Solent University

Is Deal and Kennedy’s Cultural model for leisure organisations still a

suitable model to define their organisational culture?

Diana Lauer

Applied and Academic English Advanced (ENG199)

Alexandra Brown
9th January 2019
An organizational culture defines different organizations into a specific category by their way
of working regarding their values and structure (Schein and Schein 2017). Deal and Kennedy
are using the term of ‘the way things get done around here’ (Carnall 2007, p.187). According
to Van Der Wagen (2014) is this a definition for workers on how to perform task, solve issues
and conflicts and interact between staff, customer, suppliers and business partners. The
cultural model from Deal and Kennedy focuses on two significant alignments which are the
feedback speed from the market and the degree of risk. The two components that the model
depends on are how high the risk and how fast the feedback is. The model categorises the
culture of an organisation into four types. They are called the “tough-guy or macho culture”,
the “work hard/play hard culture”, the “bet your company culture” and finally the “process
culture” (Mullins 2010, p.741). When it comes to creating an event, it is important to define a
specific structure with several task that have to completed. Managers could look at the
EMBOK Model which divides Event Management into five domains with seven subdivided
classes. Each domain shows different task areas which all are necessary for a high-quality
event (Bowdin 2011). In the following the domains marketing, design and Administration are
used to demonstrate the organisational culture of leisure organisation.

In the tough-guy, macho culture model, the employees are individualists with a high
willingness to take risks. They expect a rapid feedback on their actions. This culture is
commonly found in the area of marketing (Mullins 2010). In the event industry, marketing is
a big part to generate a successful event. People working in this area are willing to achieve the
aims of the event. For this reason, the marketing team focuses on the understanding of their
potential attendees’ personality and requirements. Hence it is possible to combine these
requirements and the event’s objectives (Bowdin 2011). The tough-guy, macho culture model
often faces criticism for their aim of achieving quick results (Pettinger 2010). Mullins (2010)
talks about the immense pressure these people have on providing the expected results. As a
consequence, they could suffer with a lot of psychological stress. This problem is reality in a
lot of leisure organisation because people are responsible to meet the deadline and therefore
have to work under time pressure (Van der Wagen 2014).
The work-hard/play-hard culture is associated as a low-risk, quick-feedback culture. Staff who
works in such a culture are undertaking attractive jobs where teamwork is required quite the
opposite of the tough-guy, macho culture. Nevertheless, this is also a hardworking group that
achieves a lot (Mullins 2010). One example that describes this culture is under the Design
domain which covers for example catering, entertainment, environment, program and theme
(Bowdin 2011). In this case event manager have to arrange a suitable theme and program for
the event that fits together with the values and needs of the attendees. The aim is that the
event is going to receive positive feedback during and after the event (DOWSON and BASSETT
2015). It is quite obvious that the whole team has to work together to receive an excellent
feedback. The major problem that this group is facing is mentioned by Pettinger (2010), that
the staff is aimed at attaining short time solutions instead of permanent solutions. For
example, during an event it is necessary to control the lighting and if a danger appears, staff
has to act fast. Although, it is mostly just short time solutions, it will be reported and can
afterwards transformed as a long-time solution (Doug 2016).
The characteristic features for the bet your company culture are that employees and
companies are investing a lot and in doing so takes a business to a high-risk level. Companies
who follow this kind of culture expect a feedback from the market that could be several years.
This kind of culture is typical in research and development departments but also in plant
engineering where the focus is to develop new things for the future. (Mullins 2010).
One problem that Mullins (2010) stresses is that the organisational structure in this culture is
an authoritarian hierarchy from top to bottom. It is from the top of the latter that the future
decisions of the organization will be taken. However, one cannot define this as typical culture
for leisure organisation because there is always a temporary intention for the planned
gathering with a special or memorable event which has no long-term impacts (Dowson and
Bassett 2015).
The last culture is the process culture where the tasks are at low risk but with a quite complex
process that requires to complete certain steps until the final product or service can be offered
(Carnall 2007). However, compared to the work-hard/play-hard culture a quick feedback from
the market is not expected in this culture. For this kind of culture Mullins (2010) highlights the
facts on bureaucracy because employees are more focused on the practical aspect as how
they do the work instead of what they do. This kind of hard philosophy, where everyone has
his specific task and a prescribed function, is mostly followed by Administrators. In the event
industry administration task are essential to deliver an excellent event. These are all
background but necessary tasks like making bookings, emailing different departments and
organizing travels (Dowson and Bassett 2015). Working in such a culture is quite monotonous
and mostly employees stay in one department for ever (Pettinger 2010).

One can see that event managers need to switch between different organisational cultures.
Therefore, a lot of companies can fit in to more than one culture due the diversity and
flexibility of tasks in a company (Carnall 2007). Especially in leisure organisation it is quite
difficult to identify an appropriate organisational culture due to the dynamic nature of the
working environment. That is why workers have to react flexible on particular needs (Van der
Wagen 2014). In different departments there are situations where one has to take more or
less risk as well as long-term and short-term actions which lead to quick or slow feedback from
the market. Due to this problem there are people like Sara Canaday (2018) who would say
that the two alignments of Deal and Kennedy are important, but the true culture is tangible.
This means that the culture establishes due to the values, behaviours and beliefs of
employees. According to that the interaction with customers and the performers of the
people within a company develops. This is what an organizational culture is about (Canaday
2018). One example is the London Games in 2012. The Event received positive feedback on
the helpful, friendly and well-organized staff. Helpful was a good recruitment programme with
engagement events and reminders as newsletters for keeping volunteers up to date what is
expected of them. The value in the organization and at the same time the organisational
culture was represented by the behaviour of the staff (Modley 2013). This shows the
importance for managers to build a team structure and spirit by a good communication
(Kyriakidou and Gore 2005). This is kind of the opposite of what the process culture is about
where the work has priority and not the team.

To conclude, one can clearly say that this entire model is a good example to use as a base to
analyse the culture of an organisation. The feedback speed and the degree of risk are two
important factors in the marketplace. However, to categorise a company into only one specific
culture is almost an impossible task. In this model all four cultures are connected to each other
and for some companies there is just a fine line between one and another culture type (Carnall
2007). One example is the leisure industry because of the rapidly changing environment (Van
der Wagen 2014). In the event industry it is impossible to define the organizational culture in
general. One has to look at the individual departments that are necessary to create an event
(Bowdin 2011). As Canaday (2018) mentions the values of a company is decisive. Therefore,
an organizational culture is more than the feedback speed from the market and the degree of
risk. It is about interaction within an organization and with their costumers (Schein and Schein
2017). The organizational culture is build out of the sprit within the company and a well-
functioning teamwork (Kyriakidou and Gore 2005). That is why Deal and Kennedy’s Cultural
model has to be extended to be suitable in today’s leisure organisations.
Reference list:

BOWDIN, G. A. J. et al., 2011. Events management. 3rd ed. Amsterdam: Butterworth-

Heinemann

CANADAY, S., 2018. Organizational Culture [viewed 5 January 2019]. Available from:
https://www.lynda.com/Leadership-Management-tutorials/Organizational-Culture/656782-
2.html

CARNALL, C., 2007. Managing Change in Organizations. 5th ed. Harlow: Financial Times
Prentice Hall

DOUG, M., 2016. Special event production: the resources. 2nd ed. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge

DOWSON, R. and D. BASSETT, 1975. Event planning and management: a practical handbook
for PR and events professionals. London: Kogan Page

KYRIAKIDOU, O. and J. GORE, 2005. Learning by example: benchmarking organizational culture

in hospitality, tourism and leisure SMEs. Benchmarking, 12(3), 192-206

MODLEY, P., 2013. Recruiter. Recruitment lesson from London 2012. 24(1), 24

MULLINS, L. J., 2010. Management and Organisational Behaviour. 9th ed. Harlow: Financial
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PETTINGER, R., 2010. Organizational Behaviour. Oxon: Routledge

SCHEIN, E. H. and P. SCHEIN, 2017. Organizational culture and leadership. 5th ed. Hoboken,
New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

VAN DER WAGEN, L. and L. WHITE, 2015. Human resource management for the event industry.
2nd ed. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge