Assessing the Organizational Culture of Family Owned Firms in Sudan

Abstract

This study aims at assessing and exploring the organizational culture in the Sudanese family firms. The study tries to identify the types of the Sudanese family firms according to the degrees of family involvement in the business and assesses the orientation
of the Sudanese family firms toward different organizational cultural typologies and then examining the relationship between the types of the family firms and the different typologies of the organizational culture. To achieve the study objectives, the organizational culture assessment instrument (OCAI) derived from the competing values framework is
adopted which identifies four typologies; Clan, Adhocracy, Market, and Hierarchical culture. Among 130 Sudanese private family firms originally contacted, 103 agreed to participate in the study. The findings of the study indicate the heterogeneity of the Sudanese family firms based on the components of involvement, and the different types of the family firms exhibit different cultural typologies according to the level of family involvement in the business.