CEF.UP – MaR Seminar/Webinar

Tuesday – May 30^th , 2023 6:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. | Room 305 | Online

“Culture creation and change”

Soo Min Toh – University of Toronto Mississauga (joint work with Yeun Joon Kim and Sooyun Baik)

Abstract:

“This review presents comprehensive analyses of extant research on culture creation and change. We use the framework of culture creation and change ( Kim & Toh, 2019), which consists of three unique perspectives, to understand past research on the antecedents of cultures. The basis of the functionality perspective is that environmental changes shape cultures, and thus, the created cultures enable an organization to address the demands of its environments effectively. In contrast, the leadership perspective argues that leaders have disproportional influence on cultures, and when exercising such influence, they are often unsuccessful at creating functional cultures. The leadership perspective comprises two subperspectives—the leader-trait and cultural transfer perspectives. The leader-trait perspective argues that when creating cultures, leaders often overlook the functionality of cultures but rely heavily on their traits. The cultural transfer perspective suggests that leaders often recreate the cultures that they have experienced in the past. Building on this framework, we review 74 studies in 68 articles across multiple disciplines to widen our understanding of culture creation and change. We then present agendas for future research guided by a four-stage model and a theory of coordinated actions for creating functional cultures. Finally, we discuss methodological limitations in past studies and offer possible solutions.”