OML 8020 Module 3 Organizational Culture Seminar Paper: Schein's Levels and the Competing Values Framework Example

Family Firm, German Parent: Diagnosing a Plant's Culture After an Acquisition

Student Name

Doctor of Business Administration, Thomas Edison State University

OML-8020: Seminar in Leadership and Culture: Organizational and National Perspectives

Mentor Name

Month Day, Year

Family Firm, German Parent: Diagnosing a Plant's Culture After an Acquisition

Introduction

In module one I wondered whether some of the friction on my team came from organizational rather than national culture. The plant was family owned for 38 years, and the founder's son ran it until the sale. The new German parent brought group-wide procedures, metrics and reporting lines. Employees describe the change in phrases like we used to be a family and now everything is a form. This paper uses two models of organizational culture to understand what is happening.

Schein's Three Levels

Schein and Schein (2017) treat culture as a set of basic assumptions that a group comes to share as it learns by solving problems of adapting to its environment and holding itself together, assumptions that have proved useful enough to be handed on to newcomers as the proper way to perceive and feel about problems. Their model has three levels. At the surface are artifacts, visible things like layout, dress, stories and rituals, which anyone can observe but few outsiders can decode. Espoused beliefs and values are the stated strategies, goals and philosophies. Basic underlying assumptions are the unconscious, taken-for-granted beliefs that are the real source of values and action. Culture change is difficult because assumptions operate below awareness.

Applying Schein

At the artifact level, the plant has a wall of photographs of employee picnics going back decades, an open door to the general manager's office and, since the acquisition, new dashboards on every line showing efficiency metrics in German and English. The espoused values have changed: the old handbook spoke of treating every employee like family, while the new group code emphasizes quality, compliance and continuous improvement. The deeper assumptions are harder to see, but interviews with long-serving supervisors suggest two: that loyalty will be repaid with job security and that problems are solved by talking to the right person rather than by following a procedure. The new parent's assumptions appear to be that performance should be measured and that procedures protect quality and people.

The Competing Values Framework

Cameron and Quinn (2011) sorted cultures using two contrasts: whether an organization leans toward flexibility or toward control, and whether it looks inward to integration or outward to competition. The four quadrants define culture types. Clan cultures are internal and flexible, like an extended family, valuing cohesion and development. Adhocracy cultures are external and flexible, valuing innovation and risk taking. Market cultures are external and stable, valuing competition and results. Hierarchy cultures are internal and stable, valuing procedures and efficiency. Cameron and Quinn's assessment instrument, the OCAI, asks employees to distribute points among descriptions of the four types for the current and preferred culture.

I gave the instrument to 40 supervisors and managers. The results showed that the plant's current culture is now strongest in hierarchy, followed by clan, with market rising and adhocracy weakest. Asked about preferred culture, long-serving staff wanted more clan, while newer managers wanted more market.

What the Evidence Says

Hartnell et al. (2011) meta-analyzed 84 studies using the competing values framework. Clan, adhocracy and market cultures each showed positive links with effectiveness. Clan cultures mattered most for how employees felt about their work, while market cultures mattered most for operating and financial results. The culture types were also positively correlated with one another, suggesting that organizations can be strong in several at once rather than having to choose. The authors questioned the framework's assumption that the values truly compete.

Diagnosis

The plant has shifted from a clan culture with hierarchical elements toward a hierarchy culture with rising market emphasis. Long-serving employees experience this as a loss, because their assumption that loyalty earns security no longer seems to hold. Hartnell and colleagues' findings suggest that the plant does not need to give up clan values to gain market and hierarchy strengths. Leaders could keep the picnics, open doors and attention to development while adding measurement and procedures, and explain how procedures protect employees as well as quality.

Subcultures

The survey also showed that the plant does not have a single culture. Quality assurance staff, many of them hired after the sale, scored the current culture highest on hierarchy and preferred it that way, since pharmaceutical regulations reward procedure. Second-shift packaging crews, mostly long-serving, scored clan highest and wanted more of it. Maintenance technicians described an adhocracy of their own, solving breakdowns creatively with little regard for forms. Schein noted that subcultures form around occupations, shifts and histories, and any plan to shape culture must work with them rather than assume one culture for all.

Merging Two Cultures

Research on mergers and acquisitions often finds that culture clashes undermine expected gains. At the plant, the acquiring group has not tried to erase the old culture so much as layer its systems on top. That approach avoids open conflict but leaves employees unsure which assumptions now govern decisions.

Questions for Leadership

The diagnosis raises questions rather than answers. Which assumptions from the founding culture are worth keeping? How can the German parent's emphasis on measurement be presented as support rather than surveillance? Who are the informal leaders whose stories carry the old culture, and how can they help shape the new one?

Limits

The culture instrument reflects the views of 40 people at one point in time. Schein warns that assumptions are best uncovered through extended inquiry, not a short survey. The plant is invented.

Conclusion

Schein's levels show that the clash at the plant lies in assumptions about loyalty and procedure, not only in new dashboards. Cameron and Quinn's framework locates the shift from clan toward hierarchy and market, and Hartnell and colleagues' meta-analysis suggests that the plant can hold clan values while adding new strengths. The task for leaders is to make that combination visible and credible, starting with the subcultures where the change is felt most.

References

Cameron, K. S., & Quinn, R. E. (2011). Diagnosing and changing organizational culture: Based on the competing values framework (3rd ed.). Jossey-Bass.

Hartnell, C. A., Ou, A. Y., & Kinicki, A. (2011). Organizational culture and organizational effectiveness: A meta-analytic investigation of the competing values framework's theoretical suppositions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(4), 677-694. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021987

Schein, E. H., & Schein, P. A. (2017). Organizational culture and leadership (5th ed.). Wiley.