Maintaining an organizational culture during a workforce expansion : A case study at a software product development scaleup

Abstract: Researchers have already studied organizational culture and expansions of organizations separately. However, the combination of these, how organizational expansion challenges may affect cultural aspects is rare and the niche of this study. This qualitative case study investigates how organizational culture can be maintained during fast workforce expansion in a product department. The first step in this study was to study what can characterize an organizational culture in a department where product development and technology are central, in a software development scaleup. The empirical results present 13 cultural areas characterizing the organizational culture in the case company, which has similarities to Clan culture that promotes collaboration and personal development. Similarities with Engineering culture and Hacker culture are present in the product department as well. Some cultural aspects may be seen as unique for the case company’s product department, which are humbleness and the focus on work-life balance. Further, some employees argue that they have never felt as proud of the product at previous workplaces, as they do at the case company. These cultural aspects have explicitly been explained as unique in the empirical results and not found in the reviewed literature. Further investigation focused on possible reactions to a workforce expansion, by the interviewed employees. This included both positive expectations and areas of concern. The challenges that may occur in a fast-growing workforce and possible solutions were investigated as well. Four areas of possible expansion challenges were detected in the empirical results, which were related to organizational structure changes, cultural distribution, inclusive organization, prioritizations, and work focus switches. Through the analysis process, cultural aspects that may be affected by these challenges were analyzed and discussed. The presented possible solutions focus on how to manage possible challenges that may occur and at the same time maintain cultural aspects of foremost trust, inclusion, transparency, diversity, culture distribution, constant change, and innovation.