Organizational Cultures of Libraries As a Strategic Resource

Summary

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Theorists have suggested that organizational culture is a strategic resource that has value in ensuring the continuing existence and success of organizations. Kaarst-Brown et al examine whether organizational culture can be leveraged as a strategic asset to attract staff, create favorable assessments by administrators and funders, and cast library institutions in a positive light for independent media and accreditation bodies.

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Organizational Cultures of Libraries As a Strategic Resource

A FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

Organizational Culture

The study of culture is specifically relevant to libraries because there has been significant restructuring of these institutions, particularly with respect to the span and scope of services offered. While there are several popular meanings attributed to the term "culture," it is generally agreed in organizational research that culture is reflected in the practices, values, beliefs, and underlying assumptions of formal and informal groups (Frost, Moore, Louis, Lundberg, & Martin, 1991; Quinn & Rohrbaugh, 1981, 1983; Schein, 1985). Schein's (1985) summarized definition follows:

"Culture": a pattern of basic assumptions-invented, discovered, or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration-that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems. (Schein, 1985, p. 9)

Schein goes on to express his view that culture is a learned product of group experience. Culture is found, therefore, where there is a definable group with a significant history, regardless of the structural level of analysis. An organization's culture is initially formed as a result of early experiences and the influence of early leaders. Over time, assumptions about how to operate become so implicitly imbedded in the underlying assumptions of action that they are difficult, if not impossible, to articulate. Libraries and other social institutions with centuries-and even millenniums-of history are subject to influences that go back far beyond the lifespan of their members. Paradoxically, despite the ephemeral nature of organizational culture, it is something to which newcomers become socialized, either directly through various artifacts such as the processes, rituals, and structures of the organization, or indirectly through espoused values and beliefs, language, and myths about past victories or failures (Louis, 1990).

Libraries play an important role in society. This role is increasingly challenged, however, in both private and government funding circles. Many corporate libraries did not survive the downsizing and cost cutting of the 1990s. The current decade has seen several large state li...

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