INTRODUCTION
As with any group or collection of people, organisations involve, and are influenced by,
specific cultural norms. As such, it is advantageous to work to gain understanding and insight
into cultural impacts and influences on organisational life. For this reason, the importance of
cultural meaning within organisational theory and practice (see Frost & Martin 1996) has
continued to develop since its first introduction in the late 1970s (Pettigrew 1979).
Considerable empirical work has been done since that time in developing the constructs of
organisational culture, and in developing instruments that measure it. Smircich (1983)
features prominently in this operationalisation work. A recent high quality example is
O’Reilly et al.’s Organizational Culture Profile (O’Reilly, Chatman & Caldwell 1991).
However, the present research has examined the constructs of transformational and
transactional leadership culture, rather than organisational culture more broadly.
Transformational leadership culture is one example from within a broader taxonomy of
organisational culture profiles, and no more. Notwithstanding a broad range of definitions of
organisational culture considered since 1980, there appears to be a convergence of theory that
describes some fundamental aspects of this construct. Organizational leadership culture can
be described in terms of levels that span across implicit and explicit attributes of
organisations. A prominent distinction of levels has been made between visible and invisible
components of culture generally (Kotter & Heskett 1992; Schein 1984). The ‘visible’ level
may involve group behaviour norms, such as patterns of behaviour that can be witnessed and
explicitly encouraged (Kotter & Heskett 1992). Schein (1984) described two aspects within
the visible level, that of ‘explicitly held values and beliefs’ and ‘visible and physical
artefacts’, such as code of dress and office layout. The ‘invisible’ level includes less tangible
Ken Parry (Ken.Parry@vuw.ac.nz) is Director of the Centre for the Study of Leadership, Victoria University of Wellington
and Sarah Proctor-Thomson (Sarah.Proctor@vuw.ac.nz) is a Research Assistant with the Centre for the Study of Leadership
at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand