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What it argues
Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture introduces the Competing Values Framework, a model Cameron and Quinn developed at the University of Michigan for assessing and intentionally changing organizational culture. The framework organizes culture types along two axes — flexibility versus stability, and internal focus versus external focus — producing four quadrants: Clan (collaborative, people-first), Adhocracy (innovative, entrepreneurial), Market (results-driven, competitive), and Hierarchy (structured, process-oriented).
The book's practical center is the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI), a validated survey that asks employees to describe their organization's current culture and their preferred culture across six dimensions. The gap between current and preferred profiles is the starting point for a change initiative. Cameron and Quinn argue that this gap analysis is more honest than a company's stated values, because employees describe behavior they actually observe rather than aspirations leadership has posted on a wall.
What it gets right
- 1.
The Competing Values Framework maps culture along two axes — flexibility/stability and internal/external focus — producing four types: Clan, Adhocracy, Market, and Hierarchy.
- 2.
Every organization has a culture profile across all four types, not a single dominant type. The question is the balance and whether it fits the strategy.
- 3.
The OCAI measures the gap between current culture and preferred culture, which reveals where change energy should be focused.
What it covers
Who wrote it
Kim S. Cameron is a professor of management and organizations at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, known for his work on organizational virtuousness, positive leadership, and culture assessment. Robert E. Quinn is also a professor at Michigan Ross and a founding member of the Center for Positive Organizations. Together they developed the Competing Values Framework in the early 1980s, and the OCAI based on it has since been administered in thousands of organizations worldwide. Both have written extensively on positive organizational scholarship and leadership development.
