Building and evolving a culture of excellence: a conceptual exploration
ISSN: 1368-3047
Article publication date: 5 January 2022
Issue publication date: 14 July 2022
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to conceptually explore building a culture of excellence from the ground up as well as evolving a current culture to one more focused on excellence.
Design/methodology/approach
This study reviewed extant research related to organizational cultures and cultures of excellence that have implications for building or evolving into these types of cultures.
Findings
The findings of this study suggest that the “people side” of organizations is crucial to forming a culture of excellence. Specific people-oriented considerations to forming such a culture include leveraging leaders and understanding other influences including diversity as well as external aspects. Changing culture must occur at the assumptions (and not just artifacts) level. Furthermore, there are many barriers to building a culture of excellence, many of which are also related to an organization’s people.
Research limitations/implications
A qualitative grounded theory approach whereby researchers asked organizational members to define “culture of excellence” could help build a clearer model for the formation of cultures of excellence. Quantitative approaches should also test how successful the influencers, noted in this study are in creating cultures of excellence. This study’s conceptual links between cultures of excellence and performance should also be tested empirically.
Practical implications
This paper provides practitioners insight into the importance of culture and considerations for how to change an organizational culture.
Social implications
This paper advocates for the importance of social considerations in the workplace regarding creating a culture of excellence.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first that discusses creating a culture of excellence. Furthermore, it is one of only a handful of articles that links people to excellence.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Contribution: All authors made equal contributions to this paper. The authorship listed is in alphabetical order by last name
Citation
Provance, T.W., Ramisetty, S.B., Urick, M.J. and Wieczorkowski, K.A. (2022), "Building and evolving a culture of excellence: a conceptual exploration", Measuring Business Excellence, Vol. 26 No. 2, pp. 197-209. https://doi.org/10.1108/MBE-05-2021-0067
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited