Organisational culture

Edgar Schein

1928 – 2023

Levels of culture explain why the deepest layer — the shared assumptions — is not written anywhere and is learned by observation.

Read alongside: Sense · Shape

Start with
Organizational Culture and Leadership (1985)
Where they resist the book
Schein still treats culture as something leaders can eventually manage. The book treats it as something they mostly demonstrate.

Works worth the time

Organizational Culture and Leadership · 1985

The three levels, and why the deepest one is never written down anywhere.

Publisher: Wiley

Read further

Where Schein appears

IV. ShapePsychology

Small repeated acts outrun large announced ones.

Weick's small wins argue that a scale of problem people can act on beats a scale they can only admire. Schein's levels of culture explain why the deepest layer is not written anywhere. Lewin's field theory keeps the attention on conditions rather than character.