Culture and Subcultures: An Analysis of Organizational Knowledge

Sonja A. Sackmann Management Zentrum St. Gallen, Switzerland and University of Konstanz, Germany This study investigated the potential existence and formation of subcultures in organizations, using an inductive research methodology to study the extent to which four different types of knowledge were shared by organization members. Fifty-two interviews were conducted in three different divisions of the same firm. These were content-analyzed and compared with data obtained from observations and written documents. A number of cultural subgroupings were found to exist in regard to two kinds of cultural knowledge, while an organization-wide cultural overlay was identified for a different kind of cultural knowledge. The implications for the concept of culture in organizational settings and future research on this topic are discussed.'