Adaptive Perspective of Organizational Culture

In the last byte, we looked at the fit perspective to understand its influence on organizational performance. We not move to another angle of looking at organizational culture - the Adaptive Perspective. 

A culture could be called adaptive it it encourages confidence and risk taking amongst employee, possesses a leadership that produces change, and focuses on the changing needs of customers. 

Researchers studies the performance of companies with adaptive and non-adaptive cultures and were surprised to find what differentiates them to be clearly striking! 

Following is a brief summary of the same:
Adaptive cultures facilitated change to meet the needs of three major groups of constituents:  stockholders, customers and employees. It was found that the managers strongly valued people and process that create useful change. The close attention of the managers to the customers (mostly and other constituencies to a limited extent) helped them identify when a change was needed and then act when the change served their legitimate interest and even if they entail taking some risk. 

The non adaptive cultures were characterized by cautious management that often tried to protect its own interest. 

Given the high-performing cultures are adaptive ones, it is important to know how managers can develop adaptive culture. We discuss the leaders role in managing organizational culture in the next byte.