Cultural Controls

Question 1

What are cultural controls and what do they do?

Answer 1

• Cultural controls are designed to encourage mutual monitoring; a powerful form of group pressure on individuals who deviate from group norms and values.
• In some collectivist cultures such as Japan, incentives to avoid anything that would disgrace oneself and one’s family are paramount.
• Cultures are built on shared traditions, norms, beliefs, values, ideologies, attitudes and ways of behaving. These cultural norms are embodied in written and unwritten rules that govern employee’s behaviours.

Question 2

Give examples of cultural controls

Answer 2

Codes of Conduct
•These are formal written documents which provide broad, general statements of organisational values, commitments to stake holders, and the ways in which mgmt. would like the organisation to function.
•Messages should be reinforced in formal training sessions and informal discussions
•4/5 FTSE 100 companies had explicit code of conduct in 2010
•Value based approach to drive ethical decision making and improve the organizations reputation.
•E-learning modules, ethics hotlines and whistle-blowing mechanisms.
Signing of a code of conduct on your first day

Group Rewards
• Providing rewards or incentives based on collective achievement also encourages cultural control. E.g. Profit Sharing or Gain Sharing.
• UK Fast, instead of individual cash rewards the money is pooled into a team event. These create shared memories, help team bonding, increase appreciation of people’s different personalities and reinforce the company’s values of being supportive.

Other Approaches To Shape Organisational Culture.
• Physical arrangements (office plans, architecture, and interior décor)
• Social arrangements (dress code, institutional habits, behaviours and vocabulary)
• Silicon Valley – informal cultures, casual dress, open office, delivers messages about innovation and employee quality.
• Disney – employees “cast members” “on and offstage”. A work shift is a “performance” and a job description is a “script”
• Tone at the top – management shaping culture from the top. There actions, behaviours and statements. Listening to whistle-blowers e.g. Sally Masterson Lloyds HBoS victimisation.