Gaining a Better Understanding of the Types of Organizational Culture to Manage Suffering at Work

Abstract

Organizational culture is a central concept in research due to its importance in organizational functioning and suffering of employees. To better manage suffering, it is necessary to better understand the intrinsic characteristics of each type of culture and also its relationships with the environment. In this study, we used the multiple regression analysis to analyze the capacity of eight environment variables, five business strategies, and eight organizational competencies to predict the presence of Clan, Market, and Hierarchy cultures (Cameron and Quinn, 1999) in a subsample of Spanish managers (n ₁ = 362) and a subsample of Peruvian managers (n ₂ = 1,317). Contrary to what most of the literature suggests, we found almost no relationship between the environmental variables and the culture types. Strategy and competencies, in contrast, do have a significant predictive capacity, showing 9 links with the Clan culture, 7 with the Hierarchy culture, and 10 with the Market culture. In conclusion, this study has found the important characteristics of the types of organizational culture that could be useful to better manage the suffering of employees.

Keywords: clan culture; extrinsic variables; hierarchy culture; intrinsic variables; job (un)satisfaction; market culture; organizational culture; suffering at work.