Organizational culture and human resource development: The roots, the landscape, and the future

P. 80–94.

Plakhotnik M. S.

Anthropologists have not found a consensus on the definition of the concept of culture.  “Perplexity and even anguish over culture have been with us a long time” (Fox & King, 2002, p. 1). Similarly, there is no agreement of on the concept of organizational culture. In very simple terms, organizational culture has been often described as “how we do things around here” (Fullan, 2001). The concept of organizational culture started first in the U.S. management literature in the 1960s and was later adopted by researchers in other countries and other disciplines, including human resource development (HRD). The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the concept of organizational culture and position the concept within HRD. The organization of the chapter will follow the title: from the past research in related disciplines to the state of organizational culture research and practice at the moment to the directions for future research within HRD.

Keywords: human resources, corporate culture, research of organizational culture

In book

The handbook of human resource development: The discipline and the profession

Hoboken: Wiley, 2014.