Cross-cultural validation of the Intensity & Strength Organizational Culture Questionnaire.

In the final presentation, Laura Petitta, Claudio Barbaranelli, and Tahira Probst address the relevance of capturing organizational culture complexity for effective managerial action and intervention. They present findings of a cross-cultural validation of a new combined typing and profiling measure of organizational culture, the Intensity & Strength Organizational Culture Questionnaire. This measure was developed in line with (a) Schein’s (1985) organizational culture theory; (b) Enriquez’s (1970) typology of organizational cultures; (c) Payne’s (2000) multidimensional model of cultural intensity and strength. Results support the validity and reliability of the ISOCQ, as well as the hypothesized invariance of the factorial structure across the Italian and United States samples. Furthermore, the different levels of intensity allow researchers and practitioners to determine the consistency between members’ actual behaviours and espoused values. Finally, because the ISOCQ appears to function equivalently across the two cultures, this allows for future investigations of relational equivalence in different national contexts and strengthens the generalizability of extant research findings.