ABSTRACT
The new cultural behaviors were part of a comprehensive culture-‘shaping’ program. The new cultural ‘behaviors’ were targeted at changing how people in the company should behave. Organizational norms, values and ideologies were first referenced in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and organizational culture as a construct has been a direct focus of inquiry since the 1970s. This chapter deals with a review of the state of culture research, focusing on problems in both objectivist and subjectivist approaches. There is an important need for verifiable and generalizable knowledge about culture in organizations. Nonetheless, objectivist approaches tend to suffer from issues related to ontology, epistemology, and ideation. Language may be a bigger factor in assessing cultural boundaries and influence than geography. Objectivist methodologies require that levels of analysis be properly recognized with respect to inherent boundaries such as job grade or level, function, region, nation, gender and ethnicity.
