I believe that there is a huge link between organizational culture and national culture. For example, in multinational organisations, employees tend to bring their own culture characteristics with them at work. National culture comes within every person we cannot isolate this from the rest of our personalities and how we deal with people on daily basis. For example, I am Emirati , I come from a conservative culture , religious family extra ; so during my dealings everyday I cannot keep those cultural values at home and come to work and pretend am someone else.

As far for the national culture interaction with organizational culture I am attaching an interesting study that took place in China.

yes of course very much national culture affect the organisational cultre to the large extent

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The sociological term is isomorphism. I'd suggest you read Michel Crozier's The Bureaucratic Phenomenon.

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In general, national culture supersedes organizational culture, but if an highly reputed foreign company demands a specific cultural approach, local employees will adopt it right the way, and act even more "culturally" than the company nationals. With foreign managers it might happen the opposite: if they respect local culture, they may be prone to act as if they were locals

What types of organizational culture are best at enhancing performance are affected by the national culture values where the firm is located. One could say that national culture unerlies and influences organizatonal culture. For example, if a multinational firm has subsidiaries in 50 different countries around the world and is headquartered in Sweden and the company wants to have a fairly empowered organizational culture, it will probably find it best to have an organizational culture which encouarges somewhat less empowerment in its subsidairy in China which is a very heirarical culture compared to in Sweden where high empowerment is quite common. At the same time the multinationl corporation will not want to be totally different in each country and will want to have some commonalities throught the world and emphazie some Swedish aspects given that the firm is Swedish. Thus, the subsidairy in China will probably want to have an organizational cutlure which encouarges empowerment more than a typical local firm. One can look at an article I wrote some years ago which among other things touches on this issue:

Fey, C. F. & Denison, D. 2003. Organizational culture and effectiveness: Can American theory be applied in Russia? Organization Science, 14(6): 686-706.

There is actually a strong link between organisation culture and national culture. National culture is a basis for organizational culture. The values, norms, attitudes and behaviour of a people in a particular country makes national culture. And tjat gives direction for framing organisation culture.

yes for sure. National culture has strength to change the organizational culture. Kindly do study Hofstede model of Organizational Culture. the model shows how national level culture help organization to design its culture.

Charles Handy culture dimensions for organization are also influenced by external culture.

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Personality of an organization is the culture of that organization which distinguishes one organization from other organizations and defines its general nature. The culture of A organization is different from the culture of B organization. In fact organizations get differed in terms of their cultures. Hardly it is possible to observe that cultures of two organizations are exactly similar. The way employees in A organization do things around it is not the way employees in B organization do things around that. Organizational culture involves a common perception held by the employees of an organization in respect of the way things around here (in that organization) are done.

National culture is the macro system of values and norms followed by the entire citizens of a country. Values and norms at the national level determine what kinds of attitudes and behaviours are appropriate or inappropriate. Members of a particular nation are inculcated into certain values as they grow, and they dictate the way they are supposed to behave toward others who are locals and people of other nations as well. According to the popular model of national culture developed by Geert Hofstede there are five dimensions of culture to identify similarities and dissimilarities between the cultural values and norms of different nations, i.e., power distance, individualism versus collectivism, masculinity versus femininity, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term versus short-term orientation.

There is a significant link between national culture and organizational culture. National culture can affect organizational culture significantly. Example: Nation A has Individualism that is the degree to which people in a country prefer to act as individuals instead of group members; prefer to work individually; person is supposed to take care only of himself/herself and his/her immediate families; self- determination where individuals believe that each person should determine his/her own beliefs and behaviour; major controlling force of individuals is internal pressure-guilt. Company A is in Nation A. It is mostly like that employees in Company A follow Individualism (instead of collectivism).

Interesting question, and I would agree with Henarath's response. I would like to add that there are sub-cultures within a nation, based on different communities.

As an HR practitioner in a large country like India, I have observed these sub-cultures in interesting settings. There are large global organizations, with a distinct culture and way of working. However, there are observable differences in their work cultures, between their branch offices at different cities within India!

So I would say, the employees at each branch have these layers determining their behavior: their own individual culture depending on various demographic factors, superposed with the organizational cultural layer, and the national culture layer.

Thanks for your answers I guess we can adopt that there exist a substantial difference between national culture and organizational culture. However it is important to note that organizational culture is influenced by the neighboring society; employee values and the nature of the organization’s core activities. Since organizations are engrained in societies, they can be defined by certain national culture values, due to societal pressure. At times for organizations to be accepted and secure social and accordingly financial stability they must conform to norms, values, and regulations of societies. Employees belonging to neighboring societies may introduce their value preferences in organizations hence shaping an organization culture.