Liz Lewis, PhD

Role: Project Lead

Guiding Question: What are the building blocks of a strong company culture?

Company culture lies at the core of our work lives. For employers, a strong culture is key to attracting and retaining talent. Yet this concept is often misunderstood. Company culture is more than flashy offices, casual dress, and other "fun" perks of work. It's much deeper, and workers have strong feelings and beliefs about what they do - and don't - want from their work culture.

For this project, I led a year-long, mixed methods project examining what company culture is, how it operates, and why it's so important. I coordinated internal team members (fellow researchers and content creators), as well as our partner research firm. For this project, my responsibilities included:

• Conducting extensive exploratory research to identify gaps, themes, and potential interventions in current discussions of company culture;
• Conducting a literature analysis of both academic and professional/thought leadership writing and research;
• Working closely with research team to develop a taxonomy of the core aspects of company culture, building on my training in anthropological theory;
• Collaborating on all aspects of research strategy, design, and analysis;
• Analyzing complex findings to identify areas for additional quantitative analysis; and
• Designing a follow-up survey to determine what aspects of company culture mattered most for workers amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

I then worked to develop a strategy to disseminate project findings and determine forthcoming digital content assets around the unified theme of culture.