Organizational Culture Flashcards
Managing Culture
- Managers should consider culture as critical as structure and strategy in establishing
organizational foundations of high performance. - Most critical for external adaptation and internal integration: The ability to analyze and
understand the culture of the company
Organizational Culture
The system of shared beliefs and values that develops within an organization or within its sub-units, and that guides the behavior of its members.
Levels of cultural analysis
Upside down pyramid:
Observable culture (surface aspects of organizational culture)
->
Shared values
->
Common assumptions (Deeper/hidden aspects of organizational culture)
GLOBE study
Organizational culture embedded in national culture
Benefits of workplace diversity
Easier to recruit good people
Diverse customer/business partners
Creativity and innovation
Implementing a Diversity Management Program
Examine structures and processes
Take a long-term view
Get support for change (particularly from the top)
Get the involvement of all
Subcultures
- Unique patterns of values and philosophies within a group that are not inconsistent with the dominant culture of the larger organization.
- Every large organization imports potentially important subcultural groupings when it
recruits employees from the larger society.
(f.e. you work in a company with other coworkers that studied at TUM)
Counter cultures
Patterns of values and philosophies that outwardly reject those of the larger organization or social system.
- outwardly rejects the culture of the larger organisation or social system, inconsistent (e.g. after merger of two companies)
Developing the Multicultural Organization
Promote pluralism
Integrate structures
Break down societal informal groups (e.g. some groups have better access to resources)
Break down links
Organizational Styles
- The exclusionary organization (exclusive members, no outsiders)(discrimination)
- The club organization (e.g. gentlemens club; you need members to sponsor you)
- The compliance organization (complies with the law, nothing more)
- The affirmative action organization (takes action for diversity & against discrimination)
- The redefining organization (transition towards being multicultural)
- The multicultural organization (dif. cultures work happily together)
- The transcultural organization (ideal, utopic, giving up boundaries, no strict values only basic principles)
Functions of organizational culture
External Adaptation:
* Tasks to be accomplished: given in the mission statement
* Goals and methods used to achieve goals (in dealing with outer environment)
* Methods of coping with success and failure * Disengagement (when do we actually stop our business)
Internal Integration:
* Creation of a collective identity
* Deciding who is a member and who is not
* Developing an informal understanding of acceptable and unacceptable behavior
* Decide how to allocate power, status and authority * Establish a shared understanding about rewards and sanctions
Cultural models
Internal process model (hierarchical culture)
-> orderly, clear reporting structure
Open systems model (developmental culture)
-> taking in new info, new people
Human relations model (group culture)
-> team structure
Rational goal model (rational culture)
Picking a firm by its culture
Academies
- training and developing people
Fortresses
- fighting against others
Clubs
- seniority, fitting in, status
Baseball teams
- talent and performance, not long-term
Values and organizational culture
- Linking actions and values
- Benefits of shared values
-> provide a strong corporate identity
-> enhance collective commitment
-> provide a stable social system
-> reduce the need for formal and bureaucratic controls
