Levi Nieminen, PhD

In 2010, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), New York City Transit’s subway system,
experienced a number of highly publicized incidents including a worker fatality, a blizzard that
left passengers stranded in train cars overnight without food, water, or heat, and the uncovering of
a scandal involving the falsification of signal safety tests and records. Their culmination made clear to Carmen Bianco, then in his first year as senior vice president of the Department of… Show more

In 2010, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), New York City Transit’s subway system,
experienced a number of highly publicized incidents including a worker fatality, a blizzard that
left passengers stranded in train cars overnight without food, water, or heat, and the uncovering of
a scandal involving the falsification of signal safety tests and records. Their culmination made clear to Carmen Bianco, then in his first year as senior vice president of the Department of Subways for MTA New York City Transit, that change was needed and tactical fixes alone would not be sufficient. Show less

As part of the debate over whether to end traditional performance management and where to go from here, one fundamental question that needs to be addressed is whether a single HR- Talent Management system can achieve both evaluative and developmental objectives? In this brief article, I describe a few of the principles that OD professionals live by and the challenges they present for the designers and overseers of “performance management 2.0.”

This article examines the crucial support role that Culture Action Teams (CATs) can play in a
culture transformation. Drawing on my experiences designing and facilitating such teams, I
describe three factors which I have come to view as absolutely critical to the impact and
sustainment of CATs within organizations: (i) securing the direct participation of senior leaders,
(ii) getting the right people on the CAT, and (iii) establishing a productive operating rhythm. My hope is that… Show more

This article examines the crucial support role that Culture Action Teams (CATs) can play in a
culture transformation. Drawing on my experiences designing and facilitating such teams, I
describe three factors which I have come to view as absolutely critical to the impact and
sustainment of CATs within organizations: (i) securing the direct participation of senior leaders,
(ii) getting the right people on the CAT, and (iii) establishing a productive operating rhythm. My hope is that this article can serve as a thought-starter for organizations considering how best to use teams in support of a culture change and a call for others to share their learned “best practices.” Show less

In the private equity industry, cash used to be king, queen and everything else. But these days, culture is making a serious play for the high-performance crown.

Every human organization creates a unique culture of its own. From tribes to large global corporations, each organization has a distinct identity that reflects the accumulated lessons that people learn as they adapt over time. The thousands of routines, habits, and customs that allow the group to survive become engrained in the fabric of the organization. In fact, some aspects of the culture are so automatic, people may not be fully aware of their impact on day-to-day life. The culture can… Show more

Every human organization creates a unique culture of its own. From tribes to large global corporations, each organization has a distinct identity that reflects the accumulated lessons that people learn as they adapt over time. The thousands of routines, habits, and customs that allow the group to survive become engrained in the fabric of the organization. In fact, some aspects of the culture are so automatic, people may not be fully aware of their impact on day-to-day life. The culture can be brought into awareness by crises or contact with outside groups that challenge the status quo, or in other cases, through careful examination and attempts to understand and manage the culture. It is this latter perspective that our chapter is concerned with, and toward that end we will do our best to address three broad questions related to corporate cultures: Why is it important to understand and manage corporate culture? What specific aspects of culture are worth paying attention to? And finally, how can organizations go about changing their cultures? But first, we define corporate culture in greater detail. Show less

A number of years back, Patrick Lencioni wrote, "Make your values mean something." His Harvard
Business Review article (HBR) is a must-read for any executives toying with the idea of creating values statements in their companies, particularly those who may be doing so lightly. For those of you who have charged past Lencioni’s warnings and, for good reason, are searching for the best ways to get it right, this brief article builds on that discussion to describe two tests that can help you to… Show more

A number of years back, Patrick Lencioni wrote, "Make your values mean something." His Harvard
Business Review article (HBR) is a must-read for any executives toying with the idea of creating values statements in their companies, particularly those who may be doing so lightly. For those of you who have charged past Lencioni’s warnings and, for good reason, are searching for the best ways to get it right, this brief article builds on that discussion to describe two tests that can help you to avoid creating a values set that is “bland, toothless, or just plain dishonest.” Show less

On a global scale, leadership takes place within a complex environment that is molded both by national culture and organizational culture influences. This chapter explores leader-culture (L-C) fit in this global context. Drawing together distinct perspectives on national culture and organizational culture, we identify potential contingencies of L-C fit across these levels. In addition to identifying key gaps and areas for future exploration, we also discuss the practical uses of fit when… Show more

On a global scale, leadership takes place within a complex environment that is molded both by national culture and organizational culture influences. This chapter explores leader-culture (L-C) fit in this global context. Drawing together distinct perspectives on national culture and organizational culture, we identify potential contingencies of L-C fit across these levels. In addition to identifying key gaps and areas for future exploration, we also discuss the practical uses of fit when selecting and developing leaders. Overall, we argue that researchers and practitioners could benefit from an expanded perspective on cultural fit to simultaneously address aspects of national and organizational culture. Show less

Viewing organizational cultures as bundles of habits and routines, we believe that “keystone habits” in particular can serve as powerful leverage points for change management professionals seeking to embed their work deep within organizations. Daunting as culture diagnosis and intervention may be, focusing on small habits with big implications might be the best place to start and a great way to ensure that the change does far more than scratch the surface.

This chapter describes how nepotistic practices can accelerate organizational homogeneity. Also discussed are the implications of "family culture" and the potential consequences for family and non-family member employees of organizations.

This manuscript examined the reliability of decisions made throughout the process of conducting and reporting a meta-analytic study. Results suggest that the effect of researcher decisions on meta-analytic findings may be largely indirect, such as when early decisions guide the specific moderation tests that can be undertaken at later stages. However, directly comparable ‘‘main effect’’ findings appeared to be more robust to divergence in researcher decisions.

This chapter describes techniques for studying and validating employee selection tests. An overview of the unitarian perspective on validity is provided followed by a discussion of common strategies used and challenges faced when substantiating the validity of employee selection tests.

This paper describes the conceptual underpinning and application of a novel framework for coaching organizational leaders. Rooted in person-environment fit theory, the Leader-Culture Fit Framework (LCFF) yields a set of inferences about leader-culture fit and leads to several unique perspectives on coaching. The intent of the framework is to organize and augment the coach’s subjective insights about how the organizational culture may support the leader’s development of certain capabilities… Show more

This paper describes the conceptual underpinning and application of a novel framework for coaching organizational leaders. Rooted in person-environment fit theory, the Leader-Culture Fit Framework (LCFF) yields a set of inferences about leader-culture fit and leads to several unique perspectives on coaching. The intent of the framework is to organize and augment the coach’s subjective insights about how the organizational culture may support the leader’s development of certain capabilities while potentially constraining the development of others. The proposed model also has the potential to better align leader development strategies, vis-à-vis coaching, with the broader organization’s development needs by identifying key ways in which the leader can serve as an agent for positive culture change. From a methodological perspective, we discuss three requirements: the use of parallel attributes, commensurate measures, and evaluative judgments of attributes. We also briefly illustrate the model’s application using a case study that combines data from an organizational culture assessment with data from a parallel 360-degree leader assessment, and finally, discuss several key challenges and limitations to implementing the framework within a coaching engagement. Show less

Examines the development of culture survey methodologies over time and provides a review of validation evidence for nine measures that fit the category, 'culture effectiveness profiling instruments', including the Denison Organizational Culture Survey. Advances a set of criteria for developing and validating this type of culture survey.

Team-based innovation requires a balance of creative and pragmatic processes both within teams and between teams and their organizational stakeholders. However, prior research
has focused primarily on the internal team dynamics that facilitate innovation, paying comparatively little attention to team-stakeholder dynamics. This study addresses this limitation
by studying the impact of team-stakeholder networks and shared cognition on the effectiveness of innovation teams. knowledge ties… Show more

Team-based innovation requires a balance of creative and pragmatic processes both within teams and between teams and their organizational stakeholders. However, prior research
has focused primarily on the internal team dynamics that facilitate innovation, paying comparatively little attention to team-stakeholder dynamics. This study addresses this limitation
by studying the impact of team-stakeholder networks and shared cognition on the effectiveness of innovation teams. knowledge ties with many non-redundant organizational stakeholders and foster a high level of agreement among stakeholders about team innovation factors. Conversely, effective NPD teams also establish highly centralized trust networks that are focused on only a few key stakeholders in the organization. Show less

Organizational culture encompasses the system of beliefs, assumptions, values, and norms held by the members of an organization. Over the past 30 years, scholars of management and organizational science have advanced a number of theoretical perspectives to explain how culture impacts organizational effectiveness. The purpose of this entry is to provide an overview of the major theories and what they contribute to our generalized understanding of the culture-effectiveness relationship.

Multisource ratings and feedback are now central components of many leader development programs. Research evaluating the outcomes of multisource feedback (MSF) underscores the importance of facilitation strategies that help leaders to interpret and use their feedback throughout the development process. Scholars and practitioners have recommended executive coaching as one such facilitation strategy. However, there is little empirical basis to substantiate the benefits of executive coaching… Show more

Multisource ratings and feedback are now central components of many leader development programs. Research evaluating the outcomes of multisource feedback (MSF) underscores the importance of facilitation strategies that help leaders to interpret and use their feedback throughout the development process. Scholars and practitioners have recommended executive coaching as one such facilitation strategy. However, there is little empirical basis to substantiate the benefits of executive coaching beyond other less costly strategies, most notably feedback workshops with groups of leaders. This quasi-experiment followed 469 managers from a large government agency participating in a 15-month leader development program. Changes over time in MSF ratings of leadership behaviors and effectiveness were compared for two groups of leaders. The first group of un-coached managers participated in a feedback workshop shortly after the pre-measure MSF, and the second group participated in the feedback workshop plus several sessions with an executive coach thereafter. Results indicated that managers in both groups improved similarly as rated by direct reports, peers, and supervisors, whereas only those managers who received the executive coaching improved according to self-ratings. Specifically, the executive coaching intervention had a unique positive effect on managers’ self-rated involvement, consistency, and mission-focused leadership behaviors. These findings are discussed in light of “psychometric” and self-efficacy perspectives, and in relation to exploratory regression analyses linking managers’ self-ratings to others’ ratings of their effectiveness at the conclusion of the program. Show less

Prior research supports a link between organizational culture and performance but generally falls short of establishing causality or determining the direction of a culture–performance (C-P) relationship. Using data collected from 95 franchise automobile dealerships over 6 years, we studied longitudinal culture–performance relationships to determine whether culture or performance has causal priority, or alternatively,
whether a reciprocal relationship exists. Results from cross-lagged panel… Show more

Prior research supports a link between organizational culture and performance but generally falls short of establishing causality or determining the direction of a culture–performance (C-P) relationship. Using data collected from 95 franchise automobile dealerships over 6 years, we studied longitudinal culture–performance relationships to determine whether culture or performance has causal priority, or alternatively,
whether a reciprocal relationship exists. Results from cross-lagged panel analyses indicate that culture “comes first,” consistently predicting subsequent ratings of customer satisfaction and vehicle sales. Furthermore, the positive effect of culture on vehicle sales is fully mediated by customer satisfaction ratings. Show less