Krista Seiden posted a great article on testing, optimization and how it relates to company culture over at online-behavior.com:

Building a Culture of Optimization is a very important topic and something our industry as a whole is still in the process of nailing down – most organizations I see haven’t yet reach maturity here. I’ve presented at several conferences, webinars, and meetings recently on the topic, and given the importance of building such a culture I am sharing in this article some of the most important things I see, do, and recommend. This article focuses on all the steps you will need in order to shift your organizational culture towards optimization and data-driven decision making in general; the main steps are: education, process, and advocacy.

Source: Building a Culture of Testing and Optimization | Testing & Usability