Harrison’s Model of Culture

Harrison (1972) presents a model of culture, known as Harrison’s Model of Culture that divides organisational cultures into the four categories: role, task, power, and person cultures.

Organisations with role culture tend to be reliant on formal rules and regulations. In role culture organisations formal job descriptions of positions are more important than personal traits and characteristics of individuals taking these positions.

In task culture organisations, on the other hand, the levels of skills and competencies to deal with tasks in hand are perceived to be the most important factor to exert influence. Task culture organisations tend to operate in project-based manner with specified deadlines for each project.

Disadvantages of task culture organisations include conflicts of interests within teams and other relationship problems due to not clearly specified roles and responsibilities for team members.

Power culture organisations tend to be highly autocratic, with a top executive exercising great power towards all organisational processes. The advantages of power culture in organisations can be listed as high speed of decision making and implementation of organisational changes. However, power culture is associated with a range of disadvantages as well that may include lack of constructive arguments and discussions, and lower level of employee motivation.

In person culture organisations a specific individual serves as a source of influence for group members. This type of organisational culture is the least popular due to the fact that it lacks formal hierarchy, along with other disadvantages.