LOS

Every culture distinguishes itself from others by the specific solutions it chooses to certain problems where reveal themselves as dilemmas. It is convenient to look at these problems under three headings: those which arive from our relationships with other people; those which come from the passage of time; and those which relate to the environment. From the solutions different cultures have chosen to these universal problems, we can further identify seven fundamental dimensions of culture ...

Five of these come from the first category

Relationship with peole (see image below)

• Universalism versus particularism
• Individualism versus commutarianism
• Neutral versus emotional
• Specific versus diffuse
• Achivement versus ascription

Attitudes to time

Attitudes to environment

We may define four types of corporate culture, which vary cónsiderably in how they think and learn, how they change and how they motivate, reward and resolve conflicts. This is a valuable way to analyse organisations, but it does have the risk of caricaturisation. There is a temptation to oversimplify what is really quite complex. The four types can be described as follows

• The family
• The Eiffel Tower
• The guided missile
• The incubator 

Each of these types of corporate culture are "ideal types". In practice the types are mixed or overlaid with one culture dominating.

Characteristics of the four corporate cultures:

Buchlink: Riding the waves of culture