“It’s been a minute”, as the current slang describes an extended period, since the affiliation of Parallax Advanced Research with the Ohio Aerospace Institute. With the end of calendar year 2025 quickly approaching, it seemed like a good time to evaluate how the affiliation has shaped the company’s culture.
There have been decades of research in the field of organizational management. One of the founders who researched and wrote about culture was Edgar Schein, a Swiss-born American business theorist and psychologist who was professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Through the historical lens of ancient cultures and the modern lens of organizational management, Schein determined that culture is the most difficult level of culture to change. In his iconic book, Organizational Culture and Leadership published in 1992, he wrote extensively on the role of leaders in changing culture - “Leaders first start the process of culture creation when they create groups and organizations.” When Parallax and OAI affiliated, the leaders of those organizations created a new group – an expanded Parallax team while maintaining OAI as a legal entity for a variety of reasons. While the new Parallax team was formed on paper, there were many challenges ahead for the integration of cultures.
Leaders show what they value by how they allocate their resources -- how they design their organizational structures shows their preferences for access, resource flow, and ultimately trust. The Parallax/OAI affiliation has focused on supporting collaboration across organizational elements with either formally matrixed organizational structures or less directly by providing networking platforms/forums/opportunities for collaboration. To guide the integration through collaboration, the leadership team relied on best practices of high performing teams. High performing teams exhibit these traits:
Using these traits to guide them, a group dedicated to the task of crafting a new set of core values for the affiliated Team Parallax came up with our core values:
But what about culture? It’s the hardest to change and takes the longest to change so how do leaders lead that change and stay aligned to our core values while pursuing our mission of delivering innovative research and technology solutions for our clients? A good roadmap for this type of positive change can be found in an article authored by current and former Parallax employees, Leading for innovation: A new model for 21st-century leadership, published in 2022.i The article develops a new model for leading organizations that depend on innovation for success – leading that promotes innovation.
Melding two organizations into one creates angst. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs theory, a psychological model by Abraham Maslow, proposes humans are motivated by a pyramid of five needs, from basic survival (physiological, safety) to higher fulfillment (love/belonging, esteem, self-actualization). Individuals must satisfy lower-level needs before focusing on higher ones, creating a progression toward personal growth and reaching one's full potential (self-actualization). When people (employees) are faced with threats to their livelihood, they revert to lower levels of the pyramid. The response to organizational stress caused by change is key to navigating the organization through the change, and in the case of the affiliation, building a new, combined culture.
Using the model developed in Leading for innovation: A new model for 21st-century leadership, the figure below (read from bottom to top) gives leaders a guide for creating a positive, innovative culture.
Using this model as a guide, leaders at Parallax continue to build a new, combined culture that serves all employees and feeds the reputations of innovation that Parallax and OAI share. As we look ahead to 2026, these are some remainders of positive culture and great leadership practices that can guide us to greater success.
We are continuing to innovate across Parallax/OAI after the affiliation by building transparency, working together to build trust, and building a culture of “one Parallax”, giving people autonomy, and finally reaching creative engagement for everyone across the company.
Dr. Edie E. Williams is Director of Strategic Education and Workforce Development at Parallax Advanced Research, where she leads initiatives at the intersection of emerging technology, organizational culture, and talent development. A retired U.S. Navy Captain, she brings more than three decades of experience across defense innovation, workforce policy, and advanced technology systems—from MRAP vehicles to hypersonics—spanning military service and senior consulting roles within the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Dr. Williams is a widely published scholar and practitioner whose work focuses on leading innovative organizations, balancing AI with human creativity, and expanding opportunities for women in science and engineering.
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About Parallax Advanced Research & the Ohio Aerospace Institute
Parallax Advanced Research is a research institute that tackles global challenges through strategic partnerships with government, industry, and academia. It accelerates innovation, addresses critical global issues, and develops groundbreaking ideas with its partners. In 2023, Parallax and the Ohio Aerospace Institute, an aerospace research institute located in Cleveland, OH, formed a collaborative affiliation to drive innovation and technological advancements across Ohio and the nation. The Ohio Aerospace Institute plays a pivotal role in advancing aerospace through collaboration, education, and workforce development.