Organizational culture is widely accepted as a key influence on the success of information and knowledge management. The concept of organizational culture has generated a large amount of literature.There are many debate and discussions among organisational culture theorists, social anthropologists, social-psycologists and various practitioners what the organizational culture is. However, it is believed that organizational culture can foster innovation, flexibility and competitive advantage and therefore is essential for organizational success.

The concept of ‘organisational culture' emerged as a widely accepted, discussed and used instrument of analysis in the 1980s. The concept is widely accepted in approaches to industry, commerce and organisations generally, including universities (Silver, 2003, p.157).

Four seminal books were published in the 1980s:
♦ William G. Ouchi (1981). Theory Z: How American Business Can Meet the Japanese Challenge
♦ Richard Tanner Pascale and Anthony G. Athos (1982). The Art of Japanese Management: Applications for American Executives
♦ Terrence E. Deal and Allan A. Kennedy (1982). Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life
♦ Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman Jr. (1982). In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best Run Companies.

These books suggested that corporate culture was key to organizational performance and success.

Ambrect et al. (2001) note that organization culture reflects the norms and beliefs that guide the behaviour of the organization's members. It is an important enabler of knowledge management in organizations. Attributes of enabling organizational culture include understanding the value of knowledge management practices, managing support for knowledge management at all levels, incentives that reward knowledge sharing, and encouragement of interaction for the creation and sharing of knowledge (cited in Becerra-Fernandez and Sabherwal, 2010).

You can follow some approaches to organisational culture via the following video-clips:

What is Organizational Culture	Successful Organizational Cultures

Basic source for this text is: Becerra-Fernandez, I. and Sabherwal, R. (2010). Knowledge Management: Systems and Processes. Armonk (N.Y.); London: M.E. Sharpe.