Tartare,
A poster called SafetyPee posted a link to a study that was completed in 2001 in another thread. I was reading the Executive Summary of the report and one sentence reminded me of what you posted here so I'll copy it in.
A link between a negative organisational culture and negative attitudes and behaviour was established which would not necessarily be mitigated by the high level of professionalism of flight crews.
Basically, even though flight crew have high standards etc, what management does and says can over ride that in a negative way. The professional culture can be ( and normally is ) affected by the attitudes and beliefs of the current management. That makes sense because otherwise we wouldn't need any talk of leadership....management would be relegated to managing.
Have a good day,
Framer