Organizational Culture: The Double S Cube Model

Section B

Organisational Culture

Culture is a word that has numerous meanings. It can be used in daily communication and also often quoted in scholarly literature. It is one among the words that are difficult to express distinctly. It is used in different contexts in everyday communication and in scholarly literature as well.

Culture can be defined as a way of thinking, behaving, working or customs followed by a group of people in a society or workplace. Organizational culture is developed from the social behaviours exhibited by the members of the organization. Therefore, it is a social reality that exists in the minds of members of the organization as well as in the governing rules of the organizational structures (Nwugwo 2001).The culture

Sociability is the measure of friendliness that exists between people. It is the prevalence of sincere friendship between the members in a workplace whereas Solidarity is the ability of the community to attain the set goals in a timely and efficient manner. The members in a high solidarity firm have a collective will to succeed, which directs their actions within the organisation. Using the concepts of Solidarity and Sociability, the authors further developed a framework for understanding the cultures prevailing in organisations. This framework was called the Double S Cube

The authors described four basic cultural forms that are present in any organization. The four basic cultural forms are Networked, Mercenary, Fragmented, and Communal. (Refer to Appendix 1) A networked culture has high sociability and low solidarity. The workers feel like family and goals are often attained through informal networks. This informality gives flexibility to the work environment and bureaucracy is usually absent. The low levels of solidarity often cause decreased cooperation between the departments when priorities arise. A major drawback of this culture is that the prevalence of friendship can lead to poor job performance. A mercenary culture is at the opposite end of the spectrum. It works on low sociability and high solidarity. The workers are not socially active with their colleagues and they strive together to attain the business objective in an orderly manner. Priorities and agendas are put forward suddenly and all the employees are expected to follow without any room for arguments. A fragmented culture has both low sociability and solidarity working environments. The workers hardly interact with each other. Each one works on his own and leaves when he is finished. Members of a fragmented culture hardly identify themselves on the basis of organisational membership. Finally, a Communal culture functions with high sociability and high solidarity. The workers unite themselves