Many organizations have fragmented cultures of this kind,Where people say one thing and do another. One of the interesting features of Linda Smircich's study was that she was able to identify the precise circumstances that had produced the fragmentation within the company and was able to show why it continued to operate in its somewhat schizophrenic fashion.
A fragmentation history
Ten years earlier, when the organization was just four years old,it had passed through a particularly traumatic period that witnessed the demotion of its president, the hiring and firing of his successor,and the appointment of a group of professionals from the insurance industry at large. These events led to the developmemt of separate subcultures.The first of these was represented by the original staff, or the "inside group" as they came to be known, and the second by the new professionals-the "outside group." Most of the outside group had been recruited from the same rival insurance company and brought with them very strong beliefs as to what was needed in their new organitation. "This was how we did it at. . ." became a frequent stance taken in discussion. They wanted to model the new organization on the old.