iii) Be Careful Using Surveys & Questionniares

Be careful of using surveys and questionnaires to create a baseline for understanding an organisation, as they have limitations. According to Schein (2004), some of the limitations are

- these instruments select dimensions for measurement that are not necessarily important or relevant

- they measure superficial characteristics and omit the deeper, underlying assumptions that determine the essence of culture

- it is difficult to validate the data as culture is deep and complex

- the patterning of cultural assumptions into a paradigm cannot be revealed merely by a questionnaire

- individual respondents will not be able to answer survey questions reliably because cultural assumptions are tacit

- the questionnaire will have some unpredictable consequences on the organisation's culture