Taking Cultural Heterogeneity Seriously: The Distinct Forms of Cultural Distinctiveness in Organizations

Although theories exist that link a distinctive organizational culture to superior performance, our understanding of the different ways in which cultural distinctiveness arises remains limited. I argue that because a culture results from aggregating individuals’ cognition and behavior in the organization, it can be distinctive to a firm either in central tendency (content), distributional properties (configuration), or both, on either idiosyncratic or shared dimensions across firms. By applying topic modeling to 42,982 Glassdoor text reviews posted by corporate employees, I illustrate these forms of cultural distinctiveness by comparing Netflix culture, viewed as distinctive in popular discourse, to that of its peers. I find that both Netflix cultural content and configuration are distinctive on idiosyncratic dimensions, compared to its competitors, and discuss implications for competitive advantage.