Week 12, Organizational Culture, Readings

Question 1

Pandey & Pandey (2017)
Summary

Answer 1

Here is a more detailed summary of the key points in the paper:

Introduction
- The paper introduces natural language processing (NLP) techniques into computer-aided content analysis methodology to allow for multi-word phrase analysis rather than just single words. This retains more linguistic context and meaning.

• The authors illustrate applying NLP techniques to develop and validate a measure of organizational culture. This responds to calls for alternative measures beyond surveys and interviews.
• The paper makes methodological contributions in demonstrating NLP techniques and makes substantive contributions in developing a validated measure of organizational culture.

NLP Background
- NLP involves using computers to analyze human language and text. It incorporates techniques from computational linguistics and artificial intelligence.

• NLP techniques allow identification of linguistic components like noun phrases and verb phrases that retain more meaning than single words.
• A review of NLP applications in management research shows uses for classification, information extraction, and decision making. Studies suggest bag-of-phrases analysis is better than bag-of-words.

Computerized Textual Analysis
- Recent studies demonstrate computerized textual analysis to measure concepts, but rely on single word dictionaries.

• Illia et al (2014) used an inductive approach to generate a dictionary through co-occurrence analysis rather than an a priori dictionary.
• But no studies have yet used NLP for phrase level analysis in developing dictionaries. This study does that.

Linguistic Components
- The authors extract noun phrases and verb phrases using NLP software. These retain more context than single words.

• For example, “new product” retains different meaning than just “new” and “product” separately.

Developing Organizational Culture Measure
- The authors review definitions, dimensions, and existing measures of organizational culture from the literature.

• They compile an initial dictionary deductively from existing measures, and expand it inductively using NLP on company documents.
• Phrases are manually content coded into the 6 cultural dimensions identified from the literature. Intercoder reliability exceeded 90%.

Validity Tests
- The authors test for content validity using expert reviews, finding over 80% agreement with classifications.

• For external validity, they compare scores of high and low performing companies, finding significant differences for annual reports.
• Dimensionality is supported through factor analysis and correlations between dimensions in line with past studies.
• Predictive validity is demonstrated through regression models showing culture scores predict profitability and market value measures.

Discussion
- Key contributions are introducing NLP techniques into computer-aided textual analysis and developing a validated organizational culture measure.

• Benefits include ability to measure concepts unobtrusively using archival data at large scale.
• Limitations include lack of specificity on language targets, vulnerability to impression management, and more etic perspective.
• Significant potential exists for management research by leveraging NLP and computerized textual analysis techniques.

The 6 organizational culture dimensions identified from the literature review are:

1. Competitiveness
2. Control- and coordination- oriented
3. Customer-oriented
4. Human-resource oriented
5. Innovation- and learning- oriented
6. Team-oriented

The authors compiled the coding dictionary for these 6 dimensions both deductively from existing measures and inductively using NLP to extract meaningful phrases from company documents. The 6 dimensions then formed the categories for manually content coding the phrases extracted via NLP.

Question 2

Schneider et al. - 2011 - Perspectives on organizational climate and culture
Summary

Answer 2

Here is an extremely detailed summary of the key points from the paper:

• The paper is about two related concepts in organizational psychology - organizational climate and organizational culture. Both are ways of understanding organizations and how they function psychologically.
• Organizational climate reflects employees’ perceptions of the policies, practices, procedures, routines, and rewards that are seen as expected and rewarded in an organization. It captures the implied meanings about the work environment.
• Organizational culture refers to the shared values, beliefs, ideologies, assumptions, myths, stories, language, rituals, and taboos in an organization. It represents the deeper layers of organizational life.
• The two concepts emerged from different academic traditions but have a similar focus on understanding organizations psychologically. However, there has been little integration between them.
• The paper reviews the history and conceptual issues surrounding both concepts.
• Early climate research focused on individual employee perceptions related to well-being. There were debates about levels of analysis and the dimensionality of climate measures.
• Contemporary climate research resolves many dilemmas through focusing climate measures on strategic organizational outcomes (“focused climates”). There is growing attention to climate’s antecedents like leadership.
• Culture emerged from anthropology/sociology traditions concerned with founder’s vision, symbols, rituals. But culture research hasn’t emphasized effectiveness.
• Culture surveys relate to outcomes, but qualitative case studies rarely demonstrate effectiveness linkages directly. Conceptual issues include integration vs differentiation of subcultures.
• The paper proposes an integrated “climcult” model incorporating strategic climates, culture of employee wellbeing, leadership, socialization, with a focus on effectiveness.
• This summary covers the history, conceptual issues, and proposed integration without reproducing any potentially copyrighted content from the original paper. Please let me know if you would like me to expand or clarify any part of the summary.

Question 3

Schneider at al (2017)
Summary

Answer 3

Here is an extremely detailed summary covering all the key points of the Schneider et al. (2017) paper on the history of organizational climate and culture research:

Introduction
- The paper provides a historical review of research on organizational climate and culture, with a focus on articles published in the Journal of Applied Psychology (JAP) since its first volume in 1917.

• Climate has roots in Gestalt psychology, focused on employees’ shared perceptions of policies, practices, procedures. Culture has roots in anthropology, focused on shared values, assumptions, identity.
• The goal is to review the climate and culture literature, trace historical developments, show JAP’s greater contribution to climate research.
• Four eras of research are covered: pre-1971 pioneering work, 1971-1985 construct foundations, 1986-1999 focused climates, 2000-2014 multilevel work and potential climate-culture integration.

Pre-1971 Era – Pioneering Work on Social Context
- Climate was invoked implicitly or explicitly in early seminal organizational psychology writings as an alternative to solely individual differences.

• Early work studied autonomy, supervisor relations, participation, collaboration – a broad range of themes related to employee well-being. Saw organizations as gestalts.
• Empirical research studied climate dimensions but at the individual level of analysis.
• No JAP articles on organizational culture in this period, though some societal culture differences examined. Elements of culture studied elsewhere.

1971-1985 Era – Foundations of Construct Definition and Measurement
Climate:
- Many approaches used to study the climate “elephant” from different vantage points, using different measures. Lacked coherence.

• James and Jones (1974) distinguished psychological and organizational climate levels of analysis. Cautioned aggregation without demonstrating validity.
• Schneider (1975) argued climate measures should describe level of analysis and items should use perceptual wording fitting that level.
• Issues of within-organization agreement on climate perceptions studied, such as Drexler (1977) and James et al. (1984).
• Schneider argued for focused climate measures aligned with specific outcomes. Resulted in safety, service, innovation focused climates.

Culture:
- Elements of culture discussed but no JAP articles. Pettigrew (1979) influenced subsequent research, demonstrating anthropological conceptualization and qualitative methods. Books appealed to practitioners.

1986-1999 Era – Focused Climates and the Culture-Climate Divide
Climate:
- Consensus grew on meaning and use of rwg agreement statistics like James et al (1984).

• Focused climate research increased, expanding beyond strategic outcomes to processes like justice perceptions.
• Leadership recognized as missing antecedent of climate. Studied initially by Kozlowski & Doherty (1989) and others.
• Service climate studied longitudinally, showing potential bi-directional relationships between climate, satisfaction, and performance.

Culture:
- Qualitative case studies remained dominant in culture research, focused on symbols, rituals, subcultures. Definitional debates continued.

• Survey measurement approaches developed, marked shift towards quantitative methods. Blurred lines between culture and climate measures.
• JAP studied relationships between subcultures and climate perceptions, and role of culture in training transfer.

2000-2014 Era – Multilevel Research and Culture-Climate Integration
Climate:
- Multilevel studies proliferated. Foci included safety, service, justice climates, leadership, climate strength, discrimination/diversity.

• Safety climate predicted accidents and was improved by leadership safety focus. Meta-analyses demonstrated validity.
• Service climate predicted customer satisfaction; justice climate predicted commitment, satisfaction. Meta-analyses demonstrated validity.
• Leadership established as antecedent of various climate types. Trickle-down and cross-level effects studied.
• Climate strength enhanced climate-outcome relationships. Studies identified antecedents like leadership and social interaction.
• New measurement issues studied like group referent wording, agreement indices, and configurational approaches.

Culture:
- Most JAP culture research published in this period. New topics included error management culture, values, HR practices, cultural alignment.

• Hartnell et al. (2011) meta-analysis related cultural values to performance, demonstrating quantitative culture research is feasible.
• Movement towards reconciling climate and culture, recognizing they address different facets of organizations’ social contexts. Models proposed.

Conclusions and Future Directions
- Major progress made in conceptualization, measurement, and understanding of climate over 50+ years. Crucible for multilevel theory.

• Leadership emergence as climate driver important. Interventions likely need to target leadership development.
• Limited knowledge on how climate and culture change over time and lifecycles.
• Artificial divide remains between climate and culture perspectives. Future work should strive to integrate them to understand organizations’ full social contexts. New theories and methods needed to study multiple climates and culture facets simultaneously.