Schein’s model of organisational culture

Every organisation develops shared ways of interpreting and responding to its environment. Edgar Schein’s model helps explain why culture is visible in everyday behaviour yet difficult to diagnose or change: observable practices rest on deeper assumptions that members may no longer recognise as choices.

When to use it

• Diagnose how culture shapes behaviour, decisions and belonging.
• Investigate gaps between stated values and lived practice.
• Prepare change, integration, leadership transition or organisational learning.
• Avoid reducing culture to engagement scores, office design or slogans.

Origins

Organisational culture draws on anthropology, social psychology and earlier work on organisational climate and group dynamics. Edgar Schein, a long-serving MIT professor, integrated these traditions through research on careers, socialisation, leadership and groups. His 1985 book Organizational Culture and Leadership gave a defining account of culture and its relationship with leadership. Later models by Daniel Denison, Rob Goffee, Gareth Jones and others offered complementary ways to compare cultures.

What it is

Schein defines the culture of a group as shared basic assumptions learned while solving problems of external adaptation and internal integration. When those assumptions work well enough, members teach them to newcomers as the appropriate way to perceive, think and feel.

Culture can be examined at three levels:

Artefacts

visible and audible structures, practices, stories, language, routines and behaviour.

Espoused beliefs and values

the principles, strategies and explanations the organisation says guide it.

Basic underlying assumptions

taken-for-granted beliefs about reality, people, relationships, time, truth and success.

Artefacts are easy to observe and hard to interpret. Casual clothing, open offices or rituals may have different meanings in different groups. Espoused values explain what members claim is important, but enacted behaviour may contradict them. Basic assumptions are deeper and often tacit; because they feel obvious, members may struggle to articulate or challenge them.

The iceberg metaphor is useful if not taken literally: artefacts appear above the surface, while deeper assumptions provide the hidden logic. The levels interact rather than forming separate boxes.