Title: Understanding organisational culture as a trait theory

Authors: Gerhard Fink; Daniel Dauber; Maurice Yolles

Addresses: Vienna University of Economics and Business, Augasse 2-6, 1090 Vienna, Austria. ' Vienna University of Economics and Business, Augasse 2-6, 1090 Vienna, Austria. ' Centre for the Creation of Coherent Change and Knowledge, Liverpool John Moores University, 2 Rodney Street, Liverpool L3 5UX, UK

Abstract: A generic model of organisational culture is developed, which distinguishes between the internal environment (organisational culture, strategy, structure and operations) and external environment (legitimisation environment and task environment) of an organisation and suggests a set of five bipolar traits to characterise the normative personality characteristics of the organisation. The presented generic model of organisational culture integrates so far separate classes of organisation theory and has the potential to serve as a basis for the identification of types of corporate culture and their dysfunctions.

Keywords: organisational culture; generic theory; corporate normative personality; knowledge cybernetics; organisational behaviour; organisation theory platform; corporate culture.

DOI: 10.1504/EJIM.2012.045797

European Journal of International Management, 2012 Vol.6 No.2, pp.199 - 220

Published online: 22 Nov 2014 *

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