| Organizations seek various ways to create competitive advantage. Included among them is the purposeful development of organizational culture and climate. This project entailed the planning, development, implementation, and evaluation of an organizational development (OD) plan for creation of organizational culture and climate in a new company, with the goal of achieving greater organizational effectiveness through specific organizational interventions. The interventions were implemented over a period of eighteen months to address the following areas: (a) values and mission; (b) organizational structure, policies, procedures; (c) communication strategy; (d) recruitment and selection processes; (e) training and quality; (f) performance management and evaluation; and (g) rewards system. The culture and climate were then evaluated through administration of culture and climate surveys, which had been previously administered in other organizations, providing a database for comparison purposes. In addition, organizational effectiveness was evaluated by assessing the achievement of the organization's strategic business goals. The results of the surveys indicate that this organization scored better than database organizations in terms of the level of constructiveness of culture, and scored significantly better on many climate scales, particularly those relating to the specific interventions implemented (job design, communications, quality, performance appraisals, motivation, rewards, overall satisfaction). Correlations between climate results and culture results provide data to understand what levers for change exist for further development of a positive organizational culture. The OD project demonstrated a methodology for organizational culture and climate development in start-up and emerging companies. |