Getting clear on corporate culture: conceptualisation, measurement and operationalisation

Abstract: This article provides a review of existing literature on corporate culture, drawing on work from the disciplines of business ethics, management studies, psychology, anthropology, and economics as well as interviews with business leaders. It surveys different definitions of corporate culture and proposes a framework for capturing their commonalities, it then discusses the importance of culture so conceived and widely used frameworks to measure it. The article also portrays different views on how culture can be operationalised and moulded within an organisation. The article concludes by discussing the relationship between corporate culture and corporate purpose and highlighting gaps in the literature which would profit from further research.

Keywords: corporate culture, organisational culture, culture change, business ethics, corporate purpose, corporate culture significance, culture measurements.

Article posted to Journal of the British Academy, volume 6,
supplementary issue 1 (Reforming Business for the 21st Century).