The ‘What' And ‘How' Of Culture

A framework to understand the commonality element in one’s own organisational culture while working towards innovation.

- Dr V Vijaya

Culture is a high-frequency term in everyday parlance as well as research. Around thousands of research articles are written each year on culture across many countries, in academic and practitioner journals.

Academically, one could define culture as a phenomenon that manifests as a common behaviour of employees while they attempt to perform various tasks to accomplish business or work objectives. Edgar Schein, a pioneer in culture research had defined it as a pattern of basic assumptions—invented, discovered, or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with 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. i One attempt at external adaptation is through innovations and this can be achieved when people integrate internally and reach a consensus, which represents the view of the organisation as a whole.