Culture Levels

As the continuation of successful action (Baecker, 1999), culture shows the materialized "information processing" of a social system. Culture provides the structure in which action is possible, and as such reduces complexity to a degree that is manageable for the system (Luhmann,1984; Baecker,1999). But structure is virtual (Giddens, 1984) and only becomes visible through social norms and actions.

According to Schein (2010, 2015), organizations consist of three levels of culture:

• Artifacts: The first level, artifacts, constitutes the visible structures and processes as well as observed behavior.
• Espoused Beliefs: The second level, espoused beliefs and values, includes amongst others ideals, ideologies and rationalizations.
• Values and Basic Underlying Assumptions: The third level, basic underlying assumptions, comprises of unconscious beliefs and values. This level is more difficult to analyze, but essential to understand the emergence of organizational culture: "In other words, the essence of a culture lies in the

pattern of basic underlying assumptions, and after you understand those, you can easily understand the other more surface levels and deal appropriately with them" (Schein, 2010, p. 32).