Desirable typologies of organizational culture in quality management implementation. Communicational findings

The authors of this article present the findings of a longitudinal research carried out in the years 2007 and 2008 in a production and service company active in the food & beverages industry. The goal of the research was to identify the one model of organizational culture perceived by the employees as the most appropriate for an efficient implementation of a quality management system. The research method used was the enquiry based on the questionnaire. The methodological means chosen was the Culture Type Identification Questionnaire developed by Charles Handy (1983) based on the typology elaborated by Roger Harrison. The analysis and interpretation of the obtained data converge towards the more general thesis according to which the diagnosis of the pre-existing culture type in a changing organization, correlated with the identification of the model the employees strive for, facilitates the process of adopting a new attitudinal, cognitive and behavioral pattern, in a relatively homogeneous and tension-free approach. Specifically, the research has confirmed the hypothesis according to which the type of task-oriented culture is more appropriate with the quality management desiderata, and the transition from an entrepreneurial culture to a quality-oriented corporative one strongly depends on what the employees perceive as being the real and the ideal state, and not on a formal infusion of values, norms, principles, policies or organizational strategies.