chapter 16 - organizational culture and change Flashcards
organizational culture
“Organizational culture refers to a system of shared meaning held by members that distinguishes the organization from other organizations.This system of shared meaning includes values, beliefs, and assumptions that characterize the organization.These values, beliefs, and assumptions, when put into practice,,
(1) filter what employees pay attention to,
(2) are physically manifested as material symbols (for example, uniforms, statues, etc.) and stories, and
(3) form the foundation for shared meaning among members of an organization
Organizational culture shows how employees perceive the essence of an organization, not whether they like them—that is, it is a descriptive term
characteristics of organizational culture
one of the most common frameworks describes organizational cultures as possessing several competing values:
“The Clan.” - A culture based on human affiliation. Employees value attachment, collaboration, trust, and support.
“The Adhocracy.” - A culture based on change. Employees value growth, variety, attention to detail, stimulation, and autonomy.
“The Market.” - A culture based on achievement. Employees value communication, competence, and competition.
“The Hierarchy.” - A culture based on stability. Employees value communication, formalization, and routine.”
The Organizational Culture Inventory groups cultures into three categories:
The Organizational Culture Inventory groups cultures into three categories:
(1) constructive cultures that value affiliation, encouragement, and achievement; (2) passive-defensive cultures that avoid accountability, seek validation and approval from others, and are conventional; and
(3) aggressive-defensive cultures that are competitive, perfectionist, and power- oriented.
Organizational Culture Profile (OCP)
Another widely used framework is the Organizational Culture Profile (OCP).
The OCP draws upon a novel survey method in which employees sort a set of values based on how closely they represent their organization.
The OCP suggests an organizational culture can be described by eight dimensions:
(1) innovation,
(2) attention to detail,
(3) decisiveness,
(4) team-orientation,
(5) outcome-orientation,
(6) aggressiveness,
(7) supportiveness, and
(8) rewards-emphasis.”
dominant culture and subcultures
The dominant culture expresses the core values most members share and that give the organization its distinct personality.
Subcultures tend to develop in large organizations in response to common problems or experiences that a group of members face in the same department or location
strong culture
In a strong culture, the organization’s core values are both intensely held and widely shared. The more members who accept the core values and the greater their commitment, the stronger the culture and the greater its influence on member behavior.
A strong culture should more directly affect organizational outcomes because it demonstrates high agreement about what the organization represents. Such unanimity of purpose builds cohesiveness, loyalty, meaning, and organizational commitment.
Show how culture is transmitted to employees: rituals
Rituals are repetitive sequences of activities that express and reinforce the key values of the organization—what goals are most important and/or which people are important versus which are expendable
Show how culture is transmitted to employees: material symbols
The layout of corporate headquarters, the types of automobiles top executives are given, and the presence or absence of corporate aircraft are a few examples of material symbols, sometimes also known as artifacts
Show how culture is transmitted to employees: language
Many organizations and subunits within them use language to help members identify with the culture, attest to their acceptance of it, and help preserve it.
Unique terms describe equipment, officers, key individuals, suppliers, customers, or products related to the business. New employees may be overwhelmed at first by acronyms and jargon that, once assimilated, act as a common denominator to unite members of a given culture or subculture
ultimate source of an organization’s culture
his leads us to the ultimate source of an organization’s culture: the founders
“Founders have a vision of what the organization should be, and the firm’s initial small size makes it easy to enact that vision with all members
organizational culture creation occurs in three ways.
First, founders tend to hire and retain employees who think and feel the same way they do.
Second, they socialize employees to their way of thinking and feeling.
Finally, the behavior of the founder(s) encourages employees to identify with them and internalize their beliefs, values, and assumptions
three forces play a particularly important part in sustaining a culture:
Three forces play a particularly important part in sustaining a culture:
(1) selection or hiring practices,
(2) actions of top management, and
(3) socialization methods (e.g., onboarding, training, and including new employees)
three forces play a particularly important part in sustaining a culture: 1. selection
“The explicit goal of the selection process is to identify and hire individuals with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform successfully. “
“The selection process also provides information to applicants. Those who perceive a conflict between their values and those of the organization can remove themselves from the applicant pool or even fake their way into the organization by feigning that they share the organization’s values”
“Selection thus becomes a two-way street, with both employers and applicants as active participants in determining the value fit between the applicant and the organization.”
three forces play a particularly important part in sustaining a culture: 2. top management
“The actions of top management have a major impact on the organization’s culture.70 Through words and behavior, senior executives establish norms that filter through the organization about, for instance, whether risk taking is desirable, how much freedom managers give employees, the uniforms employees should wear, and what behavior is desired and rewarded. “
“more positive organizational outcomes are achieved when the culture and leadership styles are complementary in content and not redundant”
“when leaders provide something that is lacking in the organization’s culture, they can substitute or fill in for the element that is missing. In other words, one can fill in where the other fails.”
three forces play a particularly important part in sustaining a culture: 3. socialization AND ITS 3 STAGES
“No matter how good a job the organization does in recruitment and selection, new employees need help adapting to the prevailing culture. This help comes in the form of socialization. Socialization can help alleviate the problem many employees report when their new jobs are different from what they expected and can make or break how employees see their jobs moving forward”
“We can think of socialization as a process with three stages: prearrival, encounter, and metamorphosis”
- Prearrival stage. The prearrival stage recognizes that everyone arrives with a set of values, attitudes, and expectations about both the work and the organization. One major purpose of a business school, for example, is to socialize students to the attitudes and behaviors companies desire in employees. “
- “Encounter stage. The selection process can help inform prospective employees about the organization. Upon entry into the organization, the new member enters the encounter stage and confronts the possibility that expectations—about the job
- “Metamorphosis stage. Finally, to work out any problems discovered during the encounter stage, the new member changes or goes through the metamorphosis stage”
Most research suggests two major “bundles” of socialization practices
institutional vs. individual practices
These institutional practices are common in police departments, fire department
- The more management relies on formal, collective, fixed, and serial socialization programs while emphasizing divestiture, the more likely newcomers’ differences will be stripped away and replaced by standardized predictable behaviors
Programs that are informal, individual, variable, and random while emphasizing investiture are more likely to give newcomers a sense of their roles and methods of working. Creative fields such as research and development, advertising, and filmmaking rely on these individual practices
socialization practices (add on later?)
Formal vs. informal
Individual vs. collective
Fixed vs. variance
Serial vs. random
Investiture vs. divestiture
culture defines..
Culture defines “the rules of the game.”
First, it has a boundary-defining role: It creates distinctions between organizations.
Second, it conveys a sense of identity for organization members.
Third, culture facilitates commitment to something larger than individual self-interest.
Fourth, it enhances the stability of the social system. culture is the social glue that helps hold the organization together by providing standards for what employees should say and do.
organizational climate
Organizational climate refers to the shared perceptions that organizational members have about their organization and work environment. These perceptions are directed at the policies, practices, and procedures experienced by the employees.
Although it may appear difficult on the surface to distinguish organizational culture from climate, culture and climate are “two crucial building blocks for organizational description.””
“One meta-analysis found that, across dozens of different studies, positive climates were strongly related to individuals’ level of job satisfaction, involvement, commitment, and motivation
social sustainability
“Sustainability refers to maintaining practices over very long periods of time because the tools or structures that support the practices are not damaged by the processes.”
“Social sustainability practices address the ways social systems are affected by an organization’s actions over time and, in turn, how changing social systems may affect the organization.”
culture as a liability
Stagnation and entrenchment
“Culture is a liability when shared values do not agree with those that further the organization’s effectiveness. This is most likely when an organization’s environment is undergoing rapid change, and its entrenched culture may no longer be appropriate.
Uniformity and rigidity
“Hiring new employees who differ from organizational members in values, beliefs, or perspectives creates a paradox:144 Management wants to demonstrate support for the differences that these employees bring to the workplace, but newcomers who wish to fit in are usually compelled to accept the organization’s core culture.”
Toxicity and dysfunctions
“This consensus can create powerful forward momentum. However, coherence around negative and dysfunctional management values in a corporation can produce downward forces that are equally powerful yet toxic.
Culture clashes
“Historically, when management looked at acquisition or merger decisions, the key decision factors were potential financial advantage and product synergy. In recent years, cultural compatibility has become the primary concern”
change and planned change
Change is simply when things become different than the way they were. When changes are implemented, it leads to a natural redistribution of values, priorities, and resources that reverberate throughout the organization and transform employees interactions.
Oftentimes, changes are unplanned and happen naturally—however, certain situations involve proactive, intentional, and goal-oriented efforts to realize change, which all describe planned change
change agents
Who in organizations is responsible for managing change activities? The answer can be found in change agents. They see a future for the organization others have not identified, and they are able to motivate, invent, and implement this vision
sources of resistance to change
individual
- habit
- security
- economic factors
- fear of the unknown
- selective information processing
organizational
- structural inertia
- limited focus of change
- threat to expertise
- threat to established power relationships
