Paper Title
Cultivating Leadership: Does Culture Matter?

Abstract
Empirically studying organizational culture change and how culture is actively embedded into an organization is challenging. There are relatively few times in which organizations can make drastic shifts that will immediately impact the culture. Thus, scientific knowledge regarding how to actively change and embed organizational culture is limited. The United States Naval Academy (USNA) was interested in changing the culture in small units (130-150 midshipmen each) who live, work, and go to class together, to realign the culture to reflect the values of the academy. In May of 2021, USNA scrambled the classes of ’23 and ’24 into new units in a strategic decision to purposely change culture. Studying the outcomes of this scramble provided an opportunity to further knowledge regarding how to actively change and embed culture. The research methods included interviews, focus groups and surveys from three units and at different levels. This research fills an existing gap in culture literature, and this talk will discuss the outcomes of the attempt to change culture at USNA. Keywords - Culture, Leadership, Military, Qualitative, Naval Academy