Organisational Culture Profile
Primary Style:
Clan dominant: family-like, collaborative, mentorship-heavy. Strong engagement; slower on hard decisions.
Collaborative, family-like, mentoring, teamwork
Innovative, entrepreneurial, risk-taking, agile
Competitive, results-driven, achievement-focused
Structured, efficient, process-driven, stable
Connection to organisational purpose and values
Desired level of independence and self-direction
A detailed read of each dimension at your score band, with what's likely a strength, what to watch, and where to invest.
Collaborative and mentorship-heavy. Strong engagement; slower on performance issues.
From the research: Clan predicts engagement and retention (Hartnell et al., 2011).
Some adhocracy balanced with stability.
From the research: Adhocracy predicts innovation output (Büschgens et al., 2013).
Reasonable performance expectations.
From the research: Market culture predicts financial performance (Hartnell et al., 2011).
Appropriate structure for scale.
From the research: Hierarchy culture predicts reliability in scaled operations (Denison & Mishra, 1995).
Articulated not always deeply felt.
From the research: Mission-purpose alignment among strongest engagement predictors (Allan et al., 2019).
Handles both.
From the research: Autonomy preference interacts with culture to predict fit (Bipp & Demerouti, 2015).
No low-scoring dimensions — nothing stands out as a growth area from this assessment.
The Competing Values Framework maps organisational culture across two axes: flexibility vs stability, and internal vs external focus. Your profile is drawn as a kite — its four points stretch toward each quadrant by how strongly you scored there. The shape is the signal.
Until you've mapped a target environment for comparison, the most honest alignment read is how you'd fare in each of the four culture types. Cards are ordered from best fit to worst.
Clan
Collaborate
You'd thrive here. Collaboration, mentoring, and team identity are what pull your best work out of you. You'd invest in relationships, build community, and feel most energised when the team wins together.
Adhocracy
Create
You'd rise in Adhocracy cultures. You welcome the innovation and the permission to try things, though you'd occasionally want the foundations (processes, rituals, reliability) that your stronger quadrants offer.
Hierarchy
Control
Hierarchy cultures are tolerable when they're well-run, but rules-for-rules'-sake would grate. You'd work within the structure while quietly pushing to simplify it.
Market
Compete
A heavy Market culture would feel relentless for you. The scoreboard-first orientation would leave you craving the things that actually make work meaningful to you.
The two CVF dimensions that don't live in the quadrant grid. They tell you how much purpose and how much latitude you need — orthogonal to where you sit on the main map, but just as load-bearing for fit.
Mission Alignment
ModerateMission alignment matters to you without dominating. You'd choose a clearly purposeful organisation over a vague one, but you can also find meaning through the work itself, the team, or the technical problem at hand. A credible mission helps; a weak one isn't fatal.
Autonomy Preference
ModerateYou value autonomy on how but accept structure on what. You'd find pure autonomy disorienting and pure top-down stifling; the sweet spot is clear goals with latitude on execution. Negotiate for that explicitly when you join a team.
The Competing Values Framework (Cameron & Quinn, 1999, 2011) is the most extensively validated org culture model. Maps on two axes — flexibility vs stability, internal vs external — producing four archetypes (Clan, Adhocracy, Market, Hierarchy).
Culture-strategy alignment predicts performance more strongly than any single culture type (Hartnell et al., 2011). No 'best' culture — Clan wins on engagement, Market on financials, Adhocracy on innovation, Hierarchy on reliability. Fit matters more than type.