Abstract

Teal organizations arose around the world in the last decades and were recently described as potentially announcing a new stage of evolution for human organizations. They are characterized by three defining features: Self-management, Wholeness, and Evolutionary purpose. As the emergence of such organizations echoes other signs of change in the workplace and in society, we examine the underlying concepts with regard to scholarly literature on national and organizational culture. Our findings particularly emphasize the role and importance of the Evolutionary purpose of Teal organizations, which is not currently accounted for in existing models. This leads us to discuss the relations between culture and values, as well as the implicit or explicit nature of culture.