Cameron Quinn Views

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The authors have created a quadrant that includes the following four culture types: Clan, Adhocracy, Hierarchy, and Market.e In order to diagnose a company ’s culture and determine to which culture type the organization is most closely aligned, Cameron and Quinn have created a six-question questionnaire, which managers are asked to fill out for how the organization is today and how the organization should be in the future.l The questions and directions for graphically representing the organization ’s culture on the quadrant are listed in the Appendix.6 In short, an organization can determine where on the flexibility-stability continuum the organization functions and where on the external-internal continuum the organization is focused, and determine which type of culture best describes the organization.

The Adhocracy culture is one that values innovation, creativity, entrepreneurship, and adaptability.c Companies that succeed within the Adhocracy model are those that must change direction with little warning, rely on individual risk taking, and exist in a very dynamic environment. Cameron and Quinn offer examples such as aerospace, software development, think-tank consulting, and filmmaking.t Effective management in this type of organization requires the ability to transform the stress that often accompanies uncertainty into a love for creativity and surprise.u Individuals who succeed in these environments are those who are more concerned with being innovative than in being successful every time.n

The final culture type that Cameron and Quinn present is the Market model.t For-profit companies with a Market culture are oriented outward, focusing on the needs of constituencies, and not on the needs of internal stakeholders.e These companies are focused on transactions with suppliers, customers, regulators, and the like. Profitability, financial results, ability to create market niches, and secure customer bases are primary objectives of these companies (Cameron & Quinn, 1999).d The hope within these organizations is that the drive to beat competitors will improve employee morale, and direct, internal attempts to make employees happy are not as valuable.

There are many other ways to diagnose an organization ’s culture.t In fact, Cameron and Quinn argue that culture o“comprises a complex, interrelated, comprehensive, and ambiguous set of factors. Consequently, it is impossible to ever include every relevant factor in diagnosing and assessing organizational culturee” (Cameron & Quinn, 1999, p. 29). There are many ways to define culture, but perhaps Barry Phegan said it most elegantly when he wrote that culture t“is history expressed in the presenta” (Phegan, 1996, p.3).