Ideal Organizational Culture: What People Around the World Value Most
- Nick Lombardino
- Jun 23
- 4 min read
Written by Dr. Janet L. Szumal, Senior Research Associate for Human Synergistics, Inc.
Values are a key part of your organization’s culture; they affect the entire organization and its members. They can spill over to the community, influence what other organizations in your country do, and even change the world.
Envisioning the kind of culture that will maximize your organization’s efficiency and effectiveness is the first step to creating it. Given this, what is the ideal culture for your organization?
Global Ideal Culture Profile
We put this question about ideal culture to more than 39,000 people in 1,348 organizations in 55 different countries. Using Human Synergistics’ Organizational Culture Inventory® (OCI®) Ideal, we asked them to share their beliefs about the importance of 120 different behaviors to maximize the productivity and long-term effectiveness of their organizations. For a detailed look at this research, check out the original, full-length article here.
In summary, here’s what we found:
To get a clear picture of the responses to all 120 behaviors, we plotted the results from the 55 different countries onto our Circumplex. (If you are not already familiar with it, Human Synergistics’ interactive circumplex provides a quick explanation).
The resulting profile, which is shown below, provides a picture of what a Global Ideal Culture Profile looks like.
The behaviors that are most valued across countries are invariably Constructive (colored blue in the visual). They include both task-oriented behaviors such as “thinking ahead and planning” and “knowing the business” as well as people-oriented behaviors such as “cooperating with others” and “helping others to grow and develop.”
At the other extreme, the behaviors least valued across countries are all Defensive—mostly Passive (colored green) with a few Aggressive (colored red).
As indicated by the length of the blue extensions on the Global Profile, people around the world strongly agree that the Constructive styles are most important—especially Self-Actualizing (Style 12, located at the top center of the circumplex) and Humanistic-Encouraging (Style 1, which is more people-oriented and located to the right of Style 12).
Connecting this back to specific behaviors, people agree, for example, that “communicating ideas” (which is an aspect of the Self-Actualizing style) and “being a good listener” (Humanistic-Encouraging style) are highly important to their organizations’ productivity and effectiveness. Similarly, they agree that “knowing the business” (associated with the more task-oriented Achievement Style 11, to the left) and “cooperating with others” (part of Affiliative, Style 2) are critical. In fact, all the behaviors strongly valued across the countries studied are among those associated with Constructive cultures.
The relative length of the red extensions indicates that, across countries, the four Aggressive/Defensive styles are valued less than the Constructive styles. The moderately strong extension for Style 7 reflects the tendency for people to view certain Oppositional behaviors, such as “pointing out flaws,” as somewhat important. However, as shown in the earlier visual, other Oppositional behaviors such as “refusing to accept criticism” are not valued or are only slightly valued across the various countries. Similarly, though Competitive (Style 9) is somewhat extended in the Global Ideal Profile, certain behaviors, such as “competing rather than cooperating” generally are not valued. This is likely the case because they contradict and can suppress the Constructive behaviors that people value more.
The Passive/Defensive styles (green) have the weakest extensions on the Global Ideal Profile. As mentioned earlier, most of the specific behaviors identified as least important to maximizing productivity and effectiveness are those associated with Passive/Defensive cultures. For instance, “telling people different things to avoid conflict” is an aspect of Conventional cultures (Style 4), “following orders…even when they’re wrong” is an example of Dependent (Style 5), and “not getting involved” is an example of Avoidance (Style 6). Though these behaviors may be viewed as necessary in certain countries (e.g., to maintain one’s security in the organization), they are not viewed as ideal.
The Values and Ideals of Organizations Can and Do Change
As people within organizations try new behaviors and approaches—or when they experience that old behaviors and approaches are no longer working as well as they once did—their beliefs change regarding what they and their organization should strive for in creating an effective culture.
Whether an organization’s leaders choose to nurture and take care of their culture or simply take it as a fait accompli, culture affects how the people within their organization interact, work together, approach tasks, solve problems, and work to achieve goals.
In addition to Constructive Cultures being desirable, they're also proven to be related to an organization’s ability to adapt and innovate; to its efficiency and effectiveness in implementing strategies; to its success in attracting, engaging, and retaining talent. For many successful organizations, culture is a vital asset, supports their mission and strategy, and provides a distinct competitive advantage, and more.
This movement begins with defining your ideal organizational culture.
To learn more about how you can define and build your organization’s ideal culture, visit the Human Synergistics booth. To experience first-hand how you can help your teams work on developing an ideal culture, join Jason Bowes of Human Synergistics for a live simulation at CultureCon 2025, “Envisioning a Culture for Quality” August 6th at 12:30 p.m. in Capitol Ballroom B.
About the Author, Janet Szumal, Ph.D.
Dr. Janet Szumal is the author of the book, Creating Constructive Cultures, in which she uses extensive research and a variety of case studies to illustrate how organizational leaders around the world create more productive workplace cultures. She is also the co-author of Management/Impact® (M/I), which assesses the influence of leaders and managers on people and culture.
Dr. Szumal received her PhD in Human Resource Management from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her recommendations and research on organizational culture, leadership, and group problem-solving have appeared in The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Psychological Reports, Training Magazine, Talent Management, The Handbook of Organizational Culture and Climate, and Mel Silberman and Patricia Philips’ Team and Organization Development Sourcebooks.
About CultureCon®:
CultureCon®, a Certified B Corporation®, is on a mission to inspire positive change around organizational culture. Through large conferences, online courses, consulting services, and certification programs, we deliver experiences that provide practical tools and motivation for our customers to become cultural change agents within their organizations. Our customers include business owners, CxOs, HR leaders, senior management, individual contributors, and anyone who wants to build more uplifting, inspiring, and healthy workplaces.
Learn more about our upcoming events.
