Download Organizational Culture Langton Ch 10

CHAPTER
10
Organizational Culture
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Organizational Culture
• Refers to a system of shared meaning held by
members that distinguishes the organization
from other organizations
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Characteristics of Organizational Culture
• Innovation and risk-taking
– The degree to which employees are encouraged to be
innovative and take risks.
• Attention to detail
– The degree to which employees are expected to exhibit
precision, analysis, and attention to detail.
• Outcome orientation
– The degree to which management focuses on results or
outcomes rather than on technique and process.
• People orientation
– The degree to which management decisions take into
consideration the effect of outcomes on people within the
organization.
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Characteristics of Organizational Culture
• Team orientation
– The degree to which work activities are organized around
teams rather than individuals.
• Aggressiveness
– The degree to which people are aggressive and
competitive rather than easygoing.
• Stability
– The degree to which organizational activities emphasize
maintaining the status quo in contrast to growth.
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Exhibit 10-1 Contrasting Organizational Cultures
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Levels of Culture
• Artifacts
– Aspects of an organization’s culture that you see, hear,
and feel.
• Beliefs
– The understandings of how objects and ideas relate to
each other.
• Values
– The stable, long-lasting beliefs about what is important.
• Assumptions
– The taken-for-granted notions of how something should
be in an organization.
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Exhibit 10-2 Layers of Culture
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Culture’s Functions
• Social glue that helps hold an organization together.
– Enhances social system stability and provides appropriate
standards for what employees should say or do.
– Boundary-defining.
– Conveys a sense of identity for organization members.
– Facilitates commitment to something larger than one’s
individual self-interest.
– Guides and shapes the attitudes and behaviour of
employees and serves as a “sense-making” and control
mechanism.
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Decentralized Organizations & Culture
• Today’s trend toward decentralized organizations makes
culture more important than ever, but it also also makes
establishing a strong culture more difficult.
– Employees organized in teams may show greater
allegiance to their team and its values than to the values
of the organization as a whole.
– In virtual organizations, the lack of frequent face-to-face
contact makes establishing a common set of norms very
difficult.
• Strong leadership that communicates frequently about
common goals and priorities is especially important in
innovative organizations.
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Culture Creates Climate
• Organizational climate
– refers to the shared perceptions organizational
members have about their organization and work
environment.
– team spirit at the organizational level
• When everyone has the same general feelings
about what is important or how well things
are working, the effect of these attitudes will
be more than the sum of the individual parts.
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Ethical Dimension of Culture
• Organizational cultures are not ethically
neutral
• Ethical work climate (EWC)
– Forms over time as part of the organizational
climate
– Shared concept of right and wrong behaviour in
the workplace
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Ethical Dimension of Culture
• Ethical climate theory (ECT) and Ethical climate
index (ECI)
– Categorize and measure the ethical dimensions of
organizational cultures
– Ethical climate reflects the true values of the organization
and shapes the ethical decision-making of its members
• Five climate categories most prevalent:
–
–
–
–
–
Instrumental
Caring
Independence
Law and code
Rules
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Do Organizations Have Uniform Cultures?
• Organizational culture represents a common
perception held by the organization members.
• Core values or dominant (primary) values are
accepted throughout the organization.
– Dominant culture
• Expresses the core values that are shared by a majority
of the organization’s members.
– Subcultures
• Tend to develop in large organizations to reflect
common problems, situations, or experiences.
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Strong vs. Weak Cultures
• Strong Cultures
– the organization’s core values are both intensely
held and widely shared.
– have a great influence on the behaviour of its
members
– builds cohesiveness, loyalty, and organizational
commitment
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Reading an Organization’s Culture
• Stories
• Rituals
• Material Symbols
• Language
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Exhibit 10-3 How Organizational Cultures Form
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Keeping a Culture Alive
• Selection
– Identify and hire individuals who will fit in with
the culture.
• Top Management
– Senior executives establish and communicate the
norms of the organization.
• Socialization
– Organizations need to teach the culture to new
employees.
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A Socialization Model
• Prearrival stage
– explicitly recognizes that each individual arrives with a set of
values, attitudes, and expectations about both the work to be
done and the organization.
• Encounter Stage
– confronts the possibility that expectations—of the job, coworkers, and the organization in general—may differ from
reality.
• Metamorphosis Stage
– the new employee changes or goes through the metamorphosis
stage. Outcomes: Productivity, Commitment, Turnover
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Exhibit 10-4 A Socialization Model
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The Liabilities of Organizational Culture
• Culture can have dysfunctional aspects in
some instances.
– Barrier to Change
• When organization is undergoing change, culture
may impede change.
– Barrier to Diversity
• Strong cultures put considerable pressure on
employees to conform.
– Barrier to Mergers and Acquisitions
• Merging the cultures of two organizations can be
difficult, if not impossible.
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Strategies For Merging Cultures
• Assimilation
– The entire new organization is determined to take
on the culture of one of the merging
organizations.
• Separation
– Organizations remain separate and cultures are
maintained.
• Integration
– A new hybrid culture is formed.
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Changing Organizational Culture
• Trying to change the culture of an organization is
quite difficult and requires that many aspects of the
organization change at the same time, especially
the reward structure.
• Culture is such a challenge to change because it
often represents the established mindset of
employees and managers.
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Changing Organizational Culture
Change is most likely when most or all of the
following conditions exist:
•
•
•
•
A dramatic crisis
Turnover in leadership
Young and small organizations
Weak culture
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Creating an Ethical Culture
•
Be a visible role model.
–
•
Communicate ethical expectations.
–
•
Set up seminars, workshops, and similar ethics training programs.
Visibly reward ethical acts and punish unethical ones.
–
•
Minimize ethical ambiguities by creating and disseminating an
organizational code of ethics.
Provide ethics training.
–
•
Employees will look to the actions of top management as a
benchmark for appropriate behaviour.
Include in managers’ performance appraisals a point-by-point
evaluation of how their decisions measured against the
organization’s code of ethics.
Provide protective mechanisms.
–
Provide formal mechanisms so employees can discuss ethical
dilemmas and report unethical behaviour without fear of reprimand.
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Creating a Positive Organizational Culture
• Building on employee strengths
• Rewarding more than punishing.
• Emphasizing vitality and growth.
• Limits of positive culture.
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Summary
1. Reward systems generally signal the parts of
the organization that are valued.
2. Culture can have both positive and negative
effects on organizations.
3. Organizational culture can make change
difficult, if not impossible.
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OB at Work: For Review
1. What is organizational culture, and what are its
common characteristics?
2. What are the functional effects of organizational
culture on people and the organization?
3. What factors create and sustain an organization’s
culture?
4. How is culture transmitted to employees?
5. What are the liabilities of organizational culture?
6. How can an ethical organizational culture be
created?
7. What is a positive organizational culture?
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OB at Work: For Managers
■ Realize that an organization’s culture is
relatively fixed in the short term. To
effect change, involve top management
and strategize a long-term plan.
■ Hire individuals whose values align with
those of the organization; these
employees will tend to remain committed
and satisfied. Not surprisingly, “misfits”
have considerably higher turnover rates.
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OB at Work: For Managers
■ Understand that employees’ performance and
socialization depend to a considerable degree on
their knowing what to do and not do. Train your
employees well and keep them informed of
changes to their job roles.
■ Be aware that your company’s organizational
culture may not be “transportable” to other
countries. Understand the cultural relevance of
your organization’s norms before introducing
new plans or initiatives overseas.
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