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Who owns company culture?
By
Ann Melinger
This piece was originally published on Ticket to Biotech, a premier network of biopharma communicators.
We talk about culture constantly in biotech, but rarely define who’s actually responsible for it.
You might have heard that “everyone owns culture.” But when everyone owns culture, no one is accountable for it. This lack of clarity leads to fragmented employee experiences, misaligned decision making and culture initiatives that stall.
The lack of ownership is tied to a common misconception that culture is about employee perks or “team vibe.” That’s not culture. Culture is how decisions are made, how behaviors are reinforced and what gets prioritized. When organizations intentionally shape culture, it becomes a strategic driver of performance. And it exists whether it’s managed or not.
The first step to making culture a strategic business lever is understanding who owns it. Who is responsible for making culture come to life across the organization?
HR: Designing the system
Role: HR often sits on the frontlines of culture. They own the formal programs, frameworks and processes that shape culture, including benefits and employee surveys.
Responsibilities: HR sets the standards and systems for performance management, onboarding, professional development, recognition and policy design. They train managers on how to role model and reinforce culture—especially in moments that matter, like feedback, conflict and change.
Strength: Expertise in behavior change and organizational design.
HR is responsible for designing and enabling culture, but they can’t distribute or scale it alone. If culture is going to drive behavior and business outcomes, it can’t be treated as “just another HR initiative.”
When culture is reduced to programs or policies, it risks becoming a checklist rather than a lived experience. And without business ownership, HR-led culture efforts struggle to stick.
Internal communications: Activating and scaling culture
Role: Internal comms shapes how culture is communicated, understood and reinforced across the organization. They translate culture from theory into daily behavior.
Responsibilities: Internal comms builds systems that embed culture into everyday communication, including leadership messaging, storytelling and recognition campaigns. They equip managers as culture carriers with toolkits, talking points and examples to bring to 1:1s or team meetings.
Strength: Expertise in shaping narratives and embedding culture into daily touchpoints
Communication on its own can’t fix misaligned behaviors. The most effective internal comms teams work closely with HR to translate programs into lived experiences.
But there’s still one missing piece: truly impactful cultures require leadership buy-in, alignment and consistency.
Leadership: Setting the tone and priorities
Role: Leaders hold immense power in shaping culture through what they say, do and reward. They signal to employees what truly matters. Even the clearest messages or strategies fall short if employees don’t see them reflected in leadership behavior.
Responsibilities: Leadership must empower HR and internal comms to operationalize culture and treat it as a priority alongside other business goals. In their day-to-day work, they steer culture through their decision making, behavior modeling, recognition and reward signaling. Leaders hold managers accountable—setting the expectation that culture work is core work.
Strength: The authority to set direction and influence what’s prioritized across the organization, and the credibility to reinforce culture through actions.
Leadership plays a powerful role in culture work. But without operationalized systems or reinforcement, culture can feel disconnected from the everyday experience. Teams that are left to interpret culture on their own see inconsistencies in behavior and performance.
Who actually owns culture?
No single function owns culture. Decision rights, accountability for outcomes and responsibility for consistency belongs to HR, internal comms and leadership—together.
This shared ownership model helps culture operate as a strategic business lever, with each team having a specific function:
- HR designs the system
- Leadership sets direction and priorities
- Internal comms activates and scales
Ownership here is layered, not equal. Not all roles carry the same weight. Leadership ultimately determines whether culture is prioritized. Without their accountability, the system doesn’t hold. This is essential: a clear understanding of roles and responsibilities is what turns shared ownership into real accountability.
Where does culture ownership sit in your organization and where are the gaps?
Who owns culture? Responsibility matrix
| HR | Internal communications | Leadership | |
| Role | Owns formal programs, frameworks and processes shaping culture | Shapes how culture is communicated, understood and reinforced | Signal to employees what truly matters through what they say, do and reward |
| Responsibilities | Performance management, onboarding and recognition and policies | Leadership messaging, storytelling and manager tools and recognition campaigns | Decision making, behavior modeling, recognition and reward signaling. Empower HR and Comms |
| Strength | Expertise in behavior change and organizational design | Expertise in shaping narratives and embedding culture into daily touchpoints | Authority to set direction and influence what’s prioritized across the organization |
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