Author(s): Adebayo Adegbiji, Olalekan Ashikia
The effect of societal and organizational culture on leadership and organizational performance in creating a sustained advantage for firms and businesses have become a major concern of management experts across the globe, especially in the face of the rapidly changing work environment, caused by various global disruptions. This review article examined the concept of culture (both societal and organizational) using insights drawn from scholarly articles published in academic journals, conference proceedings, books etc. to present clear answers to the extent at which culture affects the creation of sustained compelling competitive advantage to organizations and their products and services. The study concluded that organizations need to invest in the study of the societal culture and values of their current and future customers. The insight drawn from such study should translate into the creation of organizational culture that will be a best fit in relating to and relating with their customers in continuously providing the services and products they need, always. Such organizational value should be very strong to the organization and its staff and should be as strong as the societal value is to its customers. The extent to which such societal values and cultures is understood, and the extent to which such understanding leads to the creation of the best fit organizational culture will determine the extent of the competitive advantage such organizations will gain and keep.