Diagnosing organizational culture within a global agile transformation A multiple-case study of regional headquarters in the United States, Brazil and China

Abstract

Organizations today must deal with a wide range of challenges. These include digitalization, globalization, new disruptive business models, changing customer needs and the psychosocial development of humanity and the associated expectations of the workplace. As a result, more and more or-ganizations are undergoing an agile transformation to better adapt to the rapidly changing market. The development of the organizational culture is one of the greatest challenges of all. In addition, multi-national organizations represent a complex global network with many different locations all around the world. Accordingly, the question arises to what extent a new agile organizational culture can be im-plemented worldwide. The objective of this study is to better understand the cultural development towards an agile organization at three different regional headquarters of a large multinational or-ganization. The locations are in the United States, Brazil and China. The context of this research includes the agile transformation initiated by the global headquarter based in Switzerland. The development of the theory is based on the Competing Value Framework. The focus of this study is to define an agile organizational culture in terms of this model.

This research is conducted using a multiple-case study design with mixed methods. The pattern-matching analysis allows the researcher to compare the findings within-case and cross-case. The primary data is collected in a sequential two-phase approach, including a quantitative survey and qualitative semi-structured interviews. The findings of this study show very similar challenges.

Today‘s culture is strongly hierarchical, but all regional headquarters want to develop in the direction of an agile organization. Among the biggest challenges are the desire for more autonomy, differentiation of roles and responsibilities, mutual trust and lack of strategic focus from the global head-quarter.