232 Journal of Applied Business and Economics Vol. 23(6) 2021 Preparing Agile Transformation: A Framework for Assessment of the Organizational Culture Readiness Petra Barthelmess Zurich University of Applied Sciences Albena Björck Zurich University of Applied Sciences Emanuel Gysin PwC Jeremy Dela Cruz Zurich University of Applied Sciences With disruptions reshaping the global economy, companies need to find a way to embrace constant change. Recently, “becoming Agile” has been the motto of organizational change. However, more than half of all organizations have at least one agile transformation project fail, often due to an unsuitable organizational culture. This research provides a framework to assesses organizational culture’s readiness for Agile, by integrating existing models in the areas of change management, organizational, and Agile culture which may help companies to identify possible deficiencies in the organizational culture that can then be targeted prior to the Agile transformation. Keywords: organizational culture, Agile organization, readiness assessment INTRODUCTION Increasing volatility and uncertainty of the markets, rapid technological innovations and new competitors that disrupt the value chain in the contemporary business world force companies to find new ways to embrace constant and often unpredictable change (Hemerling et al., 2015; Wessel, 2017). From an organizational point of view, being Agile has become increasingly popular among companies across various industries. Empirical evidence shows that Agile organizations operating in environments with high pressure outperform their non-Agile counterparts, and can keep this high-performance long-term, in particular, by achieving better customer focus, faster product launches, higher growth in revenue, lower costs, and more involved employees (Aghina et al., 2018; Bazigos, et al., 2015). Therefore, it is not surprising that in a survey conducted with 2,500 business leaders, 75% stated that organizational agility is a top-three priority for their organization (Aghina et al., 2018).