Assessing the Relationship Between Industry Characteristics and Organizational Culture: How Different Can You Be

This study investigated the relationship between two industry charac-teristics, technology and growth, and organizational culture. We exam-ined this relationship by comparing the cultures of organizations within and across industries. Using 15 firms representing four indus-tries in the service sector, we found that stable organizational culture dimensions existed and varied more across industries than within them. Specific cultural values were associated with levels of industry technology and growth. One implication of this finding is that the use of organizational culture as a competitive advantage may be more con-strained than researchers and practitioners have suggested. Organizations have discernible differences based on industry norms (cf. Pennings & Gresov, 1986). Just as task environments affect how organiza-tions are structured, assumptions about important constituents lead to sim-ilar values among same-industry organizations (Gordon, 1991). In an effort to understand the forms and consequences of organizational culture, research