Organizational culture encompasses the shared norms, values, behaviors observed in schools, universities, not-for-profit groups, government agencies, and businesses reflecting their core values and strategic direction.[1][2] Alternative terms include business culture, corporate culture and company culture. The term corporate culture emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s.[3][4] It was used by managers, sociologists, and organizational theorists in the 1980s.[5][6]
Organizational culture influences how people interact, how decisions are made (or avoided), the context within which cultural artifacts are created, employee attachment, the organization's competitive advantage, and the internal alignment of its units. It is distinct from national culture or the broader cultural background of its workforce.
^One of the first to point to the importance of culture for organizational analysis and the intersection of culture theory and organization theory is Linda Smircich in her article Concepts of Culture and Organizational Analysis in 1983. See Smircich, Linda (1983). "Concepts of Culture and Organizational Analysis". Administrative Science Quarterly. 28 (3): 339–358. doi:10.2307/2392246. hdl:10983/26094. JSTOR2392246.
^Farish, Phillip (1982). "Career Talk: Corporate Culture". Hispanic Engineer (1). The term "Corporate Culture" is fast losing the academic ring it once had among U.S. manager. Sociologists and anthropologists popularized the word "culture" in its technical sense, which describes overall behavior patterns in groups. But corporate managers, untrained in sociology jargon, found it difficult to use the term unselfconsciously.