Charles Handy

Four Cultures Theory

The four cultures theory is a model of culture, popularized by Charles Handy (1999) that classifies organizational cultures  into four major types: the power culture, the role culture, the task culture, and the person or support culture. Handy’s approach helps us understand why we might be more comfortable in some organizations than others.

POWER CULTURE:

His analogy for this type of the culture as a spider’s web. Meaning that the most important spider sitting in the center, because the whole organization, the boss is the most important, and sits in the center.  He is thensurrounded by ever-widening circles of intimates and influence. The closer you are to the spider, the more influence you have.

Organizations with this type of culture can respond quickly to events, but they are heavily dependent for their continued success on the abilities of the people at the center; succession is a critical issue. They will tend to attract people who are power orientated and politically minded, who take risks and do not rate security highly.
Size is a problem for power cultures. They find it difficult to link too many activities and retain control; they tend to succeed when they create new organizations with a lot of independence, although they usually retain central financial control.

This type of culture relies heavily on individuals rather than on committees. In organizations with this culture, performance is judged on results. Working in such organizations requires the employees correctly anticipate what is expected of them from the power holders and perform accordingly. If managers get this culture right, it can result in a happy, satisfied organization that in turn can breed quite intense commitment to corporate goals. Anticipating wrongly can lead to intense dissatisfaction and sometimes lead to a high labor turnover as well as a general lack of effort and enthusiasm.In extreme cases, a power culture is a dictatorship, but it does not have to be.

ROLE CULTURE:

This culture is illustrated as a building supported by columns and beams. This relates to each column and beam symbolizing a specific role, keeping up the building; individuals are role occupants but the role continues even if the individual leaves.

This type of organization is characterized by strong functional or specialized areas coordinated by a narrow band of senior management at the top. The work of the functional areas and the interactions between them are controlled by rules and procedures defining the job, the authority that goes with it, and the mode of communication and the settlement of disputes.

Position is the main power source in the role culture. People are selected to perform roles satisfactorily; personal power is frowned upon and expert power is tolerated only in its proper place. Rules and procedures are the chief methods of influence. This type of organization is likely to be successful in a stable environment, where the market is steady, predictable or controllable, or where the product’s life cycle is long, as used to be the case with many UK public sector bodies. Conversely, the role culture finds it difficult to adapt to change; it is usually slow to perceive the need for it and to respond appropriately.

For employees, the role culture offers security and the opportunity to acquire specialist expertise; performance up to a required standard is rewarded on the appropriate pay scale, and possibly by promotion within the functional area. However, this culture is frustrating for ambitious people who are power orientated, want control over their work or are more interested in results than method. Such people will be content in this culture only as senior managers.

TASK CULTURE:

Task culture is job-or project-oriented, and its accompanying structure can be best represented as a net. Some of the strands of the net are thicker or stronger than others, and much of the power and influence is located at the interstices of the net, at the knots.

It is a team culture, where the outcome of the team’s work takes precedence over individual objectives and most status and style differences. Influence is based more on expert power than on position or personal power, and influence is more widely dispersed than in other cultures.

 The task culture is  appropriate when flexibility and sensitivity to the market or environment are important, where the market is competitive, where the life of a product is short and/or where the speed of reaction is critical. Against this must be set the difficulty of managing a large organization as a flexible group, and of producing economies of scale or great depth of expertise.

Control in these organizations can be difficult. Essential control is retained by senior managers, who concentrate on the allocation of projects, people and resources, but they exert little day-to-day control over methods of working or procedures, without violating the norms of the culture.  Most managers, certainly at the middle and junior levels, prefer to work in the task culture, with its emphasis on groups, expert power, rewards for results and a merging of individual and group objectives. It is most in tune with the current trends of change and adaptation, individual freedom and low status differentials – but it may not be an appropriate culture for all circumstance.

PERSON CULTURE:

Person culture is an unusual culture. It is not found in many organizations, yet many people espouse some of its values. This type of culture is illustrated by a loose cluster or a constellation of stars. In this culture the individual is the focal point; if there is a structure or an organisation, it exists only to serve and assist the individuals within it, to further their own interests without any overriding objective. 

Not many organizations can exist with this sort of culture, or produce it, since organizations tend to have some form of corporate objective over and above the personal objectives of those who comprise them. Furthermore, control mechanisms, and even management hierarchies, are impossible in these cultures except by mutual consent. An individual can leave the organization, but the organization rarely has the power to evict an individual. Influence is shared and the power base, if needed, is usually expert; that is, people do what they are good at and are listened to for their expertise. 

Although it would be rare to find an organization in which the person culture predominated, you will often encounter people whose personal preferences are for this type of culture, but who find themselves operating in more classical organizations. Specialists in organizations, such as computer people in a business organization, consultants in a hospital, architects in local government and university teachers benefit from the power of their professions. Such people are not easy to manage. Being specialists, alternative employment is often easy to obtain, and they may not acknowledge anyone as being in a position to exercise expert power greater than their own.

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