Dear Dr. Ghafoori,

According to culture theorist Raymond Williams, it is one of the few most complex terms in English, with having a lot of definition whose amount in over 160.

Therefore, I'm not sure if there is a (universally) accurate measure of culture. I think the models that aim to understand the organizational culture by putting them into some categories (such as Deal and Kennedy, Byars, Quinn and Cameron etc.) are useful but not very accurate. 

On the other side, a descriptive approach like Hofstede - The Cultural Dimensions is better. He is not putting the organizations into categories, but he proposes six dimensions (it was originally four when first published) which can be used to measure culture, so give a chance to compare organizations not by categories, but by some quantitive figures. 

This is my thought about the issue.

Best Regards.

Johnson & Scholes model of the Cultural Web is the best analytical tool I have used and works at firm level. I hope this might help

Regards, 

Maébh

I suggest you specify your aim of measuring culture. before picking a concept. For instance, Hofstede et al. is a very broad understanding of culture, comprising probably every dimension one may imagine. But I often found that I do not need all of his categories to explain an organizational practice or members' behavior, for instance. Hence, depending on the subject you are researching, certain categories may be more important than others, and that may influence the concept you may want to chose. To illustrate: I have been dealing with employee representation plans, and in order to explain, why employees refrain from electing collective voice bodies, dimensions like masculinity or uncertainty avoidance do not play an important role.  Good luck!

It is very important to understand for what purpose you need this measurement. Depend on purpose and context you can think about methods and models.

most studies using Geert Hofstede measurement may be some adaptation need for your specific research questions and research problem

Hofstede measurement may be used with adaptation as the culture of every organisation is different based on their core values.

Dear Dr. Ghafoori,

the most popular approach is Hofstedes model. But I think it is a more common approach to evaluate the culture inside of an organisation. I would suggest that you should find criterias that are more practicable like the following:

1.

Market / customer orientation: Is an organisational measure helpful in fostering the orientation of the members of the institution towards their markets / customers?

2.

Ability to coordinate: Does an organizational form provide good or bad conditions for coordination? How easy or how difficult is it to coordinate the acitivities of the members?

3.

Use of resources: Does an organisational arrangement support the economic use of the resources of an institution?

4.

Motivational effects: Does an organisational arrangement support that members are motivated and satisfied with their work conditions?

Thus, I think it is easier to create a specific profile of your own organization and you are able to compare this profile with profiles of other organizations easier.

I´ll hpoe, I could help you with this.

Hi, I am writing my dissertation on job satisfaction and organizational culture; I am confused on how to examine the culture in the organization I will be using as a case study, how do I measure their culture and who's classification do I use. Thanks for the replies in advance 

Dear Eraj Ghafoori and Tem Farlon

Could I sugest my book where I review diferent approaches and theories and tools form a quantitative perspective?  the major incovenience is that my book is in spanish. But there you will find plenty of resources, books and articles in english (the translation of the title would be: the analysis of organizational culture: an eclectic and practical guide

You may want to look into this link: 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KQ618GI?*Version*=1&*entries*=0

I truly hope it helps

Prof. Toyohiro Kono, Prof. Emeritus of Business Administration, Gakushan University, Tokyo had identified three elements of corporate culture for measuring the same. These are: a) Values held by the members of an organization, b) Method of decision making or way of thought , c) Overt behavioral pattern. Prof. Kono had also identified seven factors for measurement of corporate culture: 1) Values that member believe, 2) Information collection, 3) Idea generation, 4) Evaluation of ideas and risk taking, 5) C0operation, 6) Loyalty to the organization, 7) Value of the task to the employee or Morale of the member. ( Ref: Long Range Planning. Vol 23 No 4. PP 9 to 19. August 1990 ). Prof. Kono's studies are interesting and informative. The accuracy of measurement is likely to depend on attitude of the employees, size of the company, average age of the employees, transparency, communication and ethics.    

Hello, Eraj Ghafoori.

We have evaluated the organizational culture in Spanish firms from a double perspective. (Hierarchical Distance and Individualism/ Collectivism). Here you can find our article:

Triguero, R. Peña-Vinces, JC & Sánchez-Apellániz. M (2011): HRM in Spain its Diversity and the Role of Organizational Culture: an Empirical Study. European Journal of Social Sciences. 26(3) pp. 389-407.

http://personal.us.es/jesuspvinces/Triguerosanchez%20et%20al%202011.pdf

Also, we believe that organizational could have indirect effects on firm performance:

Triguero-Sanchez R., Peña-Vinces, JC. & Sánchez-Apellániz, M. (2013): Hierarchical distance as- a moderator of HRM practices on organizational performance. International Journal of Manpower. 34, (7) 1-20.

http://personal.us.es/jesuspvinces/Hierarchical%20distance.pdf

I hope our articles will be useful for your research.

As in other other research issue: let the data talk. And your analysis the integration that makes sense to your issue under analysis. By the way there are approaches far from quatitative but very insigthful too. Look at Schein for example. His work on the fall of DEC is remarkable.

Attitude of individuals in organization reflects the organization culture 

It looks that studies follow hofestede  to measure  the culture 

As someone who studies organizational culture, I don't think this question can be answered. The question is posed from a post-positivist paradigm, while organizational research is performed from a interpretivist paradigm. It's not something that can be measured, but only something that can be described.

The baseline question for examining organizational culture is "What do they believe? And how do they do things around here?" 

What this means is that while there are some patterns that develop interorganizationally, each organization itself has different values, mores, and practices. These are based on many different aspects of the organization, including, but not limited to: the service the organization provides (retail-technology-health care - etc., etc.), the type of organization (profit-nonprofit-family business), the type of members (paid employees-volunteers), age of the organization (start-up, well-developed and profiting, struggling), size of the organization, etc., etc., etc.

This makes "measuring" organizational culture pretty much impossible.

Dear Dr. Ghafoori,

I would like to share these scientific papers with you, as you may be used to measure organizational culture.

Best Regards.

Measuring organizational culture is a rather controversial activity. I recommend that you look at Joanne Martin's book on Organizational Culture; mapping the terrain (Sage, 2002). Among other things, she critically reflects on qualitative and quantitative approaches of organizational culture. Good luck!

In a similar vein to Andrew Herrman's response, I don't believe it's possible to define organizational culture, only describe it. What you cannot define, you cannot measure.