Importance of cultural change in Systems Engineering Transformation: A model for cultural assessment

Abstract: Systems Engineering is becoming increasingly important in the engineering of complex technical systems. Its introduction is forcing companies to undertake major transformation initiatives. As established change management approaches show, the corporate culture is an important key criterion for success of transformation. Therefore, when introducing Systems Engineering into an organization, transformation initiatives must be tailored to an existing corporate culture or the corporate culture itself must be changed in order to enable Systems Engineering. In literature and in industrial practice, different approaches for assessment of corporate culture exist. Within this research, a systematic literature review on methods and models for corporate culture assessment is conducted. Core elements are collected and combined with the fundamentals and success factors of Systems Engineering to develop a model for corporate culture assessment. The developed model is applied to the industrial practice of an ongoing Systems Engineering transformation of a large car manufacturer. The results of the assessment are compared with the emerging project challenges. Based on this model and its supporting tool and templates, organizations and transformation leaders are enabled to rapidly obtain an orientation of hindering or supporting currently established cultural aspects with regard to Systems Engineering transformation and to provide a decision basis for further measures.

Keywords: organizational culture, systems engineering transformation, change management, cultural assessment, corporate culture

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1005551

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