L9 - Culture Flashcards
What it is the definition of Organisation Culture (Goldstein, 1983)?
- organisations, like persons, have values, these values are integrated into some coherent value system…
- Therefore, in any organisation, the members generally have a set of beliefs about what is appropriate and inappropriate organisational behaviour”
- this happens organically when people are put together
What is the definition of Corporate Culture?
- sometimes used interchangeably with the phrase “organisational culture” but:
- Organisational culture: naturally occurring phenomenon that all organisations possess
- Corporate culture: more management driven, in an attempt to increase organisational effectiveness
What is Culture?
- Invisible to us
- Tells us that ours is the correct way of doing things
- Based on our shared knowledge, experience, beliefs and values
- Allows us to understand our environment and others
- It provides rules and guidelines that allow us to predict, categorise and interpret others and the world around us
- Allows us to give and receive signals
- We know what is and is not acceptable
- It moulds the way we act and think –> why we like to move people around to see different sub-cultures
What are cultures you move between?
- Family
- Winder picture of the university
- Challenges you set yourself
- the group your collaborate with outside the university
Why bother looking at Culture?
Without exception, the dominance and coherence of culture proved to be an essential quality of the excellent companies. Moreover the stronger the culture and the more it was directed towards the marketplace, the less need there was for policy manuals, organization charts or detailed procedures and rules
Peters and Waterman (1982)
What is the Organisational Iceberg (Hellreigel, Slocum and Woodman (1998)?
- Above the water - Visible organisational culture - the way we say we get things done:
- Vision
- Strategy Goals
- Policies and Procedures
- Below the water - The invisible organisational culture - The way we really get things done:
- Beliefs
- Perceptions
- Values
- Traditions
- Stories
- Feelings
- Norms
What is the culture web Johnson and Scholes, 1999)?
- The paradigm in the middle in a circle, surrounded be various overlapping circles:
- Stories
- Symbols
- Power Structures
- Organisational
- Control systems
- Rituals and routines
How do people talk about organisational culture?
- Corporate structures
- To start a culture change all we need to do is two simple things:
Do dramatic story-worthy things that represent the culture we want to create. Then let other people tell stories about it.
Find other people who do story-worthy things that represent the culture we want to create. Then tell stories about them.
What are different types of Corporate Stories?
- Fear
- Hope
- Leadership
- Organisational values
- Innovation and collaboration, e.g. 3M – and post-it’s.
What are some Loughborough culture stories?
- We select stories of success and publicise these – in pictures, online and in stories
- Awards and recognition for high performers – and stories are told about them
- Lecturers tell you stories of successful students and what they have done.
Loughborough …. Where history begins
What is three levels of culture (Schein, 1985)
- he identified 3 levels of culture which get increasingly more difficult to understand:
- Visible artefacts –> They are visible; they can be seen, heard and felt. For example, what the dress code is; what kind of offices and layout is used; how employees address each other and how they communicate internally and externally.
- Shared values –> These are the public statements about what the organisational values are about. Many organisations now communicate what their “core values” are - the espoused values by which the organisation conducts its business.
- Basic Assumptions –> These are the foundations on which culture is based. Handy described this as “the ways things get done around here”. The underlying assumptions are often difficult to describe, are intangible and are often only really understood by people who’ve become accustomed to the way the organisation works.
- Underlying assumptions are usually invisible. You won’t find them written down anywhere. People may not want to talk about them. But they exist and are often powerful.
How is national culture defined?
The set of values, assumptions and beliefs that are dominant in the population of a particular country.
Arnold (2010)
What is the impact of national culture on organisational behaviour?
- Cross-national differences in the topics we have studied, e.g.
- Motivation (Gelfand et al., 2007):
- Employees in individualistic cultures are more likely to be highly motivated by jobs that provide autonomy
- Employees in collectivistic cultures are more likely to be motivated by jobs that involve co-dependency … collaboration?
What is the difference between Individualistic culture and Collectivistic culture with motivation and job design?
- Individualistic culture (Europe and North America) –> Employees are more likely to be highly motivated by jobs that provide autonomy
- Collectivistic Culture (East Asian) –> Employees are more likely to be highly motivated by jobs that involve co-dependency
What is the difference between n Individualistic culture and Collectivistic culture Attitudes and and behaviour changee?
- Individualistic culture
(European North American)
–> Unrealistic optimism and self-enhancement are common - Collectivistic culture
(East Asian)
–> Quite self-critical. Self-esteem gained from being a valued member of the group
