Edgar Schein's 3 Levels of Organizational Culture

Edgar Schein of the Sloan
School of Management

was interested in organizational culture.

He produced what is perhaps the best-known
and most widely used model.

He divided organizational culture into three
levels: artifacts, values, and assumptions.

That's what we'll look at in this video.
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Schein's three levels—artifacts, values,
and assumptions—are rather like an iceberg,

in that most important bits
are the parts you can't see.

However, the bit you can see—the bit
above the waterline—is the artifacts.

Artifacts are the visible, surface elements
of an organizational culture.

They're what an outside observer
would easily see.

In this way they are pretty similar to the
symbols of the Johnson and Scholes model,

which we looked at in another video.

Typical examples include branding,
furniture, colors, dress code,

day-to-day rituals, job titles,

and to incorporate something else
that Scholes distinguished, stories.

The stories that people tell about their
organization are artifacts

of the organization and
readily visible to outsiders.

Whilst artifacts are easy to observe, they
can sometimes be difficult to understand.

Because there's a lot of deeper stuff
going on, and we need to excavate

below that level to properly understand
an organizational culture.

Stories give us a good example of this.

Because whilst there are stories that
are told outside the organization,

There are quite possibly other stories
only told inside the organization.

And they drive these deeper levels.

Critically, it's the interpretation of
these stories—what they mean—

which give rise to the values and
assumptions of the organization.

The second level is the espoused
values of the organization.

These are the declared sets of values
that the organization has

and the norms of behavior
it expects of its members.

As a result, they set out what
should be done, how we should do it,

and the choices we should make.

Values dictate the way members of the
organization interact with one another,

behave, and represent their organization
to the outside world.

The organization often amplifies these
espoused values by public statements,

—visible symbols, if you like—
such as statements of values

or organizational straplines that go
with their branding and identity.

But underpinning everything are the shared
basic assumptions about the organization,

the deep interpretations of
the stories we tell about ourselves.

These are the beliefs that people take
for granted about the organization.

They often go unnoticed and
are rarely even questioned.

They're very similar to Johnson
and Scholes' paradigm.

But if you want to understand the
artifacts of an organization,

and indeed the values it sets out,

then you need to get to grips
with the shared assumptions.

In 1985, Edgar Schein described
six basic types of assumption

that form what Johnson and Scholes would
describe as the organizational paradigm.

These are assumptions about the truth,
and how we determine it;

The importance of time and the extent
to which we respect it,

and how we choose to use it;

How space within the organization
is owned and allocated,

and the respect that people give to it.

There are assumptions about human nature,
whether people are inherently good or bad,

whether people can change,
or whether behavior is fixed.

This isn’t an academic discussion
about what is right.

It’s a set of assumptions
held within the organization

which drive its choices
and its culture.

The fifth type of assumption is very
important in the modern world.

It's the relationship between the
organization and its environment.

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This includes relationships between members and their environment.

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These assumptions drive important decisions, public perceptions, and future success.

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Finally, there are assumptions about social power and how people should relate to one another.

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This links closely to the French and Raven social power bases, which we looked at in another video.

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Assumptions about social power dictate behaviors like how power and responsibilities are allocated and respected.

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They influence the balance between cooperation and competition, collaboration versus independence, expected leadership styles, conflict resolution, and decision-making.

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Edgar Schein's three levels offer a simpler way to understand how organizations work than Johnson and Scholes' seven components.

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That simplicity makes it easy to use day to day.

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Recognizing culture means recognizing that below the visible artifacts are shared values and deep assumptions driving the culture.

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If you want to shift a culture, you must shift the assumptions that underpin everything.

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Changing some artifacts may help, but fundamentally, if you can't shift assumptions, you can't change culture.

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