Culture in Large and Small Organizations: Perceptions, Beliefs and Experiences

We attempt here to make some progress on developing a fuller understanding of the relationship between organizational size and culture. In doing so, we report on a survey we administered to a sample of full-time workers (men and women) in the US. We asked survey participants about their general beliefs regarding culture, as well as their specific experiences in the workplace with cultures and leaders. Because of its importance in cultural management, we also asked about participants’ beliefs concerning, and experiences in, the employee hiring process. In all of these analyses, we highlight the differences between small and large organizations. Among the findings, we show here that many cultural perceptions, beliefs and experiences differ systematically by size of the organization.