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Chapter 3
Organizational Culture, Socialization,
& Mentoring
Organizational Culture
• A set of values, beliefs, & assumptions shared
by members of an organization
• Culture influences employee attitudes &
behavior
• Culture can be a source of sustainable
competitive advantage
• Managers can influence (but not control)
culture
Where does culture come from?
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Founder’s values
Industry dynamics
National culture
Attraction – Selection – Attrition cycle
Understanding Organizational Culture
Antecedents
Organizational Culture
• Founder’s values
• Industry & business
environment
• National culture
• Senior leaders’
vision and behavior
• Observable artifacts
• Espoused values
Organizational
Structure &
Practices
• Reward systems
• Organizational
design
• Socialization
• Mentoring
• Decision
making
• Group
dynamics
• Communication
• Basic assumptions
Organizational
Outcomes
Group & Social
Processes
Collective Attitudes
& Behavior
• Work attitudes
• Effectiveness
• Job satisfaction
• Innovation &
stress
• Motivation
• Influence &
empowerment
• Leadership
Layers of Organizational Culture
• Observable Artifacts
– Physical manifestation of values:
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Acronyms
Manner of dress
Stories
Rituals, etc.
Cultural Artifact
Layers of Culture (continued)
• Espoused Values: explicitly stated set of
preferred values
– Concepts or beliefs
– Pertain to desirable end-states or behaviors
– Transcend situations
– Guide the behaviors and decision-making
– Ordered by relative importance
• Enacted values: values that actually exist
Layers of Culture (continued)
• Basic Assumptions
– Unobservable underlying assumptions
– Taken for granted – not explicitly stated or
analyzed
– People may not be conscious of them
– Resistant to change
– Inconsistent behavior is hard to imagine
Four Functions of Organizational Culture
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Four Functions of Org. Culture
• Organizational Identity
– Establishes the company’s business philosophy
– Ideally, employees will share the values
• Facilitate Collective Commitment
– Everyone knows what’s really important
– Peer pressure
• Social System Stability
– Helps you know what to expect from others
• Sensemaking
– Helps individuals make sense of novel situations
Competing Values Framework
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Opposing/Competing Values
• One company can have aspects of all four CVF
culture types
• The CVF culture types compete or contradict
each other
– Create paradoxes
• Too much (too little) of any one culture type
can create weaknesses
• Managing the paradoxes is the key
Changing Culture
• Changing people’s minds & values
• Can target artifacts, values, or assumptions
• Must be aligned with vision & strategic plan
– “Culture eats strategy for breakfast. You can have
the best plan in the world, and if the culture isn’t
going to let it happen, it’s going to die on the
vine”
• Mark Fields, President, The Americas, Ford Motor Co.
Culture Change Mechanisms
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Formal statements
Design of physical work space
Slogans
Training
Rewards
Stories
Measurement & Control
Leader reactions to crisis
Organizational Structure
Organizational Socialization
• Process by which new employees learn an
organization’s culture
• Three-Phase Model of Organizational
Socialization
Phase I: Anticipatory Socialization
• Occurs before you join the company
• Perceptions about different companies or
different industries
• Unrealistic expectations are a danger
– Realistic Job Preview (RJP)
• RJP is related to lower expectations, higher
performance, and less turnover.
Phase II: Encounter
• Once you start the new job
• Orientation programs
• Training
– Org. policies & procedures
– Norms, values, culture, expectations
Phase III: Change & Acquisition
• New employee masters their new job
• Requires a good understanding of
expectations
• Confidence
Mentoring
• A good tool to ingrain the culture in new
employees
• Gives new employees a social connection to
the organization
• What mentors do:
– Coach, give exposure, protect, get challenging
assignments, role model
Developing Networks
• Diversity of development relationships
– The number of different people that you’re
networked with
– The various social systems from which the
relationships come
• i.e., work, school, family, etc.
• Developmental relationship strength
– The quality of those relationships
Developmental Networks Associated
with Mentoring
Developmental Relationship Strength
Developmental Relationship Diversity
Weak Ties
Strong Ties
• D2
Low Range
• D2
Key:
D1 •
D1 •
•P
•P
D = developer
P = protege
Receptive
D1 •
High
Range
Traditional
• D2
D1 •
•
P
D3 •
•
P
• D4
Opportunistic
• D2
D3 •
• D4
Entrepreneurial
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Importance of Social Networks
• Mentored employees have:
– Higher pay, more promotions, more organizational
knowledge, better job performance, more skilled
• People with the broadest digital networks
were 7% more productive than those without
such networks