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An Analysis of Pixar's Culture

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Northumbria University
Newcastle Business School
An Analysis of Pixar’s Organisational Culture

Name: Anoynomous

HR0372 – Culture and Organisations
Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Business Management
January 2011
Word Count: 3668

TABLE OF CONTENTS Page No
1. INTRODUCTION 3
2. IDENTIFICATION OF CENTRAL ISSUE 4
3. OUTLINE OF THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 5
4. ANALYSIS 4.1 ARTIFACTS 6 4.2 ESPOUSED VALUES AND BELIEFS 7 4.3 BASIC UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS 10
5. CONCLUSION 12
6. RECOMMENDATIONS 13
7. REFERENCES 14

1. INTRODUCTION
Pixar Animation Studios as we know today, was started as in 1984 when John Lasseter, chief creative officer of both Pixar …show more content…

Thus, the true culture of the organization cannot be understood by solely looking at the artifacts. To understand more, it is necessary to look at the next level. Espoused beliefs and values are goals, values, aspirations and ideologies shared by everyone in an organization. Normally, these values are laid down by the leaders or founders of the organization (Schein, 2010, p.25). However, espoused beliefs and values can sometimes be mutually contradictory (Schein, 2010, p.27). Thus, the organization’s culture is only understood just on the surface level. Basic underlying assumptions, which are unconscious and taken-for-granted beliefs and values provides for a deeper understanding of an organization’s culture. Schein concluded that the essence of a culture lies in the pattern of basic underlying assumptions (Schein, 2010, p.32). If the basic underlying assumptions are not deciphered, it will be hard to understand the artifacts and espoused beliefs and values correctly. As Schein (2010, p.32) himself had concluded, any group’s culture can be studied at the three levels. The three levels of culture allows for an analysis of Pixar’s organizational cultural from an observational level. Information can be readily drawn from business reviews, news articles on Pixar, interviews with Pixar’s employees and Pixar’s website, thus making Edgar Schein’s three levels of culture an ideal model for analysis of Pixar’s culture.
4. ANALYSIS
4.1 Artifacts
Pixar’s

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