Managing Cultural Change in a Rationalised Telephone Company: A case of 'living value set' or just letting them go

Managing culture has been central to management theory and practice, with middle managers representing an important conduit for change initiatives. However, within the context of signifi cant rationalisation and privatisation, cultural change programs spearheaded by corporate management may not always resonate favourably for individual managers. This research analyses how middle and lower level managers responded to cultural change programs at Telstra during the 1990s and early 2000s. It indicates that fear of redundancy or threat of internal condemnation was a motivating factor driving support. Therefore while the corporation demanded that middle management realign cultural values in line with a new corporate agenda, genuine commitment to these initiatives was not completely forthcoming. Indeed many managers merely resigned themselves to a process, which was based more on coercion rather than committing to cultural change initiatives.