Founding stories: a window into an organization's culture
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Authors
Pede, Nancy
Issue Date
1995
Type
Capstone
Language
en
Keywords
Psychology
Alternative Title
Abstract
This is an analysis of the impact the founding story had on the case-study organization and evaluation of the effects that story had on the organization's culture, leadership, dynamics and change efforts. The research data was collected by conducting interviews with employees, by exploring personal observations, and by examining published literature. The findings showed that this founding story contributed significantly to the friendly climate of the organization and impacted how the employees dealt with change when it headed towards a more corporate structure. The fact that this particular founding story reflected the American dream caused it to have a greater influence on its employees than other kinds of founding stories have on employees.
As the researcher my greatest influence on this project is rooted in the fact that I previously worked at the case-study organization, which effected this study in two areas. First, it increased the chance of bias, on the part of the researcher, during the analysis portion of this project. Second, it may have had an effect on the data because several participants knew me and might have disclosed more, or less, than if they did not known me at all.