Changing organizational culture Flashcards
innovative labs
tasked with coming up with new ideas, executing them, and iterating until the idea is fully executed or integrated into the business
culture
the shared ideas, norm, values in an organization; what makes it different from another organization
espoused values
values that you say are important, that you present to the outside world
-> On the website, e.g. written down values
enacted values
vales that are experienced, values in use. More about sustainability, honesty. More difficult to observe.
norms
directly related to values. Has a lot to do with how we perceive things that are done in the organization
-> E.g. deviate from safety regulations, people will do that
unwritten rules
more on a practice level, your clothing, how you behave. More easy to observe
taboo
unwritten rules that are not talked about
organisational becoming
organisational change is not something static. Everyday, new changes occur that can influence an organisation
* The reweaving of individual webs of beliefs and habits of action leads to microscopic changes
* Microscopic change reflects the actual becoming of things
* organisations try to structure human behaviour, but at the same time are being transformed by the changes that individuals undertake
(Tsoukas and Chia, 2002)
Substantive change
Don’t only focus on change ideas and values (cultural level) but also on substantive matters, such as structural and material
arrangements directly implying behavioural changes (A&S)
Let people behave differently (structural level)
* significant modifications or expansions of the nature or scope of an accredited institution.
-> structural change does not mean cultural change
grand technocratic planned change programs
N-step models, top-down, managerial perspective
What is a technocratic change approach? 6
Technocratic = selecting the most efficient, immediate goals
= the N-step models to change
* Evaluate the situation and determining the change goals
* Analysing the existing culture and sketching the desired culture
* Analysing the gap
* Designing a plan for changing the culture
* Implementing the plan
* Evaluating the changes and efforts
What is the risk of top-down organized, technocratic change programs?
risk of isolation (of the managers from the workers)
integrative perspective
since an organization exists in different states from one period to another, planned change can be implemented to move the organization from one state to another
-> assumes that all the employees share the same practices, values, culture, etc.
punctuated equilibrium model
Lewin, 1951. N-step model with three phases: unfreezing, transforming, refreezing
What is the first phaseof the punctuated equilibrium model?
unfreezing: creating motivation to change
-> Dis-confirmation to old situation/behaviour
-> Creation of change perspective
what is the second phase of the punctuated equilibrium model?
transforming: running the change process
-> Restructuring organisational models, tasks creating new Business Process Redesigns (BPR)
-> Supporting cultural change by cognitive restructuring programs and communication of new corporate values
what is the third stage of the punctuated equilibrium model?
refreezing: stabilising the new situation
-> Integrating new behaviour in business systems
-> Communicating new situation to relevant stakeholders
What did Rosenbaum et al. (2018) say about Lewin’s punctuated equilibrium model?
- Identify the development of planned organizational change models over time
- Ongoing centrality of Lewin’s model in planned organizational change
- Lewin’s model must be understood as a developmental process
- Lewin’s model is very clear, but might be too simplistic (more than just three stages are needed)
- stages might be too much ‘stable’ stages
What is a force field analysis?
Part of Lewin’s model (1951)
* distinguish which factors within a situation or organisation drive a person towards or away from a desired state, and which oppose the driving forces.
What is the process approach? Characteristics
- Change is not an n-step trajectory but an ongoing process.
- focus on the change work itself, those who are involved
- A change process is a multi-level process. All levels need to be aligned
- change can be top-down or bottom-up
- Avoid dichotomy of change vs resistance: all actors can be both change agents and resitance
- Organize the change process close to those involved
- Choose iterventions a-typical to the current organization culture to avoid reproduction of an organization culture
- Use of symbols and rituals to support change and give meaning
- Socia-spatial interventions can support change
- Change as discourse
What is the diffusion model?
- Change plan is bestowed with an inner force
- Change ‘move’ through the organization
- Subordinates are passive receivers of their roles and identities
* People are expected to be intermediaries, black boxes
What is the Translation Model (Latour, 2005)
- Movements of ideas and objects (Latour 2005)
- Object will move according how people actively align with and make sense of it
- People do something active with the ideas instead of passive transmission
What do Thomas et al., 2011 say about resistance?
- resistance is an integral part of multi-level and multi-authored process
- different people have different opinions. -> leads to generative or degenerative dialogues
- emerging generative (goes somewhere) and degenerative dialogues (don’t go somewhere)
- every top manager, middle manager, or employee can be resistor or change agent
What might be reasons for a merger?
- to learn from another company
- because the other company might be too strong and might overrule yours
- expand, grow, or change
What are the different phases of mergers and acquisitions (M&As)?
- pre-acquisition phase
- the actual merger or acquisition
- post-integration process
What does the pre-acquisition phase entail?
- promises are made, see positive side of it
- emotions and irrational thoughts
What does the post-integration process result in?
- money and efficiency lacks
- often two groups don’t want to work together
- cultural change process
How can M&A be strategic change?
- elements of culture spread from one system to the other and vice versa
- post-acquisition integration process is a cultural change process
- cultural integration is a socially constructed process in which organisational culture and cultural differences are (re)built
What is an ethnoventionist approach?
- creates interventions or where the researchers actively get involved by first developing an ethnographic or grounded understanding of a situation from the inside whilst aiming to actively change and manage to situation using the feedback from the study whilst it is ongoing.
Whilst ethnographic research is relatively passive and based on observation and interaction, ethnoventionist research is aimed at creating change.
Reflective interventions (Eikenboom & Van Marrewijk, 2023)
- can enable project actors to change their practices and support the transformation of critical points of intersection into points of opportunity in circular construction
- This approach stresses participation and interaction from various layers in an organisation through interventions (Balkenende, 2024)
Action research cycle (Coghlan & Brannick 2006)
- Action research is an approach which aims at both taking action and creating knowledge or theory about that action
- Cycle of plan, act, observe and reflect
Ethnoventionist approach
- The ethnographic studying of cultural processes in organizations and the suggesting of interventions based upon thiese ethnography
- On ethnogrpahic micro behaviours of people in organizations and coming up with solutions.
- Difference with action research cycle (ARC) is that the ARC is more circulair
The concept of hyperculture (A&S Chapter 9)
- A carved-out set of positive sounding statements about values, often decoupled from everyday-life thinking and practices
- Based upon the concept of hyperreality (Baudrillard 1995)
- Hyperculture is not unreal or false in relationship to ‘true’ culture
- Hyperculture overlaps target culture
- Hyperculture has a strong aesthetic appeal and elegance in presentations
The paradox in manufacturing hypercultures
The culture is invented by a consultant who must be disconnected to show that culture refers to the values of the firm
‘Walk the talk’ (Kotter 1996)
Manager should at least live up to what you preach. You should keep your promises, not ghost away.
Which paper used an ethnoventionist approach?
Van Marrewijk 2016
what is revitalisation as a change strategy?
employees recreate and re-form a culture by mixing elements of their existing cultural frameworks with other elements required to adapt to the change process
What is acculturation?
the process of changing so that you become more like people from a different culture, or of making someone change in this way (Van Marrewijk, 2016)
What are four strategies for acculturation?
- integration
- assimilation
- separation
- deculturation
What were the three subcultures in the merger of Telcom and iPioneer?
- true believers (real iPioneers)
- dogmatic believers (dogmatic iPioneer. Were very much interested to be part of the subculture)
- non-believers (ex-Telcom employees. They thought control, structure, and models were needed
What is an ethical question of consulting?
e.g. you make clients too reliant
What is Power according to Clegg (1989)
Power is a social relation, produced and reproduced through the everyday practices of project actors
How are power relations formed, reproduced and transformed? (Levina & Orlikowski, 2009; Marshall, 2006)
Through concrete strategic practices and interaction of interrelated people and organizations in strategic change projects
What is the concept of ‘surf the urge’?
- you think about what happens in your body
- you wait it out
- you surf the urge
- recommit to not doing something uncomfortable
Elements of order
- Integration,
- functional co-ordination,
- consensus,
- commitment,
- cohesion,
- solidarity,
- reciprocity,
- co-operation,
- stability
Elements of conflict
- coercion
- division
- hostility
- dissensus
- mal-integration
- change
Four facts about bottom–up change
- Every employee is a change agent as decision making on the daily organisation of work practices is also being made at the micro-level (Boud et al., 2006)
- Employees might know better than managers what is good for the company (Duguid, 2006)
- Organisations are a constant on-going process of meaning making and organising, thus, producing everyday changes at a micro-level (Pettigrew et al., 2001)
- Intentional change is a multi-level and multi-authored process in which power and resistance are an integral part
What are the phases in structural/instrumental interventions?
- make it clear
- make it known
- make it real
- make it happen
- make it stick
What types of managements are important in mergers?
- program management (structural/instrumental)
- change management (interactive)
- meaning management (meaningful)
What does program management include in a merger?
structural, instrumental interventions are incredibly important, because without the whole merger might not even happen
What does change management include in a merger?
interactive, because without no one ‘will come to the wedding’
What does meaning management include in a merger?
meaningful, because employees need to know why and that this merger happened in the first place
What is the dichotomy of ‘corporate culture’
- everything is seen as culture (so change is also culture)
- corporate culture is ‘where we come from’ but also ‘where we go to’
- it is thus a problem as well as a solution
(A&S)
What is a cascading process?
Changes implemented at the strategic level trickle down to other business levels, affecting all aspects of an organization.
* top-down organized