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Today’s business world is characterized by unpredictable, high volatility and cut-throat competition. The challenge to remain competitive, highly innovative and respond to dynamic customer needs has made organisations to pay particular attention to culture as a key foundation of their survival and sustainability. Numerous research have singled out culture as a significant determinant of organisational success and sustainability. As such, leading corporates are paying special attention to cultures as a source of competitive advantage and a foundation to employees’ attitude towards innovation, leadership, management and overall performance. For these businesses, culture is seen as a root of attaining sustainable competitive advantage and a springboard for satisfying rising dynamic competitive market needs, both local and global. Organisational culture gives identity and personality to organisations and is considered an asset that can’t be imitated by rivals. It is culture forms the foundational framework that governs operations, systems and management practices. However, besides growing recognition as critical to organisational or business survival and sustainability, there still exists a gap in literaturedue toof lack of clear understanding of the relationship between organisational culture and sustainable competitive advantage. This paper establishes that there a strong relationship between organisational culture and sustainable competitive advantage. Based on empirical literature and scholarly findings, the paper explores cultural elements that are critical to organisational competitiveness. The paper brings to out an area that has been greatly misunderstood and neglected in the past decades yet without it, successful future business operations are impossible. The paper has also developed a model of culture as a source of sustainable competitive advantage. The model emphasizes the need to identify relevant resources and competencies and integrate them in the organisational cultural practices to attain desired level of competitiveness |
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