Culture Matters. Just Not in the Way We Think.

Part 3: Can we measure culture – or are we measuring something else?
At work, we behave as if “culture” is something we can capture in a dashboard. We run surveys, plot index scores, and compare ourselves to benchmarks. This series asks what those numbers are actually telling us. In this part, the aim is to help leaders, HR, and OD practitioners distinguish between measuring “culture” in the abstract and measuring concrete constructs such as fairness, trust, or role clarity that you can genuinely act on.
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Introduction
If culture matters, we should be able to measure it. That seems reasonable.

Across organisations, we run:

• Culture diagnostics
• Engagement surveys
• Values alignment assessments
• Competing values frameworks
• Proprietary culture tools

We generate dashboards, heat maps, and index scores.
But a more uncomfortable question sits beneath all of this:
Are we measuring culture or are we measuring something adjacent to it?

The Science
The CIPD evidence review examined how organisational culture is assessed across the research literature.
Several issues stand out:

• Over 70 diagnostic instruments exist.
• There is no consensus on the best method.
• Some tools show predictive validity.
• But construct validity remains unclear.

Construct and predictive validity matters. Predictive validity tells us that a measure correlates with an outcome. Construct validity tells us whether we are actually measuring the thing we claim to be measuring.
In some cases, prominent tools such as OCAI and DOCS were originally designed to measure organisational effectiveness. They were later positioned as culture instruments. This creates a circular problem. If a tool measures effectiveness-related variables and then correlates with performance, are we observing:

Culture → Performance
Or simply:
Effectiveness indicators → Performance

The distinction is not academic nit-picking. It goes to the heart of what we believe we are managing. The CIPD review also notes that many studies rely on cross-sectional surveys and self-report data, often completed by senior managers.

That introduces further concerns:

• Single-source bias
• Perception distortion
• Lack of temporal ordering

If we cannot clearly define culture, and we struggle to measure it with construct clarity, then management confidence should be cautious.

Key Findings
From the evidence:

• There is no agreed method of assessing culture.
• Scholars remain divided between qualitative deep-dive approaches and quantitative survey-based approaches.
• Many instruments demonstrate reliability and some predictive validity.
• However, it remains unclear what exactly they are capturing.

That final point is critical.

It is possible that culture surveys are measuring:

• Leadership behaviour
• Fairness perceptions
• Trust levels
• Psychological safety
• Clarity of strategy
• Incentive alignment
• Workload stress
• Management quality

All of which are meaningful. But those are not identical to culture as defined by Schein’s deep assumptions model. We may be aggregating perceptions of management systems and calling the result “culture”.

What Does This Mean in Practice?
This is where it becomes practical. When you run a culture survey, ask:

What constructs are actually being assessed?
If employees respond to items about:

• Feeling listened to
• Fair treatment
• Clear expectations
• Accountability
• Recognition

Are you measuring culture? Or are you measuring:

• Managerial competence
• Justice perceptions
• Psychological climate
• Performance management quality

These distinctions matter because the interventions will differ.

If low scores reflect poor role clarity, the intervention is structural.
If low scores reflect pay inequity, the intervention is economic.
If low scores reflect leadership inconsistency, the intervention is behavioural.

If everything is labelled culture, solutions become vague. Measurement clarity forces intervention precision.
This does not mean stop surveying. It means: be explicit about what your instrument captures and resist the temptation to let the word culture absorb multiple system variables without differentiation.

If You’re a Leader or HR Practitioner, Try This Week
To turn this into action, you can take a more forensic look at your “culture” data:

1. Deconstruct your latest survey.
   Take your most recent culture or engagement survey and list the main themes it measures (for example, trust, workload, leadership, clarity, recognition). Relabel each theme with the most concrete construct you can: “role clarity”, “perceived fairness”, “manager availability”, “psychological safety”.
2. Match constructs to interventions.
   For one low-scoring area, ask:
   • If this is really about workload, what structural changes would we consider?
   • If it is really about fairness, what policy or pay decisions are needed?
   • If it is really about leadership behaviour, what support or consequences are required?
     Write one potential intervention for each interpretation. Notice how different they are.
3. Change the way you present results.
   In your next slide deck or report, replace a generic phrase like “our culture scores are down” with a more precise line such as: “Scores on role clarity and perceived fairness have dropped; these are our current hypotheses about why.”
4. Ask your vendor harder questions.
   If you use an external tool, ask the provider:
   • Which constructs does this instrument validly measure?
   • Which constructs does it not measure?
   • What evidence do you have that this is about culture rather than, for example, leadership or climate? Use the answers to refine how you talk about the results internally.
5. Pilot a more targeted measure.
   Before commissioning another broad “culture” survey, consider a small, focused pulse on one construct you care deeply about (for example psychological safety or role clarity). Make the construct explicit from the start, and design your interventions to match it.

These steps will not eliminate all ambiguity but they will reduce the gap between what your numbers claim to measure and what you actually act on.

A Quote to Reflect On
“Although these instruments have often provided good predictive validity… there is no evidence of construct validity, meaning that it is unclear what exactly is being measured.”
Organisational Culture and Performance: An Evidence Review

A Question to Reflect On
When your organisation receives its next culture report:
Do you know which underlying constructs are being measured?
And do your interventions match those constructs?

If the answer is “not really”, your most impactful next step may be to tighten the link between what you measure, what you call it, and what you actually do.

Further Reading

• Barends, E. & Rousseau, D. (2022). Organisational culture and performance: An evidence review. CIPD
• Chatman, J. & O’Reilly, C. (2016). Paradigm lost: reinvigorating the study of organisational culture.
• Schneider, B., Ehrhart, M., & Macey, W. (2013). Organisational climate and culture.

 

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