Twintig jaar cultuurverandering: van instrumenteel ontwerpen naar min of meer terloops ontwikkelen. [Twenty years of cultural change in organizations: from an instrumental approach to an emergent process]

This article reflects on the development in our thinking about cultural change in organizations during the past twenty years. As an illustration of this development two casestudy's are discussed. The first study is a three-years' cultural change project in a province of the Netherlands. This project had a clear structure with steering committee, a projectteam and working groups. The change approach had a project statute with clear budgets, interventions and planning with a long lead time. This project started in 1989, at the beginning of the first boom of cultural change in organizations. The second cultural change process started twenty years later within the municipality of Amsterdam. This was an emerging culture change process that developed more or less independently and followed its own path. In this new approach cultural change was not the main goal. Cultural and behavioral change followed initiatives to improve service and renew governance that serves citizens. This change approach was the impetus for a revival of culture change in organizations as an emerging process. The second approach turned out to be more effective than the planned approach in changing human behavior. In essence, profound change of strategy, culture and business operations is a process of sense making. Organizational culture cannot be known unequivocally, is multi-layered and has a multitude of varieties. Questioning existing rules and values and choosing the path of the more casual and organic approach to cultural change are no easy feats. However, the emergent approach based on innovative initiatives with a focus on improving services seems the way to affect deep cultural changes in organizations.