Analyzing Tight and Loose Organizational Cultures, with Dr. Michele Gelfand

Episode 7:

Dr. Michele Gelfand is a Distinguished University Professor and Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland, College Park. Gelfand uses field, experimental, computational and neuroscience methods to understand the evolution of culture and its multi-level consequences.

Her work has been published in outlets such as Science, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Psychological Science, Nature Scientific Reports, Nature Human behavior, PLOS 1, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Applied Psychology, Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Research in Organizational Behavior, Annual Review of Psychology, American Psychologist, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, among others. Gelfand is the founding co-editor of the Advances in Culture and Psychology annual series and Frontiers of Culture and Psychology series (with CY Chiu and Ying-Yi Hong, Oxford University Press).

Her book Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire the World was published by Scribner in 2018. She is the Past President of the International Association for Conflict Management, Past Division Chair of the Conflict Division of the Academy of Management, Past Treasurer of the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology, and co-founder of the Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution.

She received the 2016 Diener award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the 2017 Outstanding International Psychologist Award from the APA, the 2019 Outstanding Cultural Psychology Award from SPSP, the 2109 Science-Practitioner award from SIOP, and the Annaliese Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation which was given to 7 scientists worldwide for outstanding contributions in their fields. Her work that was published in Science was honored with the Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Prize from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019. Her Wiki page is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michele_J._Gelfand and her website is www.michelegelfand.com.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • How “tight cultures” and “loose cultures” differ from each other, and how each defines how groups adhere to social norms
  • How the two types of culture impact businesses and organizations, and how generational differences impact these culture types
  • Why accountability and the risk of threat are major drivers that push organizations, businesses and even nations toward a tight culture
  • How the merger between Amazon and Whole Foods illustrates the difference between tight and loose cultures, and why the difference caused challenges after the merger
  • Why the demands of an industry dictate whether a tight or loose culture best fits an organization, and why being too tight or too loose can be detrimental
  • Why smaller, more incremental changes can help an organization move between a tight culture and a loose culture and be more adaptive
  • Why tight and loose people can often support each other and offset one another’s weaknesses
  • What insights Michele gained from analyzing tight-loose differences in 4500 international business mergers from 32 countries taking place between 1989-2013
  • Why much of Michele’s research and writing focus on how these cultural differences evolve based on industry and business needs

Additional resources:  

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