Chp 15 - Organizational Culture and Change Flashcards
What is organizational culture?
The shared social knowledge within an organization regarding the rules, norms, and values that shape the attitudes and behaviours of its employees.
Tell me the three facets of organizational culture
- Culture is social knowledge among employee
- Culture says rules, norms and values
- Shapes/reinforces certain employee attitudes/behaviour by creating system of control over employees.
What are the three major components of any organization culture?
- Observable artifacts
- Espoused values
- Basic underlying assumption
What is observable artifacts?
organization’s culture that employees can easily see or talk about.
“How they should act during the workday”
Observable artifacts help show not only current employees but also potential employees, customers, shareholders, and investors what the organization is all about. So why type of artifacts are they? *hint there is 6
Physical structure
Rituals *Causal Friday
Symbols
Stories
Ceremonies
Language
What is espoused values?
The beliefs, philosophies, and norms that a company explicitly states.
*Mission or verbal statements or annual reports
What is basic underlying assumption definition?
The ingrained beliefs and philosophies of employees, they don’t question the validity of their behaviour
*taken for granted That things should be safe in an engineering firm
3 factors of the basic underlying assumption
- Deepest and least observable
- Dictate behaviour and affect attitudes
- Long lasting and difficult to change
Culture can be divided into two dimensions, what are they?
Solidarity (Group thinks and act alike)
Sociability (how friendly they to one another)
If they are low on both solidarity and sociability, this is what type of culture?
Fragmented
* Think fragile, no think alike and no caring they gonna break
An organization in which employees think alike but aren’t friendly to one another, This is what culture?
Mercenary culture
*Mission same goal but they no nice
*Whats in it for me?
If all employees are friendly to one another, but everyone thinks differently and does their own thing, what’s there culture?
Networked culture
*Network event friendly but no think alike
An organization with friendly employees who all think alike represents a???
Communal culture
Company start as communal culture and then shift to network culture as they grow. T or f?
True
What are the specific culture types?
- Customer service
- Safety
- Diversity
- Sustainability
- Creativity
What is the service culture process?
- Service oriented leadership behaviour
- Service culture
- Service oriented employee behaviours
- Customer satisfaction
- Unit sales
“The degree to which employees agree about how things should happen within the organization and behave accordingly” This defines?
Culture strength
What are the 4 types of ways culture strength is described?
Strong
Weak
Organizational subculture
Differentiated
Differences between strong and weak culture?
Strong - agree about ways things are done and behaviour meet with expectations
High consensus (Agree abt what to happen)
High intensity (Everybody follow through with that belief)
Weak - employee disagree about way things are done or what is expected of them
What are some advantages of strong culture?
Good
1. differentiaties
2. Identify
3. Desired behaviour
4. stability
What are some disadvantages of strong culture
- Merging difficult
- Limit diversity of thought
- create extreme behaviour
- Adapting to environment more difficult
Subculture is a strong leader in one area of the company that engenders norms and values, or because different divisions in a company act independently and create their own cultures.
T or F?
True
Subculture is good when there is different demands and needs for their employees. But bad when their values dont match those of the larger organization. What is the culture now called?
Countercultures
What two processes can conspire to help keep cultures strong?
Attraction selection attrition (ASA)
Socialization
Define Attraction selection attrition (ASA).
Attraction: potential employees will be attracted to organizations whose cultures match their own personality.
Selection: Hire personality that match organization culture
Finally, those people who still don’t fit will either be unhappy or ineffective when working in the organization and what process is this? T or F?
True, this is the attrition part process.
Define socialization
The primary process by which employees learn the social knowledge that enables them to understand and adapt to the organization’s culture.
*Processes before employee starts and end till the leave
What are the 3 stages that socialization happens?
- Anticipatory stage
- Encounter stage
- Understanding and adaptation
What happens in the anticipatory stage?
- hears the name
- creates a picture of what its like to work there
- treated during recruitment
- insiders tell them
What happens at the encounter stage?
Begins the day an employee starts work. They compare info they got from previous stage to what organization is really like.
When does reality shock happen?
A mismatch of information that occurs when an employee finds that aspects of working at a company are not what they expected them to be
What happens at the understanding and adaption stage?
newcomers come to learn the content areas of socialization and internalize norms and expected behaviours.
What are the 6 dimensions addressed in most socialization efforts
- Goals and values
- Performance proficiency (Whats a good performer)
- People
- Language (Acronyms ,slang)
- History
- Politics (Informal and formal work relation)
What are different change interventions
Selection
Training
Performance management
Changes in leadership
Mergers and acquisitions
What is person organization fit (Pof) and how does it affect job performance and organizational commitment?
“Which a person’s personality and values match the culture of an organization”
Experience higher job satisfaction, less tress, higher trust, emotional attachment
What are 5 ways to encourage adaption to the organizational culture?
- Group new employees
- Orientation
- Hurdles before organizational membership
- Role models
- Remind they are now part of group and this define them LOL
What are 3 other major ways in organization to routinely and effectively help speed the socialization process of new comers..
Realistic job previews
Orientation program
Mentoring
When does realitsc job preview occure?
During anticipatory stage of socialization specifically during recruitment process. Shows pos and neg aspect of job.
So recognizing that a change in culture is a difficult
undertaking the steps that are
taken in variably are?
- Unfreezing
- Change intiative
- Refreezing
What does it mean to unfreeze?
when the organization comes to some realization that the status quo is unacceptable.
What does it mean to change initiative?
In the case of culture change, this may involve bringing in a new leader, introducing a new reward system, or implementing a new training program.
What does it mean to refreeze?
the newly developed attitudes and behaviours (i.e., new ways of thinking, feeling, and acting) need to “harden up,” becoming entrenched as new norms, values, and shared understandings.
How do organizations determine if cultural change is needed?
Interviews and focus groups (which are done by 3rd party)
Structured assessments
What is one structured diagnostic tool used successfully by consultants and change agents is the?
OCAI - Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument
What does the OCAI assessment of the first dimension show?
The distinguish of how some want:
Flexibility, discretion and dynamism
vs
Stability, order, and control
The second dimension distinguishes?
Internally oriented - integration, coordination and cohesion
Externally oriented -
Risk taking, entrepreneurship, and results
