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Action research
Action research as culture as culture change
change tool tool
Romualda Marcinkoniene
Kaunas University of Technology, Kaunas, Lithuania, and 97
Tauno Kekäle
Department of Production, University of Vaasa, Vaasa, Finland

Abstract
Purpose – To report experiences of changing cultures in three Lithuanian schools by means of action
research.
Design/methodology/approach – This took the form of action research in the schools. Culture
change measured by a culture survey (developed by Harrison and Stokes) in the beginning and
towards the end of the three-year change project.
Findings – The cultures of the primary and vocational schools have clearly changed towards the
general total quality management culture traits of achievement and individual problem solving during
our project. The culture of the secondary school has not changed similarly. A possible explanation for
this may lie in the very strong power orientation of this third school; in our discussions, some teachers
state that some are forcefully against change out of fear of losing their power position. However, even
here the power orientation has weakened and the respondents generally are in preference of an
achievement culture.
Research limitations/implications – Only three case schools were studied. Schools as organizations
are quite different to companies, but could be comparable to other public organizations. Furthermore,
Hofstede culture studies would suggest certain similarity between Lithuanian and some other Baltic
states’ work culture (e.g. Poland, Latvia) but differs clearly from some others (Finland, Estonia, Russia);
this does not disqualify the action research methodology but makes the results basically incomparable.
Practical implications – Culture change takes time, and some post-communist public
organizations such as schools are even slower to change – but with persuasion and patience and
well-planned change programme, culture can be changed.
Originality/value – This is an original empirical study in a managerially-demanding environment.
Keywords Organizational culture, Total quality management, Action research, Schools, Lithuania
Paper type Research paper

Introduction: what is “culture” and how to find it?

Why do we need to understand organizational cultures? A major reason is that they
can aid in understanding what is going on inside an organization where different
occupations must work together – and planning on how to change an organization
that is not working optimally. Also, as new technologies are introduced, we have to
understand their impact in an organization, and we probably also have to plan for
ways of working to avoid problems when cooperating over cultures.
In general, the culture of an organization is defined as a cluster of values, beliefs,
traditions, specific relationships and unique climate shared by its members. It
influences the ways how decisions are made, problems solved and conflicts resolved, Baltic Journal of Management
Vol. 2 No. 1, 2007
what rewards and punishments are, what working style is prevailing, how rules are pp. 97-109
observed, in which way people are encouraged, motivated or supported and how much q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1746-5265
they trust management, to what degree executives tolerate mistakes and where the real DOI 10.1108/17465260710720273
BJM power lies, how much innovation is supported and what dress code or the level of risk
2,1 tolerance is, how effectively the organization performs and what financial information
is shared and so on. Brache (2002, p. 100) suggests that culture is:
. . . the values, rules, practices, rituals (and) norms through which business is conducted;
simply, it is the way you do things . . . Strategy delineates the boundaries of the organization’s
pond; culture is water you swim.
98
Cultures serve two main functions – internal integration and external adaptation in an
organization:
(1) relating its members in developing collective identity and knowing/learning
how to work inside it; and
(2) helping them to adjust to the external environment which refers to how an
organization meets its goals and deals with outsiders.

Furthermore, if we look into the famous hierarchy of needs by Maslow (1954), we can
see that the culture at its best, for the individual members of the organization, fulfills
all the needs they have within the organization. Basic physiological needs will
correspond to getting a salary in a job position to earn for living; security needs are
represented in feeling safe and protected from the environment, and cared for by the
leadership; belonging and love can be found in an interaction among an organization’s
members. Furthermore, respect and status in a hierarchy can be won to realize one’s
craving for esteem needs. And finally, there is every opportunity to respond to
self-actualization needs through personal development within the chosen career.
Schein (2003) introduces a three-level model of culture-artifacts, espoused values
(manifested/visible-culture) and basic underlying assumptions (essence of culture).
Formally, the culture of a group can be defined as:
. . . a pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of
external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered
valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and
feel in relation to those problems (Schein, 2003, p. 12).
However, Schein also admits the definition is incomplete and that problems of
socialization and behavior should be discussed in the culture context too. It is also of
importance to consider, according to Schein (2003, p. 127), that value- and
artefact-based approaches such as surveys cannot reveal the underlying
assumptions that make up the real content of the organizational culture.
Would it then at all be possible to use some kind of measurement tool for finding out
anything of value about organizational cultures? Owing to the “underlying” nature of
the basic assumptions, respondents cannot tell what the organizations’ assumptions
are – thus it is insufficient to make conclusions on these deep cultural assumptions,
and the essence of the culture, based on cultural surveys alone. If one wants to really
know what is important in a culture, all observations and conclusions drawn should be
confirmed by observations and/or interviewing members of the organizations. On the
other hand, it is possible to assess the more observable levels of culture (values,
artifacts) with survey-type tools. If one accepts Schein’s three-level culture view, there
are indeed distinctive roles for quantitative measurement tools too; again, Deal and
Kennedy (1982) have argued that there may be grounds for maintaining that the three
levels are unified, especially in strong cultures, and then surveys could give some Action research
insight even to the deeper levels. as culture change
Maybe the most important point against Schein’s strongly monomethod view
(Martin, 1992) is that for many purposes his participation-observation approach is not tool
too useful, even if it would be theoretically more correct for finding out about the real
basis of a culture. Firstly, surveys allow respondents to record their own perceptions of
reality; some scholars (Hatch, 1993; Rentsch, 1990) state that behavior and attitudes are 99
determined not by objective reality but by actors’ own perceptions of reality. For
organizational development purposes, self-report surveys thus offer internal credibility
to organizational members (who also, to some extent, can assess and confirm the
validity of the culture view that the surveys present – at least the “what” if not the
“why”). Furthermore, quantitative measures allow replication and cross-sectional
comparability of studies, provide an accepted frame for interpreting data, help the
evaluation and initiation of culture change efforts, and provide data that can be
analyzed through multivariate methods (Cooke and Rousseau, 1988; Xenikou and
Furnham, 1996; Ashkanasy et al., 2000).
There are dozens of different classifications to types of organizational culture
(Ashkanasy et al., 2000); since then, even more typologies have been proposed). These
ideal-types are typically described in terms of how an organization works in different
situations, and what it values above something else. As is the problem with ideal-types,
no organization is ever fully compatible with any of the types, but features of several
types can be found in any given organization depending on the situation.

Culture change: from the current state to the goals for the future
So, if culture is so good for the individuals, why does it have to be changed? Culture,
having been formed by the collective history of the members of an organization, also is
also the primary source of resistance to any change that could is essential for
organizational learning and development. And what’s good for the individuals –
typically, continuity, tranquility and status quo – is in the long run never good for the
organization. In the world of ever-increasing pace of transformations, cultural analysis
can illuminate what issues to address to gain change in the smoothest possible way.
Changing a culture is thus one tool for making the organizations work better.
Changing a culture is not easy, however: given that a culture takes years to develop,
it should similarly also take years to change. In some studies (Seel, 2000; Helo and
Kekäle, 2006) a systematic culture change is also deemed very difficult because of the
emergent nature of the culture (the culture emerges from the interactions of the
individuals in an early “fluid” period of the culture, and later on becomes “locked”
when the individuals start to “see” more and more things that confirm their basic
assumptions and ignore things that are conflicting with them, mostly in an
unconscious way).
Although cultural change may be persuaded on a group, especially when an
external or internal (between subcultures) threat is experienced (Schein, 2003, pp. 327-9;
Gagliardi, 1986, p. 119), culture under normal conditions changes mostly incrementally
through learning (Gagliardi, 1986, p. 119), through similar negotiations as when they
were originally formed, and through strong or repeated positive experiences
(Gagliardi, 1986, p. 132). The members of the organization must experience that the
new beliefs or values presented indeed do work from one time to another – and thus
BJM become validated assumptions, passing both the tests of time and of internal and
2,1 external reality (Schein, 2003, pp. 10-11). This means that under normal, stable
conditions, it might in practice not be possible to change the whole culture at once.
Instead, it would be recommendable to start the change in the areas (e.g. smaller pilot
units: Schein, 2003, p. 308) where the new assumptions are likely to function or bring
quick successes (Imai, 1986 for similarities with “kaizen” methods) or where learning
100 possibilities can easily be seen by all (in known problem areas where continuing
problems might ignite the questioning of values and beliefs: Schein, 2003, pp. 65-7).
After they are evaluated and accepted, the new methods and assumptions experience a
cognitive transformation and become new basic assumptions taken for granted by the
members of the group, and can be built on further.
“Changing” a culture is thus, to our opinion, something that is very difficult to do by
orders, management speeches or slogan campaigns. Rather, the change should – as the
original culture – rise from within the culture, through discussion and assessment of
what the basic assumptions are and how useful they are at the moment (Hatch, 1993).
What external consultants can do, however, is to ignite small fires of discussion and
change initiatives among individuals, and then hold public discussions often enough so
that the critical mass of individual change initiatives is reached – to keep the
reassessment going on until it leads to changes in the mental basics of all the activity.
Thus, the Lithuanian culture might be higher-than-average on uncertainty
avoidance and average on power distance and individuality. For the purposes of
management, uncertainty-avoiding cultures, especially when connected to power
distance, would lead to a belief in clear hierarchies and roles, and centralized
decision-making (Hofstede, 1991, p. 141; Earley and Erez, 1997).

Case study: action research as a tool in culture change in three Lithuanian

schools
Within a EU-funded project Quality in School (QiS), we had a possibility to try and
study the effects of an action research process to the culture. Action research, in
general terms, is a process by which change and understanding can be pursued at
the one time. The action research framework is appropriate for professional
participants who can recognize the existence of shortcomings in their activities (such
as the teaching personnel in schools) and who would like to adopt some initial stance in
regard to the problem, to formulate a plan, carry out an intervention, evaluate
the outcomes and develop further strategies in an iterative fashion (Hopkins, 1993). In
short, action research is characterized by those constraints and strengths given a
research methodology intended to be a workable technique for working classroom
teachers.
In order to make the participants aware of their situation and to measure the success
of the change of culture, we have used a culture questionnaire including the
respondents’ view of the current value base and way of working, as well as the
preferred states. This approach is generally known as the gap analysis, and helps to
make the “cognitive dissonance” – that things are not what they should be – more
visible for the members of the organization, thus further enabling culture change when
reported back to the respondents. We have aimed at assessing the organizational
culture and how it has changed during the action-research intervention in educational
institutions, namely, in three levels of the schools in Lithuania – primary, secondary
and vocational. Their cultures, unfortunately, do not show too much of the values that Action research
most modern business environments would require: values of teamwork, individual as culture change
responsibility of process, and decision-making based on objective facts and ideas from
the people who best know the problem to be solved (closest to the process, lowest in the tool
hierarchy).
The essentials of action research design are considered by Elliott (Hopkins, 1985) as
the following characteristic stages: 101
(1) Initially an exploratory stance is adopted, where an understanding of a problem
is developed and plans are made for some form of interventionary strategy
(The Reconnaissance and General Plan).
(2) Then the intervention is carried out (The Action).
(3) During and around the time of the intervention, pertinent observations are
collected in various forms (Monitoring the implementation by Observation).
(4) The new interventional strategies are carried out, and the cyclic process repeats,
continuing until a sufficient understanding of (or implement able solution for)
the problem is achieved (Reflection and Revision).

The protocol is iterative or cyclical in nature and is intended to foster deeper

understanding of a given situation, starting with conceptualizing and particularizing
the problem and moving through several interventions and evaluations.
In our action research project QiS, the action research methodology was
implemented through a succession of action stages (training sessions, project
meetings, small Plan-Do-Check-Act development projects conducted in a fashion
suggested by Hopkins, 1985) and research stages (scientific literature analysis,
collecting and working out data on the participating schools, results comparisons).
These relatively small improvement tasks did not include organizational changes.
While the stages were conducted simultaneously in seven European countries, this
paper concentrates on the Lithuanian part of the project in one primary school, one
secondary school and one vocational school.
Even if the action research content in our project was to implement the total quality
management (TQM) framework in school environment, for the purpose of making
conclusions of the suitability of action research for culture change the content could
also be something else. A typical TQM implementation is quite close to action research
anyway, because it is typically recommended to implement TQM gradually and check
the developments after each stage. Here, the goal of the project was to change the
existing post-communist power culture towards TQM values, and thus the TQM
vocabulary is used. As our earlier studies (Kekäle, 1998) suggest, the concept and
contents of TQM are somewhat problematic; there are so many different values
included in the different historical incarnations of TQM (Wilkinson et al., 1992) that it
is quite difficult to claim that TQM implementation is possible in one type of culture
only. However, as organizations have generally during the last years advanced more
and more towards services and customers, lightened their organizations, and their
spans of future planning have became shorter, there has also been a shift of emphasis
from “hard: controlling, absolute” TQM to “soft: self-evaluating, team-working,
improving” TQM (Wilkinson et al., 1992). This would require, to our opinion, a similar
shift in the cultures: from the controlling “power” and rule-based “role” type cultures
BJM (Harrison and Stokes, 1992) preferably towards the self-orienting “achievement”
2,1 culture that relies on the individuals’ pride of work and interest in continuous
improvement. Our goal with the project thus was culture change through action
research, to make the school cultures more suitable for continued implementation of
TQM by themselves after the intervention.
The culture of the schools was measured twice – before the intervention and two
102 years into the project (a third “after” evaluation is being planned). Harrison and Stokes’
(1992) types of culture – power, role, achievement and support – have been selected as
a model culture for investigation and the questionnaire elaborated by the same authors
as a simple research tool (but translated to Lithuanian language). The assessments
were conducted from time to time, then made public and discussed among the teacher
collectives, and their continued discussion of the culture helped by small practical
improvement tasks between the assessments.

Case 1: primary school

The primary school in our sample became a self-governing school in 2002 (earlier it
was a part of a primary/secondary school). It advocates a strong respect for human
values; attention is focused on the personal development of the pupils. The
management is based on cooperation. All employees are allowed to participate in
making decisions, there’s a broad delegation of responsibility of the duties, frequent
counselling, and very flexible work procedures. Both parents and teachers are satisfied
with and supportive of the aims and strategies adopted by the school, which is open to
changes and constructive in solving problems. The pupils are happy with a
non-traditional and cosy school environment (originally a kindergarten), where they
have a sense of safety and freedom. The school is correspondingly strong in human
resources. It employs competent and caring teachers, has parents’ support and is a
leading among primary schools its hometown. The establishment of new traditions
and holidays has lead to the birth of a new school culture. The pupils and their parents
are positive about their school for good learning achievements as well as social and
cultural development.
However, the school is confronted with some problems: lack of appropriate sports
facilities and modern technologies, incompetence and indifference of the technical
personnel, and shortage of finance from the state. Also, there’s a menacing fall of the
pupil body, which may result in closing some schools in the town in a few years. At
present, despite low salaries, the teachers are enthusiastic and committed to their work
but the economic situation may lead to the reduction of competent teachers in the
school in future.

Case 2: secondary school

The chief strengths of the secondary school in our sample are professional and
competent teachers, good academic record among gymnasiums, and motivated and
open-minded pupils. The school location is advantageous and some renovation has
been carried out due to the principal’s initiative and the parents’ support. It has to be
pointed out that the parents are eagerly engaged in the schooling of their children. One
of the ambitions and main aims of the gymnasium is to develop an International
Baccalaureate and provide relevant education and become a leader among the
secondary schools in town. This trend has been supported both by the school Action research
community, including parents and the educational department. as culture change
However, the shortage of modern resources and financing from the state are the
major weaknesses as in the primary school. Likewise, there is also a tendency of tool
diminishing pupil body (decrease of birth-rate) and shortage of competent young
teachers, especially males. The interviews and consulting work conducted during the
project have indicated that self-interest prevails over the common goal pursue. The 103
teachers admitted that the most experienced members of the staff are not supportive to
other colleagues, as they are afraid of losing their leadership position in the school.
Despite this tendency, the teachers have shown interest for quality development in all
areas of the school activities, thus demonstrating their patriotism and commitment to
preserve the positive image of their school within the community.

Case 3: vocational school

The school has a long history – it was founded in 1945 and is attractive for its location
in the town centre. The strengths of the school lie in its staff (professional and
competent teachers and democratic administrators) and it is able to offer attractive
professions (secretaries, computer operators, bank assistants, accountants and
cashiers, e-business specialists, etc.). This is envisaged as a trend of the school
towards life-long learning. The school has over the recent years participated in some
EU projects (currently with Greece), and there’s a growing interest to get even more
involved.
The school is located in two buildings on different streets and this has lead to two
separate groups of teachers working in and for their own units with little interest about
their colleagues in the other location. The lack of a clear strategic plan has resulted in
the two teams competing, rather than aiming at common goals. The school location
also has other disadvantages: poor attendance was pointed out in the interviews.
Teachers and pupils complain about the lack of modern resources, which causes
worries about training of competent specialists for the market. Also, the external audit
carried out in 2002 indicated that teachers clearly lack self-evaluation and self-analysis
skills. The culture of the school is relatively weak, due to insufficient involvement of
the school community in the schooling processes. There are also external threats for
the school, with regard to their possible moving even further from the centre, reduction
of the student body, and shortage of state finances.

Results: culture change through action research

The main traits of the culture of the three schools were studied in the beginning of the
project and two years later by the Harrison and Stokes (1992) organizational culture
diagnose instrument. This instrument contains 15 beginnings of sentences that
describe aspects of organizational function and design. By selecting one of four
possible endings, the respondents reveal their view on how their organization works.
There is also another set of 15 sentences, measuring the preferred culture type. The
types of cultures are, according to Harrison and Stokes, two types oriented towards
external punishments and rewards (power-oriented and role-oriented) and another two
culture types oriented towards intrinsic rewards (achievement-and support-oriented
cultures). For each set of sentences, the respondents are asked to arrange them in order
of preference: four points for the dominant/preferred item and one for the
BJM least/dominant one. Our researchers arranged the collection of the responses at the
2,1 school, so all the teachers that were present at the time of the study filled the
questionnaire.
The power orientation is based on inequality of access to resources and use of
responsible power: people want to have strong leaders who show direction and give
orders. In Hofstede’s terms, this type of culture is based on power distance, and typical
104 of some Asian and Latin American organizations. This type of culture is also typical
for relatively small owner-managed organizations (Harrison and Stokes, 1992, p. 14).
The role-oriented culture substitutes a system of structures and procedures for the
naked power of the leaders. This type of culture is also based on rewards and
sanctions, but typically a development of the power orientation when the organization
grows. The main values of the role-oriented system are order, dependability, rationality
and consistency; thus, this type of culture is suitable for big organizations in stable
environments. The weakness is that the system also keeps people from being
innovative and from “doing the right thing when the right thing is outside the rules”
(Harrison and Stokes, 1992, p. 15). Most definitions of TQM, however, are based on
initiative of the individual workers; it is easy to see that neither one of these two first
types of the culture is especially supportive of the TQM values.
Many people, however, like their work, want to make a worthwhile contribution to
the society, and enjoy interacting with others. These intrinsic rewards arise in some
organizational types naturally, in others deliberately built in the work climate. There
are, according to Harrison and Stokes, two intrinsically motivated culture types,
resembling the masculinity/femininity dimension of Hofstede (1991). The
achievement-oriented organizational type is underorganized in order for it to be able
to rely on the high motivation of the people. In these organizations, a clear sense of the
mission of the organization typically serves to focus the personal energy of the
individuals, but the pure result orientation may make these organization types feel
“heartless” (Harrison and Stokes, 1992, pp. 16-8). Finally, the support-oriented culture
types the difference to achievement oriented types are mostly in the value of the human
beings; while an achievement culture places value on high achievers, the support
culture rather, as the name implies, supports the low achievers and is powered by
mutual trust and even love between the members of the organization. In Western
societies, however, this type of culture is seldom seen in business organizations
because of lack of results orientation (Harrison and Stokes, 1992, pp. 20-1).
The original cultures of all the three schools were quite strongly role-oriented
(Figure 1, listing both the sum and average results), which is not good for
implementation of a modern TQM: it is difficult to take advantage of the creativity of
the individuals if they are mostly working to fulfill a work description. A role
orientation also typically means that initiative is expected from persons in supervisory
roles. This orientation is in line with the high uncertainty avoidance orientation that
Hofstede finds to exist in, e.g. Russia and Poland. As explained above, a TQM
approach, as well as rapidly changing external environment, would require a more
achievement-oriented culture.
As the Figure 1 shows (arrows), the cultures of the primary and vocational schools
have clearly changed towards the general TQM culture traits of achievement and
individual problem solving during our project. The change of cultures has probably
been made easier by the fact that the school personnel in all the three cases has also
 School level Culture type Sum Result 2006 Sum Result 2004 Action research
2006 2004 as culture change
PRIMARY EX: Power 22,3 1,592857143 33,75 1,985294118
28,3 2,021428571 41,8 2,458823529
tool
(N 2006 = 14, Role
N 2004 = 17) Achievement 29,75 2,125 39 2,294117647
Support 22,65 36,65
1,617857143 2,155882353 105
PR: Power 16,25 1,160714286 22,9 1,347058824
Role 26,35 1,882142857 37,4 2,2
Achievement 34,1 2,435714286 46,5 2,735294118
Support 28,3 2,021428571 43,2 2,541176471

SECONDARY EX: Power 29,61 1,974 38,22 1,415555556

(N 2006=15, Role 33,08 2,205333334 41,3 1,52962963
N 2004 = 27) Achievement 32,38 2,158666666 38,63 1,430740741
Support 26,5 32,5
1,766666666 1,203703704
PR: Power 23 1,533333334 27,08 1,002962963
Role 32,08 2,138666666 40,27 1,491481481
Achievement 37,02 2,468 46,72 1,73037037
Support 32,97 2,198 40,16 1,487407407
Figure 1.
VOCATIONAL EX: Power 38,1 1,814285714 36,1 2,005555556 Culture change in the three
41,2 1,961904762 45,05 2,502777778 case study schools during
(N 2006 = 21, Role
the first two years of the
N 2004 = 18) Achievement 41,9 1,995238095 37,2 2,066666667 action research
Support 36,35 31,65 intervention
1,730952381 1,758333333 (EX ¼ existing culture,
PR: Power 26,7 1,271428571 22,6 1,255555556 PR ¼ preferred culture.
Role 40,35 1,921428571 44 2,444444444 The darkened fields refer
to the strongest-preferred
Achievement 48,05 2,288095238 47 2,611111111
culture type in each case)
Support 42,45 2,021428571 37,4 2,077777778

seen the need for this type of change; in all three cases, the change has been towards the
cultural type preferred by the respondents. However, during the action research
project, these preferences of these schools’ personnel have also grown even stronger:
the achievement culture is more preferred in relation to the other alternatives now that
it was in 2004. This might suggest that the staff has been satisfied with the changes
that have taken place.
The culture of the secondary school has not changed similarly: the role orientation is
still the strongest feature of the culture, even if the achievement orientation has grown
in importance, especially compared to the power and support culture orientations that
have diminished in the two project years. A possible explanation may lie in its
relatively strong power orientation; in our discussions, some teachers state that others
are against change out of fear of losing their position. However, even here the power
orientation has weakened and the respondents generally are in preference of an
achievement culture. We hold it probable that in the continuation of the project even
this school would tip towards an orientation culture.
BJM While we, as outsider researchers, have not been able to live in the school cultures
2,1 for as long periods as the anthropologists typically would do in a culture, we have been
able to observe the change in attitudes of the staff of the schools against our project.
Our field researchers have over the duration of the intervention also reported some of
the attitude changes and, while again possible to disqualify as “anecdotal” the
following supports the general conclusion of the power of an action research approach
106 in making people take responsibility of their own situation and in presenting them the
importance of the change:
They have got used to “movement” – something has always been going on with regard to
QiS, be it TG meeting, or school project, or training, or . . . we would come to the school, just to
give a message to their principal or so – and smiles and welcome greetings would meet us . . .
in this respect I’d say teachers and other staff have realised their influencial role at the school,
other than teaching, and recognize us as their partners in taking this role . . . they can also see
that to do something that is worthwhile, joint efforts are necessary, consensus is necessary to
solve problems . . . at least the project has raised awareness to some or maybe all of the
existing problems and maybe shown possibilities to cope with them through TQM . . . all this
is meaningful to them now.

On the generalizability of the results

We have seen, in the past years, a progressive crumbling of the main bureaucratic and
centralised administration system. Decentralisation processes have involved different
areas of Public Administration, including Health System, local administration,
University and School. Privatisation processes and new laws contributed to start it,
often paying for disorientation in the personnel because this change requires a cultural
mutation, new values and a different approach in working. Autonomy and quality
have often been associated to a new paradigm for the public administration evolution.
Also schools must, evidently, reflect these changes in their work and management.
The question of interest for the readership of this Journal might be, then: can we
generalize the experiences to other Lithuanian schools, the whole Lithuanian public
management, and eventually to other Baltic states too? For this purpose, a small
literature study on Lithuanian culture would be in place.
The typical administrative culture in Lithuanian schools is difficult to assess.
However, some reports of the GLOBE study suggest that cultures close each other
show similar preferences, and also that national cultures can be carried further to
organizational cultures – to some extent, but not totally nor definitely (Dickson et al.,
2000). The other big database on cultural knowledge, collected from IBM and
commercial airlines by Hofstede (1991, 2006) does not list Lithuania, because most of
the time of the data collection Lithuania has been an administrative part of Soviet
Union. According to our understanding, using the Soviet Union (or current Russian)
data is misleading. An extrapolation of the Lithuanian culture might be attempted by
comparing the differences of Poland and Russia, with whom Lithuania shares some
common history with, and Estonia, with which Lithuania shares some experiences
with during the last two decades.
The Hofstede culture dimensions are power distance (mental distance between
supervisor and subordinate in an organization or low-status and high-status
individuals in the society), individuality (orientation of activity towards own winning
or collective gain), masculinity (whether the arena of achievement is career/competitive
or family/social) and uncertainty avoidance (rules and security vs free choice and risk). Action research
Most of the indices run from about 10 to 100-110, with the low/high tipping point on all as culture change
dimensions at or just below 50 (Hofstede, 1991). The descriptions of the dimensions are
very roughly simplified here, but we hope they forward the main idea. tool
Using the data collected by Hofstede on these four dimensions, one can see that
Russia and Estonia have been low on masculinity, while Poland has been just a bit
above average with countries such as Belgium, but still much below, e.g. Austrians, 107
Germans, Italians and Swiss. Russia has been much below average on individuality,
while Estonia and Poland both are at about 60, level with, e.g. Finland and Germany
and very much above Eastern Asian and South American cultures, but still much
below USA and UK. Power distance in Estonia is low like in the Scandinavian
countries, while Poland lies at about the same level as other central-European
countries, and Russia near the highest end, close to Asian and South American
cultures. On the final dimension, uncertainty avoidance, Poland and Russia are among
the countries with highest scores, around 90, with Japan and some South-American
cultures. Estonia, again, is quite close the average at 60, close to the Central European
countries but clearly above “laid-back” countries such as Sweden, Jamaica and
Singapore. Our opinion both from within and outside Lithuania is that the Lithuanian
mental tradition is definitely Central-European, so while not precisely like the Polish,
the common history with Poland would have affected the basic assumptions of the
Lithuanians much more than the time of common history with Russia or Estonia.
We will not attempt to change Lithuanian traditions; nor have we assumed in this
paper, nor will assume after the project, anything about how easy or difficult a
“typically” Lithuanian culture would be to change. Our attempt has rather been to
study the usability of action research method for cultural change in general in three
school organizations. In this type of organizations, we feel a culture change would be
required to face the challenges of the future. Based on the Hofstede and GLOBE
findings, we however dare to assume that similar methodology might be suitable also
in other public organizations in at least selected Baltic countries.

Conclusions
The cultural test of Harrison and Stokes has relatively small intervals: the responses
possible are numeric with 1 the smallest and 4 the biggest. Thus, the numerical
differences between the items are small too, and the small samples typical of
North-European schools do not allow statistical analysis. However, whenever a clear
preference for one item changes to even a small preference for another that is based on
different values, a cultural change is at least arguably taking place. In 2004, the
referents did not feel their culture was what they wanted; in 2006, the preferred and
existing culture overlapped. A numerical change of preference, when counted from the
opinions of a majority (nearly all) of the personnel, means that the attitudes have
changed. As Hatch (1993) states in her brilliant view of culture change, new cultural
meanings persist when materials favoring the new assumptions and values outnumber
those favoring the other view – if people believe they have changed and the new state
is preferable to the old, the change has at least begun. Thus, we claim it shown that an
action research approach can indeed change a culture, especially when the
environmental change directs the personnel to same direction.
BJM These results are from three Lithuanian schools that happened to all show
2,1 power-oriented cultures before the project. In the light of these three schools,
Lithuanian public-management culture could be based on power distance and
uncertainty avoidance and not self-orienting “achievement” culture that relies on the
individuals’ pride of work and interest in continuous improvement. Our discussion of
Hofstede (1991) cultural studies, above, suggests that Lithuania might be in many of
108 the Hofstede cultural dimensions similar to other Central-European post-communist
states. A further conclusion of this, concerning the generalizability of the results, might
be that similar action research programs might be able to change the organizational
cultures also in other post-communist states at least in Baltic sea region (our
comparison of Hofstede studies show some cultural similarity to Russia but especially
to Poland, and we further assume similarity to at least Latvia, eventually Ukraine) but
possibly also further south – even if it is impossible to state for certain that everything
we report here holds in the all public organizations in other Baltic countries. At the
very least we nevertheless feel it is shown in this project that action research can help
people in organizations recognize the problems they would not see without guidance
from an outsider, and after having recognized them also take responsibility in their
own situation and gradually change the culture.

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About the authors

Romualda Marcinkoniene works as Lecturer of English at the Faculty of Humanities of Kaunas
University of Technology. Currently she is member in LANAS (Lithuanian Association for North
American Studies), LAUTE (Lithuanian Association of University Teachers of English), and
ESSE (European Society for Studies of English). Her areas of research include ELT,
teaching/learning methodology, IT in language teaching, quality in education, and
organizational culture. She has experience of several European University projects as the
Lithuanian coordinator. Romualda Marcinkoniene is the corresponding author and can be
contacted at: romarc@ktu.lt
Tauno Kekäle works as Professor of Industrial Management at the University of Vaasa. His
main areas of research are quality management and new product development and innovation
management. He has published about 20 journal articles in these fields. E-mail: tke@uwasa.fi

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