How to infuse an organizational culture with humility: A study of humble behaviors and practices

Abstract

In order to analyze the role of humility in organizational culture, in this work, companies that formally declared humility as a value on their home pages were chosen, as to understand the internalization of this value in their practices and behaviors. The research adopted a descriptive-analytical design with a qualitative approach, and in addition to secondary data referring to the organizational profile, fourteen semi-structured interviews were analyzed with the decision-making elite of the seven chosen organizations, based on theoretical-deductive categories of the construct identified in the organizational literature. The study identified that the value of humility is effectively present in behaviors and practices of these organizations, which develop a culture of humility in their daily lives. The main results indicate that the internalized value of humility is associated with (i) shared behaviors; (ii) clear self-assessment of strengths and weaknesses; (iii) culture of innovation; (iv) awareness of their own limitations; (v) support for third-party contributions and feedback practices (vi) employee learning; (vii) culture of praise. The results reinforced the main categories and constructs for a Humble Organizational Culture (HOC) Model, opening opportunities for future research that explore the elaboration of cultural maturity diagnoses and humility measurement instruments in the organizational field.