Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture: Based on the Competing Values Framework (Prentice Hall Organizational Development Series) [Paperback]

Kim S. Cameron (Author), Robert E. Quinn (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0201338718 | ISBN-13: 978-0201338713 | Publication Date: August 1999

A new member of the renowned PH OD Series! The main purpose of this book is to help managers, change agents, and scholars to understand, diagnose, and facilitate the change of an organization's culture in order to enhance its effectiveness. Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture presents three forms of assistance: (1) validated instruments for diagnosing organizational culture and management competency, (2) a theoretical framework for understanding organizational culture, and (3) a systematic strategy and methodology for changing organizational culture and personal behavior. It is intended to be a workbook in the sense that an individual can complete the instruments and plot their own culture profile in the book itself, and use it as a resource for leading a culture change process.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The third edition of the best-selling book Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture offers a proven framework and methodology for helping managers and their organizations carefully analyze and alter their fundamental culture. This book contains validated instruments for diagnosing organizational culture and management competency, a theoretical framework for understanding organizational culture, and a systematic strategy for changing organizational culture and personal behavior.

Designed to be a hands-on resource, the book includes a wealth of instruments that leaders can use to plot their organization's culture profile. Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture includes a management competency assessment instrument to help facilitate personal change in order to effectively support culture change. The book can also serve as an information source for explaining a robust framework of culture types. The Competing Values Framework is probably the most frequently applied framework in the world for assessing culture, and it has proved to be very useful to a variety of companies in clarifying the culture change process, as well as instigating significant managerial leadership improvement.

Filled with new examples and a step-by-step formula for organizational change, this thoroughly revised third edition also contains a downloadable online version of the Management Skills Assessment Instrument and the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Kim S. Cameron is William Russell Kelly Professor of Management and Organizations at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan.

Robert E. Quinn is Margaret Elliott Tracy Collegiate Professor in Business Administration and professor of management and organizations at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall (August 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201338718
• ISBN-13: 978-0201338713
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,015,969 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

175 of 178 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A "reference" book !, April 9, 2000

By 

Turgay BUGDACIGIL (Istanbul, Turkey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture: Based on the Competing Values Framework (Prentice Hall Organizational Development Series) (Paperback)

"Our purpose in this book", Cameron and Quinn write, "is not to offer one more panacea for coping with our turbulent times or to introduce another management fad. We agree with Tom Peters that, "If you're not confused, you're not paying attention." Confusion abounds as to prescriptions and proposed panaceas. Instead, our intention in this book is both more modest and, we believe, potentially more helpful. The book provides a framework, a sensemaking tool, a set of systematic steps, and a methodology for helping managers and their organizations adopt the demands of the environment. It focuses less on the right answers that it does on the methods and mechanisms available to help managers change the most fundamental elements of their organizations. It provides a way for managers, at almost any level in an organization, to guide the change process at the most basic level-the cultural level. It provides a systematic strategy for internal or external change agents to facilitate foundational change that can then support and supplement other kinds of change initiatives."

In this context, Cameron and Quinn basically :

* discuss the importance of understanding organizational culture and its place in facilitating or inhibiting organizational improvement efforts.

* provide the instrument (The Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument-OCAI) for diagnosing organizational culture and instructions for how to complete and score it. (OCAI produces an overall organizational culture profile.)

* provide a more thorough explanation of the theoretical framework (The Competing Values Framework) upon which the OCAI is based. (The Competing Values Framework explains the underlying value orientations that characterize organizations.)

* illustrate how organizations designed a strategy to change their current culture to better match their preferred culture.

* focus on the personal change needed to support and facilitate culture change.

* provide an instrument (Management Skills Assessment Instrument-MSAI) that helps managers identify the key competencies they will need to develop or improve in order to foster organizational culture change.

* provide suggestions for initiating culture change in each of four types of cultures (market culture, adhocracy culture, clan culture, hierarchy culture).

* provide lists of suggestions for improving management skills and competencies associated with the MSAI.

I highly recommend this invaluable study to all executives.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very useful framework and tool for changing org culture, February 13, 2003

By 

Craig Matteson (Saline, MI) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture: Based on the Competing Values Framework (Prentice Hall Organizational Development Series) (Paperback)

I took Prof. Cameron's course on "Navigating Change" at the U of M Business School and this book was used as ONE of the tools that could be used in understanding and managing change in an organization's culture. There are many ways to look at organizational culture. This one gives you a means to measure various aspects and get a view of where you are and where you think you need to be. It can elicit helpful discussion and real insights into your organization.

The book gives helpful background and context for the model (what each quadrant means and doesn't mean), the instrument itself, instructions for administering it, and instructions on how to interpret it. It also provides a condensed formula for organizational change and helpful hints on how to begin change in each of the quadrants.

As we used it in class and our term project it helped us understand the organization our team studied and why it was different than its competitors. I think Competing Values Framework is a powerful model that is backed by up with a lot of research and can be very useful when used seriously. This is a very helpful book.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most helpful book..., June 22, 2003

By 

Michael A. Beitler (Greensboro, NC United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture: Based on the Competing Values Framework (Prentice Hall Organizational Development Series) (Paperback)

This is the most helpful book available on organizational culture. Their OCAI instrument (for diagnosing organizational culture) alone is worth more than the price of the book. I use Cameron & Quinn's material with every one of my clients.

Dr. Michael Beitler
Author of "Strategic Organizational Change"