Introduction 1 The literature on managing organizational culture has developed in several directions over the past two decades. Many early protagonists assumed that culture can be controlled and governed by executives; the success of the change effort merely dependent on the abilities of managements to link key cultural attributes to the espoused strategic direction of the organization (see for instance Deal and Kennedy, 1982; Peters and Waterman, 1982; Schwartz and Davis, 1981). The seminal work of Smircich (1983a) classifies such organ- izational culture writers as ‘functionalist’, in that they assume culture is an organizational property subject to management control. More recent conceptual culture literature has evolved which raises questions as to the efficacy of this function- alist perspective (see Anthony, 1990; Legge, 1994; Ogbonna, 1993; Willmott, 1993). Despite a continuing theoretical debate, the desire to man- age organizational culture remains at the forefront of contemporary managerial activity (Bowman and Faulkner, 1997; Harris and Ogbonna, 1998). However, whilst a conceptual understanding of the intricacies of the managing culture debate has provided many worthwhile theoretical con- tributions, many theorists have noted the need for further empirical work in this area (for example, Ackroyd and Crowdy, 1990; Anthony, 1990; Hopfl, Smith and Spencer, 1992; Knights and Willmott, 1987; Kunda, 1992; Legge, 1994; Ogbonna and Wilkinson, 1990). This paper considers the issues of the suitability and successfulness of attempts to manage organ- izational culture. Hence, the objectives of the paper are twofold: first, to provide empirical evidence of the consequences of management attempts to change organizational culture and second, to evaluate critically the utility of such efforts utilizing contemporary organizational cul- ture literature. In this sense, the paper provides British Journal of Management, Vol. 9, 273–288 (1998) Managing Organizational Culture: Compliance or Genuine Change? Emmanuel Ogbonna and Lloyd C. Harris Cardiff Business School, University of Wales, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF1 3EU, UK The issue of managing culture is of key importance within management theory and practice. A number of extant studies have found that attempts to ‘manage’ culture frequently degenerate into the enforcement of espoused behaviours. The objective of this paper is to provide empirical evidence and discussion of the consequences of management attempts to change culture. The paper reviews existing theory pertaining to organizational culture change and presents the desire to control as the rationale for management attempts to modify culture. After a brief discussion of the research design and methodology employed, the findings of a single case study are presented. The findings suggest that within the case study organization, a recent change initiative had resulted in changes to material manifestations, behaviours and in some cases values. However, it is noted that modifications to values could be the result of ‘instrumental value compliance’. The paper culminates with conclusions, implications and suggestions for further research. © 1998 British Academy of Management 1 The authors thank Professor David Otley and two anonymous reviewers whose constructive comments helped in restructuring this paper.