"Strong Culture Or Secular Cult? The Limits Of A Strong Organizational Culture"

Anonymous · Feb 11, 2012

http://www.g-casa.com/conferences/manila/papers/Alarcon-Cult.pdf

Strong cultures are praised in the business literature as efficient and effective ways to control employee behavior. After all, there is no need to monitor employee behavior if an organization’s culture causes nearly every employee to behave in ways that maximize benefit for the organization. Modern managers are aware of the efficiency and effectiveness of strong
cultures and strive to make their positive cultures stronger and stronger. This management practice raises some important questions, which have been surprisingly absent in the business literature: Are there limits, legally and ethically, to how a strong, efficient, and effective a culture should be? How does a manager know where the limit is and when has she taken her
organization too far? In other words, where is the boundary between a strong culture and a cult? This paper draws from the business literature on strong cultures and the psychological and sociological literature on cults to define the strong culture-cult border and explores the legal and ethical issues on both sides of this border. In our discussion, we provide an analysis tool for managers to evaluate the state of their own organizations as well as propose an agenda for researchers.

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"Strong Culture Or Secular Cult? The Limits Of A Strong Organizational Culture"

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