be viewed as “the shared mental software of the people in an organization” (p. 17), though not as software that can be updated but rather as burned into the fabric of the organization. This mental software shared by all of the employees and managers of an organization drives the actions, vision, and behaviors of the entire organization and is often the primary impression that stakeholders and observers hold. Even individual and organizational learning, growth, and wellness are affected by Organizational Culture. However, in recent years, cultural aspects have increased and increased organizational effectiveness and growth. Aligning Organizational Culture with leadership styles, missions, visions, and purpose has now been recognized as not only critical but often the critical factor in breaking out of the day-to-day work of a small business and touching more of whatever your purpose dictates.
Four Culture Model
A Clan Culture looks to its needs and solutions internally while relying on maximum flexibility and choice. The members of a Clan culture organization are aligned on the goal and purposes while encouraged to explore divergent ways to achieve and protect the stories and artifacts of the group. A clan culture’s stakeholders, workers, owners, and community, have a shared purpose and vision. In addition to shared goals, Clan Cultures spend time and resources integrating each member into the clan, including their individual goals and plans. This Culture increases the motivation of the whole group.
Adhocracy Culture, like Clan Culture, provides team members with flexible choices within a creative environment. Clan and Adhocracy Cultures also share organic or internally developed behaviors, and they are correlated with small and emerging businesses because of their flexibility and faster response to turbulence, such as economic change, war, or health crisis, creating greater organizational stability. It has been reported that Adhocracy Cultures are characterized by creative, adaptable, and innovative behaviors taking risks and resulting in dynamic entrepreneurial responses.
Market Culture opposes the flexibility and creativity offered in Adhocracy and Clan Cultures and instead aims for managerial controls and financial stability. In addition to increased control as a leadership method, Market Culture focuses internally on worker productivity in service or manufacturing and return on investment (ROI). In other words, if your primary goal is ROI, you are internally focused and not an Adhocracy or Clan Culture, leaning instead toward Market Culture or Hierarchical Culture. Shih and Huang noted that in addition to concern for ROI and productivity, Market Culture organizations also have a short-term vision and focus on goal setting and achieving, and the leadership tends toward profit maximization.
Hierarchical Cultures are bureaucratic, and leadership is vested by positional authority, where the boss’s identity is baked into the Culture. In addition to the highly apparent positional authority of the boss, hierarchical cultures are characterized by the workers’ willingness to submit to close supervision of their work, which has been found to both enhance and destroy employee engagement and output. Paradoxically, the empowerment of leaders in your command structure has been found to increase worker engagement in their tasks, while Hierarchical Cultures tend to inhibit worker engagement. This Culture is characterized by fixed rules for behaviors, standard operating procedures, an internal focus on systems, stability, and a centralized formal power structure.
Euchner. (2017). Creating a Culture of Innovation. Research Technology Management., 60(6), 10–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/08956308.2017.1373043
Leave a Reply