Difficulties of Managing Culture
British Journal of Management, Vol. 13, 31–49 (2002)
The Unintended Consequences of Culture Interventions: A Study of Unexpected Outcomes*
L. C. Harris and E. Ogbonna
Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK email: HarrisLC1@Cardiff.ac.uk
The topic of managing culture has been central to organizational culture research for the last two decades. Although critical theorists argue that culture management efforts are prone to unintended consequences, few empirical studies have explicitly explored this issue. The study reported in this article is designed to redress this imbalance in the literature through focusing on the exploration and description of the unintended consequences of culture management interventions. The aims of the study are to locate and describe how management actions during culture change initiatives result in unintended consequences and then subsequently to explore and describe these effects. The article begins with an overview of contemporary research into the nature of culture, the rationale, approaches and perspectives on culture management as well as research into unintended consequences. After a discussion of the research design and methods employed, the results of the study are presented. These findings review and elucidate eight forms of management action during culture change programmes that resulted in unintended consequences, which had serious consequences for the organizations concerned. The article concludes with the discussion of implications and conclusions for theorists and practitioners.
Introduction
The concept of organizational culture constitutes one of the most fascinating and yet elusive topics for management researchers. Scholarly interest in the subject is such that academic journals are strewn with conceptual and empirical studies (recent examples include Daymon, 2000; Jones, 2000; Veiga et al., 2000). Similarly, practitioneroriented articles extol the benefits of examining
The Unintended Consequences of Culture Interventions: A Study of Unexpected Outcomes*
L. C. Harris and E. Ogbonna
Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK email: HarrisLC1@Cardiff.ac.uk
The topic of managing culture has been central to organizational culture research for the last two decades. Although critical theorists argue that culture management efforts are prone to unintended consequences, few empirical studies have explicitly explored this issue. The study reported in this article is designed to redress this imbalance in the literature through focusing on the exploration and description of the unintended consequences of culture management interventions. The aims of the study are to locate and describe how management actions during culture change initiatives result in unintended consequences and then subsequently to explore and describe these effects. The article begins with an overview of contemporary research into the nature of culture, the rationale, approaches and perspectives on culture management as well as research into unintended consequences. After a discussion of the research design and methods employed, the results of the study are presented. These findings review and elucidate eight forms of management action during culture change programmes that resulted in unintended consequences, which had serious consequences for the organizations concerned. The article concludes with the discussion of implications and conclusions for theorists and practitioners.
Introduction
The concept of organizational culture constitutes one of the most fascinating and yet elusive topics for management researchers. Scholarly interest in the subject is such that academic journals are strewn with conceptual and empirical studies (recent examples include Daymon, 2000; Jones, 2000; Veiga et al., 2000). Similarly, practitioneroriented articles extol the benefits of examining
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