Organisational Psychology and Workplace Control: The instrumentality of corporate culture

Corporate culture has emerged as a central theme in organisational psychology and corporate culture initiatives are widely celebrated as a legitimate source of corporate success. Organisational psychologists commissioned to design these initiatives typically describe their efforts with reference to positive humanistic values. This paper reconsiders the assumptions of the corporate culture literature and critically examines the enormous popularity of corporate culture initiatives by considering their instrumentality for managers and organisational psychologists. It is proposed that corporate culture interventions have moral as well as organisational consequences and it is argued that organisational psychologists may be misusing their skills and ignoring the effects of their activities on themselves and others. "These devices- VISion, symbolic action, recognition- are a control system in the truest sense of the term ". (Peters, 1988, p.486) The term corporate culture has become a dominant feature in the popular and academic management literature since the 1980s. The popular literature has consistently argued that an organisation's competitiveness is contingent on it developing a "strong " culture that ensures greater employee commitment, improved quality, more efficient production, and increased responsiveness to customers needs (Deal & Kennedy, 1982