The cultural philosophy: ‘changing values’

Aaron C.T. Smith, James Skinner and Daniel Read

Chapter 10 in Philosophies of Organizational Change, 2026, pp 231-260 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Chapter 10 considers the cultural philosophy, which owes its emergence to anthropology, where change reflects what members of a group consider important. The concept of organizational culture emerged in response to an absence of explanations for how certain values and beliefs gain prominence. The chapter examines the key foundation to the culture philosophy, that change must be preceded by a period of careful cultural diagnosis where common beliefs and values rise to the surface. As a result, imposing change means fighting entrenched sets of values and beliefs shared by organizational members. Accordingly, change managers must, first, be accurate in diagnosing the values that permeate an organization (which are likely to be hidden) and, second, change them without undermining the tacit behavioural fabric holding the organization together. The chapter reveals that unsuccessful attempts to change culture invariably lead to conflicting organizational goals and members’ values, which in turn stimulate an unworkable level of competing values and goals. It also explains how hybrid work, digital artefacts and diversity, equity and inclusion expectations are reshaping cultural rituals, symbols and storytelling. The chapter highlights the importance of sense making and resilience in sustaining cultural coherence across distributed and dynamic environments.

Keywords: Cultural; Organizational Culture; Values; Beliefs; Shared; Rituals; Storytelling; Hybrid Work; DEI (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035372164
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781035372171.00013 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:24964_10

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jack Sweeney ().