Module 3: Organisational Culture

Question 1

What are the features of culture?

Answer 1

• Culture exists within a given group (Schein, 1984).

Question 2

How do you define organisational culture? (Ehrhart & Schneider, 2016)

Answer 2

Effectiveness of organisation culture:
- aligns employees around organisational goals
- an informal way of influencing & controlling employees
- emphasises employee participation & well-being and enhances employee commitment & motivation.

Question 3

What do you need to know about organisational culture?

Answer 3

Culture captures the core assumptions and basic values that are pervasive across the organisation

Question 4

How does organisational culture impact organisational performance? (Alvesson, 2002)

Answer 4

• facilitates goal alignment & appropriate means for attaining them.
• builds cultural homogeneity & a ‘strong’ corporate culture.
• Contingency thinking increases efficiency.
• ‘Adaptive cultures’ are the key to good performance.

Question 5

How might organisational culture be influenced by organisational change? (Schein, 1984)

Answer 5

Can’t change an organisation without changing the culture.

Question 6

New organisational cultures…

Answer 6

Need to be taught to new members.

Question 7

Resistance to organisational change

Answer 7

“Change may not be possible without replacing large numbers of people who wish to hold on to all the original culture” (Start with the most on board, then work on those on the fence, eventually more people on board can increases chances of convincing those who are not on board).

Question 8

Organisational climate is not organisation culture

Answer 8

“Organisation climate is the “shared meaning organisational members attach to the events, policies, practices, & procedures they experience & the behaviours they see being rewarded, supported, & expected in their organisation.” (Ehrhart & Schneider, 2016).

Question 9

Integrated Models for Organisational Climate

Answer 9

Two dimensions:
- Tension: the degree to which there is a sense of stress or a ‘psychological’ stress at work (involves organisational factors experienced by members e.g. trust, conflict, morale, leader credibility, scapegoating) (ANXIETY AVOIDANCE).
- Readiness to change: degree to which people are likely to shift direction or adjust work habits to meet unanticipated challenges.

Question 10

4 Integrated Models (climate)

Answer 10

• Group
• Internal Process
• Developmental
• Rational Goal

Question 11

Group: low readiness to change, few events of high tension

Answer 11

• emotions: calmness comfort, & relaxation; open free flows of information
• information processing: high (internally focussed)
• change is challenging: consistent patterns of beliefs & attitudes of desirable behaviours

Question 12

Internal Process: high tension, low readiness

Answer 12

• emotions: disappointment, tranquility, shame, fatigue
• Information processing is low through informal means ( functional configuration usually high on vertical differentiation)
• Challenge is to keep people focussed on work processes without letting trust, conflict, obstruct organisation success.

Question 13

Developmental: low tension, high readiness

Answer 13

• emotions: enthusiasm & excitement
• information processing is high (externally focussed)
• Challenge focuses on the growth of the individuals & their quality or work life.

Question 14

Rational goal: high tensions, high readiness

Answer 14

• emotions: anger, anxiety, and distress
• information (internally focussed) not shared spontaneously but in a goal oriented way.
• challenge is a competitive climate - employees are not likely to experience positive emotion - experience fear of admitting mistakes & obtaining rewards.

Question 15

Organisational culture: external adaptation (Schein, 1984)

Answer 15

• mission
• goals
• means for accomplishing goals (i.e. organisation configurations)
• consensus around performance & ways of correcting performance

Question 16

Organisational culture: internal integration (Schein, 1984)

Answer 16

• common language
• boundaries setting (teamwork)
• power & status
• rewards & punishment
• ideology

Question 17

What do you need to know about changing an organisation’s culture ( bringing in new attitudes & behaviours)

Answer 17

• you’ll face resistance to some sort of change
• try to survey employees (climate)
• use organisational culture profile tools to audit & diagnose the organisational culture.

Question 18

Strategy, Culture, & Action *** (Johnson, 1992)

Answer 18

• any changes to the firm’s strategy will require changes to the firm’s organisational structure, practices, & policies, which will change the organisational culture & climate.
• strategic inertia can be overcome but there needs to be a ‘cultural audit’ , to prevent a ‘strategic drift’, which can lead to a ‘crisis’ or ‘trigger’.

Question 19

What is the paradigm?

Answer 19

A core set of beliefs & assumptions which fashion an organisation’s view of itself & its environment (Johnson, 1992, p. 29).

Question 20

Cultural Audit & Paradigm (Johnson, 1992)

Answer 20

• Managers should conduct a ‘cultural audit’ to make clear the ‘paradigm’, & this helps to identify sources of resistance.
• Johnson’s cultural web can be used to ‘filter’ through the development of strategy, & the paradigm’ perspective very much aligns with the processual notion of strategy (the external environment is ambiguous & managers need to interpret its environment through a lens of specific assumption & beliefs that have developed through work).

Question 21

Don’t forget how important organisational structure is for the development of organisational climate.

Answer 21

• the organisational culture influences organisational structure & practices, & the organisational structure & practices influences the organisational climate.

Question 22

Organisational culture is defined as… (Schein, 1984)

Answer 22

The pattern of basic assumptions which a group has invented, discovered, developed in learning to cope with its problems of external adaptation & internal integration ….considered valid, and taught to new members …as the correct way to perceive, think, & feel in relation to problems

Question 23

Organisational cultures are categorised as..(Johnson Webb, 1992)

Answer 23

• stories
• routines & rituals
• symbols
• control systems
• power structures
• organisation structures (emergence vs bureaucracy / flexibility vs rigidity/ collaboration vs competition)

Question 24

Organisational climate defined as…(Schneider, 2016)

Answer 24

The shared meaning organisational members attach to events, policies, practices & procedures they experience & the behaviours they see being rewarded, supported & expected in their organisation

Question 25

How might a firm understand its culture? (Birkinshaw)

Answer 25

• Conduct a culture survey
• make it anonymous

Question 26

Organisational capital & Human Capital (BSC)

Answer 26

when changing strategy, we will also have to change org. Culture, which requires a change in employees attitudes & behaviours regarding the organisation,

Question 27

Organisational culture consisting of…

Answer 27

• artifacts
• values
• assumptions

**the paradigm*