Organizational subcultures and their sources: A study on a service firm

Organizational culture studies reveals that while employees share values, norms and understandings in a holistic way, there can also be differerences in their understandings and values. Organizational subculture groups may exist as a result of differences in employees' organizational levels, functional units, occupations or demographic characteristics. In this study, a research is carried out in a service enterprise based on the culture sub-dimensions used in the organizational subculture researches previously conducted on manufacturing sector enterprises. This study is consiered to be important for at least three reasons. First, it is considered that the use of subculture dimensions which were previously used to determine organizational subculture groups in manufacturing sector enterprises is a contribution to the literature conducted in our country. Secondly, the use of hierarchical, tandem and two-stage clustering methods for the purpose of identifying subculture groups and comparison of the results contributes to the method discussions in the subculture studies. Thirdly, the investigation of the sources of the subculture groups among employees in the same profession in a service company contributes to the literature on the sources of subcultures. For the purposes of this research, data were collected from 233 pilots working in a service enterprise operating in the Civil Aviation Sector. Results suggest that tandem clustering technique gave the best results for the determination of organizational subculture groups. The results also suggest that country cultures may be one of the sources of formation of organizational subculture groups. This study, briefly reveals the managerial implications of this reseaarch. Keywords: Organizational subcultures, sources of subculture, cluster analysis, Civil Aviation Sector, service firm