Wherever a group shares enough common experience, a culture emerges. Culture exists at various levels such as national (Brazilian), industrial (software, film), ethnic and religious (Muslim, Christian), professional (engineering, nursing), and departmental (sales and marketing, manufacturing). You yourself are a multicultural entity, displaying different cultural behaviors depending on which cultural groups you have belonged to and the current situation you are facing.
Here we are concerned with the culture of an organization, including corporate culture, which can be defined as:
“The deeper level of basic assumptions and beliefs that are shared by members of an organization, that operate unconsciously, and that define in a basic take-it-for granted fashion an organization’s view of itself and its environment.”
But how can you investigate culture, especially when it operates unconsciously? This CoachingOurselves topic successively probes into the three levels of organizational culture, from the very visible to the invisible.