Organisational culture - part 3

In this lesson

1. 0:00 Handy's four organisational cultures
2. 1:03 Apollo role culture and bureaucracy
3. 1:45 Athena task culture explained
4. 2:25 Dionysus person culture overview
5. 3:14 Multiple cultures within organisations
6. 4:32 Miles and Snow strategic culture types
7. 5:30 Prospectors focus on results
8. 6:08 Analysers balance risk and profits
9. 6:52 Reactors ad hoc strategy approach
10. 8:39 Applying Miles and Snow to real companies

About this lesson

You'll explore how organisations can blend multiple cultures across different departments, then apply Miles and Snow's framework to see how culture drives strategic choices: defenders prioritise stability and niche markets, prospectors pursue growth and new opportunities, analysers balance both approaches, and reactors respond reactively to change. Through real-world examples like Ferret Out Limited and Facebook, you'll develop the ability to diagnose organisational culture and predict strategic behaviour—essential knowledge for E3 Strategic Management and SBL case study analysis. This video deepens your understanding of how culture and structure interact. Handy's model shows that power cultures operate through direct, informal authority (like a founder-led business), role cultures function as formal bureaucracies, task cultures emphasise outputs and teamwork, and person cultures prioritise individual development and collaboration. The key insight is that large organisations often contain multiple cultures simultaneously—a research department might operate as a person culture while finance functions as a role culture. Miles and Snow's framework then connects culture explicitly to strategy: conservative cultures produce defensive strategies, innovative cultures drive prospector strategies, and balanced cultures create analyser strategies. By mastering both models, you'll be better equipped to evaluate strategic decisions in your exams and recognise how organisational values shape competitive behaviour.

Duration: 12m