ENTREPRENEURIAL CULTURE AND AGILE TRANSFORMATION : A Case Study

Abstract: There has been an increasing awareness of how organisations that have adopted new ways of working have been able to improve their productivity. The introduction of Agile in the beginning of 2000s allowed both small and large organisations to implement new methods for transforming all levels of the organisations, involving aspects such as leadership, tools, and processes. Moving towards agile practices in many ways pushed companies towards a revolution in the sense of promoting new processes and methods, which by now have become spread all over the world.The introduction of Agile has nevertheless been far from unproblematic. The organisational culture has proven to be one of the most enduring challenges, as the degree of employee understanding and involvement has a decisive impact on successful implementation during periods of significant change. Hence, in Agile Transformation, or an organisation’s journey towards continuous improvement through rapid delivery, feedback and learning in a changing business environment, leaders need constantly spread the agile philosophy in a simple and transparent matter both internally to employees and also to external stakeholders.Our study is exploratory by nature and aims to further the understanding of Agile Transformation and how Entrepreneurial Culture can have a positive impact on this transformation. To explore these issues, we employ a qualitative approach with semi-structured interviews with a team of employees in one case company. The interviews were held with upper-level managers in decision-making positions and with ownership of the change process. By exploring the employees’ opinions about adapting to Agile Transformation, and how the organisational culture has influenced and been managed in the transformation process, we present results which can be used for continued research on Agile Transformation, and particularly emphasize the importance of having an appropriate organisational culture to be able to succeed.