Not All Change is Created Equal – Understanding Organisational Culture and its Effects on Change

An organisation’s ability to change is vital to remaining competitive and maintaining agility in rapidly changing climates. There are a plethora of change management methodologies present in the literature that argue for particular courses of action when considering organisational change. However, previous research into organisational culture has identified that there can be cultural differences between organisations of similar size and that these play a significant role in the change management process. This proposes that some attempts to implement change will be more difficult than others and is especially true when considering change management methodologies that place an emphasis on collaboration against those that do not. This short essay discusses the types of organisational cultures that are reported in the literature, so that organisations can be characterised, and makes comparisons to existing change management methodologies so that readers can better evaluate appropriate methods of change in the future.