Organizational Culture in the EU Institutions: Reviewing the State of the Art

Since the 1990s there has been a relative dearth of research focusing specifically on the organisational cultures of the EU institutions. This older literature sought to explain aspects of the EU institutions by examining, for example, the shared assumptions that influence the policy outputs of the institutions. Some of this research saw culture as a cause or independent variable, while other studies were more interested in identifying the distinctive character of the institution or its departments. This paper aims to revisit and review the existing literature on organisational culture in this context, identifying its strength and weaknesses. It investigates the extent to which the lack of research on organisational culture reflects the declining interest in the concept in certain fields of anthropology, looks at how research on subjects such as the socialisation of EU officials has been informed by the culture literature, and questions a cultural (re-)turn, that is a revival of interest in organizational culture might add value to the existing literatures on the EU institutions.