Agile culture, employee mindset, and agile organizations' development: adhocracy, clan, market, and hierarchy perspectives.

Abstract

An agile organization, as an integrated, efficient, and adaptable system, responds to the needs of a rapidly evolving business landscape. Because organizational culture shapes behavior and enhances capabilities, this research examines whether different cultural types and ambitions for agility can equally develop an agile culture. Specifically, it examines how a functional agile culture affects employees with agile and non-agile mindsets across adhocracy, clan, market, and hierarchy cultures to facilitate an agile organization's growth. The study employs structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze data from 3871 knowledge workers: 1871 from 2025 (initial phase) and 2000 from 2026 (replication), representing a 50/50 mix of the IT sector and other industries. Results indicate that employees with an agile mindset respond well to an agile culture and help foster an agile organization in all cultural contexts. Non-agile mindsets tend to underperform agile mindsets at building agility in adhocracies, clans, and markets, but excel at fostering agility within hierarchies. Additionally, the replication showed that the AI era significantly empowered an agile culture. In summary, the study proposes the Seven Pillars Framework (SPF) to support agile organization design and development.