According to Anphabe Company, the reason why corporate culture is difficult to measure lies in the very nature of corporate culture.
Corporate culture is invisible
Unlike revenue, profit or output, corporate culture does not exist in the form of direct numbers.
Culture includes: Belief, values, behavioral standards, how people interact and make decisions.
These factors cannot be measured by a single index, but can only be identified through indirect expressions in the organization.
Culture is perceived differently by each individual
In the same working environment, employees in different departments can feel different cultures, new employees and long-time employees have different experiences, frontline employees and managers have different perspectives.
This makes corporate culture subjective, making it difficult to create an "absolute" measure for the entire organization.
Culture is expressed through behavior, not just through words
Culture does not lie in slogans hanging on the wall or the set of values announced, but is expressed through the way decisions are made in practice, whether employees dare to speak out or not, which behaviors are rewarded or implicitly encouraged.
Therefore, if only measuring awareness without observing behavior, businesses will have an incomplete view of corporate culture.
There is no "unique standard" index for every organization
There is no such thing as a set of indicators measuring corporate culture applied to all organizations.
Appropriate indicators will depend on strategic goals, organizational scale, industry, and development stage.
Therefore, cultural measurement requires choosing indicators suitable for the context, instead of mechanically applying an existing model.
Because of these characteristics, businesses can hardly measure corporate culture directly. Instead, organizations need to use indirect indicators to reflect the quality and state of culture.
