WOP: Organisational culture

Question 1

What is meant by values?

Answer 1

Values are stable, evaluative beliefs that guide our preferences for outcomes or courses of action in a variety of situations

Question 2

What is meant by shared values?

Answer 2

Shared values are values that people within the organization or work unit have in common.

Question 3

What is meant by shared assumptions?

Answer 3

Shared assumptions are nonconscious, taken-for-granted perceptions or ideal prototypes of behaviour that are considered the correct way to think and act toward problems and opportunities.

Question 4

What is the difference between espoused and enacted values?

Answer 4

Espoused values are the stated values and enacted values are values we actually act upon.

Question 5

why do organisation culture models oversimplify the variety of organisations?

Answer 5

because as long as employees have diverse values, an organization’s culture will have noticeable variability.

Question 6

Name the seven main corporate cultures

Answer 6

The seven main corporate cultures are innovation (1), stability (2), respect for people (3), outcome orientation (4), attention to detail (5), team orientation (6) and aggressiveness (7).

Question 7

What are the effect of subcultures on the dominant culture?

Answer 7

Subcultures can enhance the dominant culture by espousing parallel assumptions and values.

Question 8

What is meant by counter cultures?

Answer 8

Countercultures embrace values or assumptions that directly oppose the dominant culture.

Question 9

What is the effect of counter cultures? (3)

Answer 9

Countercultures potentially create conflict and dissension among employees, but can also maintain the organization’s standards of performance and ethical behaviour and they act as spawning grounds for emerging values that keep the firm aligned with the evolving needs and expectations of the environment.

Question 10

What are artefacts

Answer 10

The observable signs and symbols of an organisations culture

Question 11

What are the four broad categories of artefacts?

Answer 11

Organisational stories and legends, Organisational language, Rituals and ceremonies and physical structure and symbols

Question 12

What effect organisational stories and legends have on listeners?

Answer 12

serve as powerful social prescriptions of the way things should or should not be done, also produce emotions in listeners and these emotions tend to improve listeners’ memory of moral of the story.

Question 13

What is included in org. language? (4)

Answer 13

how employees talk to each other, describe customers, express anger and greet stakeholders. It stands out when employees habitually use customized phrases and labels.

Question 14

What is meant by rituals? Give an example

Answer 14

Rituals are the programmed routines of daily organizational life that dramatize the organization’s culture. This includes how visitors are greeted.

Question 15

What are ceremonies in an organisation?

Answer 15

Ceremonies are planned displays of organizational culture, conducted specifically for the benefit of an audience.

Question 16

How does the physical structure of a building display the organisation’s culture?

Answer 16

this is built after the organizational culture and the structure subsequently reinforces or alters that culture.

Question 17

What is meant by the strength of an organisations culture?

Answer 17

how widely and deeply employees hold the company’s dominant values and assumptions.

Question 18

What are the three important cultures of organisational culture?

Answer 18

control system (1), it influences employee decisions and behaviour, social glue (2), it bonds people together and makes them feel part of the organizational experience and sense-making (3), it helps employees make sense of what’s going on.

Question 19

What three specific conditions must strong organisational cultures meet in order to improve organisational effectiveness?

Answer 19

The culture content is aligned with the external environment, Culture strength and using culture as an adaptive structure

Question 20

How does the benefits of culture depend on the strength?

Answer 20

It has to be moderate, but not too strong. A culture that is too strong leads to repression of subcultures and it leads to people locking in their mental models.

Question 21

What is meant by adaptive cultures?

Answer 21

An adaptive culture is a culture in which employees are receptive to change.

Question 22

In what way can organisation culture influence conduct of employees?

Answer 22

An organization’s culture influences the ethical conduct of its employees.

Question 23

What is meant by a bicultural audit?

Answer 23

A bicultural audit is a process of diagnosing cultural relations between companies and determining the extent to which cultural clashes will likely occur.

Question 24

Describe four different strategies for merging different strategies for merging different organisational structure

Answer 24

Assimilation; This occurs when employees at the acquired company willingly embrace the cultural values of the acquiring company.
Deculturation; This occurs when the acquiring firm imposes its culture on an unwilling acquired firm.
Integration; This occurs when merging companies combine two or more cultures into a new composite culture.
Separation; This occurs when merging companies remain distinct entities with minimal exchange of culture or organizational practices.

Question 25

What are the five main strategies for altering and strengthening corporate cultures?

Answer 25

actions of founders and leaders, aligning artefacts with the desired culture, introducing culturally consistent rewards and recognition, supporting workforce stability and communication. This strategy is mostly used for strengthening the corporate culture. Selecting job applicants whose values are compatible with the culture is also a way of strengthening and changing the culture.

Question 26

What type of leadership is associated with leading cultural change?

Answer 26

both transformational leadership and authentic leadership.

Question 27

What does the attraction-selection-attrittion (ASA) theory state?

Answer 27

organizations
have a natural tendency to attract, select and retain people with values and personality characteristics that are consistent with the organization’s character, resulting in a more homogeneous organization and a stronger culture.

Question 28

What is meant by organisational socialisation?

Answer 28

process by which individuals learn the values, expected behaviours and social knowledge necessary to assume their roles in the organization.

Question 29

What is meant by the psychological contract?

Answer 29

The psychological contract refers to the individual’s beliefs about the terms and conditions of a reciprocal exchange agreement between that person and another party.

Question 30

How may job applicants form perceptions of what the company will offer them and expects from them?

Answer 30

career and learning opportunities, job resources, pay and benefits, quality of management and job security.

Question 31

Contrast the two different types of contracts

Answer 31

Transactional contracts are primarily short-term economic exchanges, Relational contracts are long-term attachments that encompass a broad array of subjective mutual obligations.

Question 32

What are the three stages of organisational socialisation

Answer 32

Pre-employment socialisation, encounter (newcomers see how well their pre-employment expectations fit reality) and role management

Question 33

What is meant by a reality shock?

Answer 33

A reality shock is stress that results when employees perceive discrepancies between their pre-employment expectations and on-the-job reality.

Question 34

What is the problem with pre-employment socialisation?

Answer 34

The main problem with this stage is that it relies on indirect information.

Question 35

What is the effect of a reality shock?

Answer 35

A reality shock impedes the learning and adjustment process because energy is directed to coping with the stress.

Question 36

What is m=involved in role management?

Answer 36

elations with co-workers and supervisors are strengthened and people practice new role behaviours. It also includes resolving conflicts between work and non-work activities.

Question 37

What is an RJP?

Answer 37

A realistic job preview (RJP) is a method of improving organizational socialization in which job applicants are given a balance of positive and negative information about the job and work context.

Question 38

What are the usual effects of RJPs?

Answer 38

RJPs tend to reduce turnover and improve performance. It minimizes the reality shock.