A complexity analysis of organizational culture, leadership and engagement: integration, differentiation and fragmentation

Abstract

The predictive utility of previous studies of organizational culture has been limited by an over-emphasis on the integration perspective. Much less attention has been his been paid to subcultural differentiation and fragmentation. This case study bridges that divide by employing methods of cultural analysis designed to explore the relationship between organizational culture, the culture of leadership, and employee engagement in an academic institution through the lens of integration, differentiation and fragmentation. Adopting a complexity approach to cultural analysis as a theoretical framework, methodological innovations utilizing survey data and quantitative inferential statistics establish the predictive utility of organizational culture with respect to three dimensions of engagement: vigor, dedication and absorption. Analyses based on cultural uniformity, subcultural variation and ambiguity were found to illuminate different aspects of the culture of leadership and engagement, differentiated by employee status and years of service. Results of the differentiation and fragmentation analyses yield insights masked by the integration approach: Analysis of cultural differentiation revealed dedication and absorption were more affected by cultural and leadership dynamics than vigor, while analysis of cultural fragmentation uncovered minority perspectives on bullying, leader accountability and employee misbehavior that represent important targets for improvement masked in the analysis of organizational culture as a whole.

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