Organizational culture Flashcards
What is organizational structure?
A system of shared meaning held by mebers that distinguishes the organization from others
Name the seven cultures
Innovation and risk taking attention to detail Outcomes erientation people orientation team orientation Agressiveness Stability
Is culture a discriptive term?
Yes
What is a dominant culture?
Culture that expresses the core values of an organization
What is a strong culture?
a widely spread culture
has a greater influence on members, high behavioural control
What four things do cultures do?
Boundary defining
identity
Enhances stability
Sense making and control mechanism that guides empoyees
A strong culture supported by forrules and egulations ensures
empoyees will a predictable manner
Why are cultures more important than ever?
due to decentralisation
How does strong leadership forster a strong culture?
by communicating goals often
How does induvidual organization fit lead to culture?
Because it diffines who will be selected/promoted
What is organizational climate?
Shared perceptions organizational members have about their organization and work space
Is related to job satisfaction, involvement, commitment and motivation. A positive one leads to higher costumer satis. and financial performance
Climate can increase/decrease behaviours, think of diversity etc
EWC ethical work climate
shared concept of right or wrong, reflects the true values of an organization
explains mindset and expectations and will influence behaviour and how people feel they should behave
What is sustainability?
Practises that can be maintained over a long period of time.
is increasingly more important lately
Long term culture and put values into practise
Is inforced by talking about it or hiring
Innovative culutre is forstered by:
openness and uncontroversial collaborative vision driven etc.
it needs the right culture and actions to inforce itself, think of inforcing openness, working weird hours
Does culture have dysfunctionalities?
Yes especially strong cultures: can lead to polarization and lack of motivation
Institutionalization: culture itself is important, overly reinforced no change
Barriers to change
Barriers to diversity: newcomers must fit in so start to addapt to the culture, or hired to fit in. strong culture supports biases
Strenghtening dysfunctionality: strong negative culture increases turnover and decreases job satisfaction
What does culture mean for mergers?
It predicts the succes of the merger
How does a founder create culture?
They hire and keep only employees who think the same way
Indoctronate employees with thinking the same way
Their behaviour encourages empoyees to think and act the same way
How is culture kept alive?
Selection: we pick simular people or people tell they don’t want to join the organization
Top management: they astablisch norms by words and actions
Socialization: people grow familiar with the culture and actions are taken so that they do so
What are the three stages of socialization?
Prearrival stage: Period he learns before he arrives to the organization. school etc
Encounter stage: stage in socialization where employee arrives, here he sees what the organization is really like, might even resign
Meamorphis stage: new members change
Management relies on, formal, collective, fixed and serial socialization what will happen?
Newcomers differences will be stripped away
Management relies on informat, individuel variable and random what will happen
creativity and innovativety is stimulated
How do employees learn culture?
Stories: told by management to show early culture
Rituals: sequences of activities that express and reinforce key values, which goals and people are important
Material symbols: show who is important and what behaviour is important, think of limo’s, but also economic flights
Language
How does management create an ethical culture?
Be a visible rolemodel
Communicate ethical expectations
Provide ethical training
Visibly reward ethical acts and punnish none ethical ones
provide protective mechanisms: people should be able to fight unethical things without fear
Why is ethical climate so important?
It creates ethical leadership, this transfers down to employees
Right culture leads to ethical behaviour
Empoyees with same ethical values are likely to be promoted
What is positive organizational culture?
a culture that emphasized building on empoyees strenght and not punish bad ones
What does positive culture creates?
It builds employee strengths
Encourages vitality and growth
What is a spiritual culture?
The recognition that people have an inner life that is supported by meaningful work
can counterbalance stress people want to integrate personal lives values
What are spiritual cultures charactaristics?
benevolence: kindness to others
Strong sense of purpose
Trust and respect
open mindedness
How to trigger spritual cultures?
Trigger intrinsic rewards, demonstrate values, attitudes and behaviors, encourage to find a purpose. counseling
