Culture Essentials for Industry 5.0

Abstract

This paper examines the culture essentials that can play a critical role in driving organizational flexibility and performance in organizations that are at an inflexion point in their Route to Market. Degrees of separation enforced by COVID-19, digital-first market realities and lean organization structures proffer a need for cultural interrogation from a fresh lens and embracing shifts to create high levels of performance. Situating our research in the Indian arm of a global information analytics leader in the STEM space, we suggest an inductive culture framework that is built on the foundation of time-tested culture theories and principles of ethnographic research. We argue that with the change in generational mix and distributed functioning as the norm, the role of the human agency and cultural constructionism has become pivotal to culture formation. Adopting a multi-modal approach, we base our culture construct on insights gathered through literature research, the study of 13 critical company documents, 21 in-depth culture conversations with the India Leadership Team and levels below, “fly on the wall” observations and three div–con (divergent–convergent) group sessions. We proceed to outline the next steps for validating/refining the framework and potential use cases.