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Exploring the Relationship between Corporate Culture andBehaviour
Maurice Yolles (prof.m.yolles@gmail.com)Liverpool John Moores University
Invited paper - Increasing Competitiveness or Regional, National andInternational Market Development - New Challenges, September, 4 - 6, 2007,Ostrava
Abstract
Cultural mapping approaches as originated by Hofstede have become important to understandingthe nature and impact of cultures. An exploration of cultural mapping is made, and how this hasled to empirical studies is indicated. The Hofstede et al study on the manifestation of corporateculture is considered, and related in brief to the knowledge cybernetics schema, which representsa “holonic” view of the autonomous organisation that sees it as a whole rather than as a set of parts. Some limitations of the Hofstede et al findings as a manifestation of culture are also brieflyexplored within this context.
1.
 
Introduction
Cultural mapping approaches that enable distinct cultures to be compared were popularised byHoftede (
1980, 1987, 1991, 1994, 2001, 2002
). Hofstede’s
(1994) model adopts a four levelontological theory, and uses four (and later five) dimensions of measurement to classify culture.His base proposition that arise from a computing metaphor is that culture is a “collective programme” of the minds of a coherent group that differentiates them from other groups.Understanding culture and cultural differentiation has therefore become an important task fromothers like Hall (1984), Trompenaars (1997), Schwartz (1994), House et al (2002), and morerecently Yolles (2007).Exploring the general
dynamics
of culture has been an academic activity for much of the 20
th
Century (e.g., Sorokin, 1939-1942). However, creating classifications of culture that enable it to be“decomposed” in to generic elements that can be used to
map
any individual culture has been amore recent interest, seriously since the 1980s. The notion of cultural mapping, however, seems tostem from an earlier time, with the quote by Kluckhohn (1962, pp317-318; cited by Hofstede,2001): "In principle ... there is a generalized framework that underlies the more apparent andstriking facts of cultural relativity. All cultures constitute so many somewhat distinct answers toessentially the same questions posed by human biology and by the generalities of the humansituation. ... Every society's patterns for living must provide approved and sanctioned ways for dealing with such universal circumstances as the existence of two sexes; the helplessness of infants; the need for satisfaction of the elementary biological requirements such as food, warmth,and sex; the presence of individuals of different ages and of differing physical and other capacities.”Hofstede et at (1990) have also been interested in the manifestations of corporate culture inorganisations. His rationale for this is an ontology that explores the connection between values andtheir manifestations through heroes, rituals, and symbols, and practices that are hero, ritual andsymbol rich. In doing this he adopts a model by Deal and Kennedy that explores the relationship between corporate risk and reward. While the study that results from this inquiring into corporateculture was path breaking, on reflection one must ask if the model represents sufficient about the
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manifestations of corporate culture. To undertake this exploration we shall look at the studythrough the lens of a new paradigm, that of knowledge cybernetics (KC).
2. Culture and Paradigms
Hofstede (1991) called culture the “software of the mind” that forms through learned patterns of thinking, feeling and acting. His
idea of culture as a “collective programming” connects humannature, which is neither programmed nor programmable, to the individual’s personality which isprogrammable.
So how is personality programmable? Personality is “an individual’s characteristic pattern of thought, emotion, and behaviour, together with the psychological mechanisms (hidden or not) behind those patterns” (Funder, 1997, pp.1, 2), and is a property of the individual. Personality isdeveloped during a process of socialisation, in which individuals learn the culture of the socialcollective in which they are a part, and how to respond to it. People are all
individual in the waythey see the world, and how they do so determines how they respond to behaviour/ actions withinit. As a result they develop a personal
worldview
that is programmed by their life experiences andlies at the base of their personality. As their beliefs, values and attitudes change, so does theirpersonal worldview and this affects their understanding of “reality”.Worldview may therefore be seen as a personalised elaboration of culture that underpinspersonality development. As such it is a generator of personal knowledge that arises from bothlearning experience and its interpretation. Worldview is represented through language using acognitive space of concepts, patterns of knowledge and meanings. It has a personalised cognitivebelief system, and both a normative and a cognitive control of behaviour (or action). In otherwords worldview is a personalised reflection of culture with patterns of experiential and learnedindividual conceptual and practical knowledge that directly affects social and other forms of behaviour.
Worldview may also be shared within a social collective forming a “collective worldview”. Here,every individual in the collective retains their own ‘realities’, while using collective patterns of knowledge to share meaning. All the attributes of personal worldview are also applicable to thecollective, when its personal attributes are replaced by normative ones.While personal worldviews are normally informal (or unexpressed), collective worldviews may beeither formal or informal. A
 formalised 
collective worldview is a
 paradigm
, when more or less thenormative: belief system is expressed, patterns of conceptual and practical knowledge are visible toothers, and expectations of behaviour (or practice) are explicitly identified. The members of a particular paradigm tend to be restricted in their practice to collective expectations of behaviour.Thus for example, in the science paradigm there are “ways of doing things” and those who do notfollow prescription undertake “bad science” which is decried as unacceptable with those whotransgress being excluded. In another instance, corporate employees who do not follow expectedoperative practice associated with their departmental paradigm will be dismissed if thecontravention is considered to be serious.
The word culture as we use it here is an abstract term that can be defined in terms of a number of attributes that are relatively stable and normative (or shared). These attributes are: language,social behaviour, and a cognitive belief system (attitudes, values and beliefs). The b
eliefs areconceived to have three components (Rokeach, 1968):
cognitive
, representing knowledge withdegrees of certainty − more generally cognition is “of the mind, the faculty of knowing, perceivingor conceiving”;
affective
, since a belief can arouse an affect centred around an object; and
behavioural 
since the consequence of a belief is action.
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Beliefs are a determinant for not only behaviour, but also values and attitudes. Values (Rokeach,1968, p124) are abstract ideas representing a person’s beliefs about ideal modes of conduct andideal terminal goals. Attitude (Rokeach, 1968, p112) is an enduring organisation of beliefs aroundan object or situation predisposing one to respond in some preferential manner. Beliefs, values, andattitudes have a special place together. Beliefs are contained in an attitude, and attitudes occur within a larger assembly of attitudes. The collections of beliefs, attitudes and values are referred to by Rokeach as cognitive organisation, but here we shall refer to this assembly as a belief system.The belief system also acts as an imperative for behaviour.
Patterns of shared collective social knowledge are generated within culture, and operate tounderpin cultural meanings. They are formulated in part by propositions that arise from the belief system. Cultural attributes are not consciously adopted but are rather internalised within a society.As a result social behaviour is conditioned by the limits of what constitute culturally acceptablebehaviour (Hall, 1983). We only become aware of the conditioning when we are severelychallenged, for instance in intercultural situations.
Hofstede’s notion of practices and its relationship with values, norms, attitudes and behaviour really requires further examination. The idea of practice within stable groups of people was aninterest of Kuhn in his exploration of the paradigm (Figure 1). When we speak of the paradigm weare usually interested in normative behaviour. This is distinct from organised group behaviour or action that is not part of the paradigm but is dependent on it. It is cognitive organisation (of attitudes, values and beliefs) operating together with the basic set of assumptions, logic, andnormative behaviour that enables organised activity to occur. Paradigms offer a framework thatdetermines how the organisation should operate, and what it considers to be important for itsdecision making and its activities. It is therefore practice centred. It is not only normative behaviour that is important, but patterns of behaviour since the paradigm “governs, in the firstinstance, not a subject matter, but rather a group of practitioners” (Kuhn, 1970, p180). The paradigm holders are likely practitioners that carry out actions and have behaviour that fit modesof practice. Such modes of practice occur with the development of patterns of behaviour in whichgroup norms arise with ordering processes of behaviour that have been conditioned by culture. Thisordering process may be an indication of the “collective personality” of the group. While culture isdefined
by a relatively stable normative language and cognitive belief system, it also involvesnormative social behaviour that can be expressed in terms of practice. So what is the connectionbetween paradigmatic practice and culture?
 Behaviour (as practice)& communications
ParadigmCognitive Space
Concepts, knowledge & meaningto construct behaviour.Propositional base,exemplars.
NormativestandardsCulture
Attitudes Beliefs Values Language
Figure 1: The nature of the paradigm with its orientation towards practice
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