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Bratton_PPT041.pptxOrganizational Leadership
John Bratton
Part 1
Contextualising leadership
Culture and leadership
Chapter 4
3
Learning outcomes
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:
Explain the nature of culture and its relationship to organizational culture.
Critically evaluate how organizational leaders seek to change or manage the culture of an organization.
Appreciate critical perspectives on culture and alternative cultural perspectives towards market relationships.
Introduction
Culture is:
Used to describe the internal behaviour and processes in a workplace.
Referred to external socio-economic and political forces that form part of the external context of organizations.
Cultural theorists believe that cultural is central to “all aspects of organizational life” (Alvesson, 2016, p. 26).
The nature of national cultures
Williams (1988) identifies three usages of the word ‘culture’ which are based on social values, norms and assumptions which people may not always be aware of:
As a process of intellectual, spiritual or aesthetic development.
As a reference to a particular way of life.
As reference to the arts.
Giddens and Sutton (2017, p. 995),
defined culture as “the values, norms, habits and ways of life characteristic of a coherent social group”.
The idea of a national identity can be socially constructed, malleable and is being constantly reproduced.
The nature of national cultures
The term “socialization” is used to describe how members of a society learn and embed various layers of culture, both by internalizing the norms, mores and values of society, and also by learning to perform social roles.
Schein (2017) describes culture as a concept directing us to notice the patterns in social engagement and behaviour.
Although the multinational company (MNC) has been theorized as the very embodiment of “disembedded society”, that is, it has severed any dependencies on social institutions in its domestic base (Lane, 2000), business leaders are nonetheless exposed to, and influenced by national cultures.
The nature of national cultures
The nine cultural dimensions found by House et al., (2014):
Uncertainty avoidance or the extent to which the society relies on rules to avoid uncertainty.
Power distance or views about the extent power should be unequally distributed.
Institutional collectivism, which refers to the identification of broader societal interests compared with individual goals.
In-group collectivism- expression of pride in social organizations and families.
Gender egalitarianism, which refers to the promotion of restriction of gender equalities.
The nature of national cultures
Assertiveness, the encouragement of toughness as opposed to submissiveness.
Future orientation, the forward planning and support for change compared with support for traditionalism.
Performance orientation, the extent to which people are encouraged and rewarded for improved performance.
Human orientation, the degree of cultural support for fairness and concern for others.
The nature of national cultures
For example, the Anglo group (US and UK) is found as competitive, results-orientated and less attached to their families in general. They also seemed to favour charismatic/value-based leadership. However, attempting to find cultural values as a general perception overlooks the divisions in societies, which mediate the responses of individuals according to their values linked to class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and region.
Modern pluralistic societies have always been fractured and fractious and values always openly contested (Malik, 2017).
The nature of national cultures
Dominant, subcultures and countercultures
The idea of a dominant culture implies that in a society with diverse cultures and class divisions a ruling class is able to persuade most of the population that its values and worldview should prevail.
It is widely held in many sociological perspectives that a shared belief system or a ruling class ideology has a crucial role in maintaining social order in class societies.
A culture can never be completely dominant as there is always the possibility that competing values will exist or that the experience of some sections of society such as the poor will, through their life experience, fail to be entirely convinced of the legitimacy of the ruling ideology.
The nature of national cultures
Within society, or, indeed, within a work organization, there may be groups who do not share the dominant values but express themselves through different values and symbols such as dress codes or language. For groups who are stigmatized within society their subculture may provide ways of coping and support for their self- respect and identity.
Where a subculture opposes or inverts the values of the dominant culture it may be regarded as counterculture. A counterculture may provide a symbolic resistance to a dominant culture or even a solution for its members as they can find a more positive self-definition within that culture.
Understanding organizational culture
The national cultures embedded within people need to be understood because they interweave explicitly and predictably with peoples’ thinking and action inside the workplace, and for leaders, they provide choices of who to be in various situations (Schein, 2017).
Although national culture is basic to social interaction: “Organizations are typically best seen as existing in a broader cultural context, with a variety of societal, industrial, regional, class, occupation, etc., cultures interplaying” (Alvesson, 2011, p.153).
The current trend in mainstream management literature about ‘corporate culture’ is that a leader’s influence and power causes others to act.
Understanding organizational culture
Central to this vision of corporate culture is the idea that with, “the right corporate vision, mission statement or leader, an organization can build a highly committed, unified culture that fosters productivity and profitability” (Martin 2002, cited in Alvesson, 2016, p.267).
However, while cultural control can help to reduce ambiguity and reinforce organizational processes it can also encourage ‘group think’ and hinder critical thinking and can lead to unproductive activities and mistakes (Alvesson, 2016).
Understanding organizational culture
The term ‘organizational culture’ found in the literature describes a system of ‘shared’ values and beliefs, co-produced by leaders and followers, which seek to reinforce employee behaviour so as to achieve the organization’s goals. However, organizational culture is permeated by the broader social culture as it is made of a multiplicity of cultural orientations.
e.g. Visible artifacts, stories and legends, rituals and ceremonies
The iceberg metaphor illustrating the three levels of organizational culture
Understanding organizational culture
In contrast to organizational culture, which reflects the invisible and intangible dimension of organizational life, organizational climate relates to managers’ and other employees’ evaluation of tangible workplace attributes (Norton et al., 2015).
Schneider and Reichers (1983) define organizational climate as employees’ perceptions of formal policies, the procedures that translate policies into guidelines, and the practices that act upon them. Climate is conceptualized as an artefact of organizational culture (Schein, 1990) as shown in Figure 4.2.
Understanding organizational culture
Organizational culture and organizational climate are:
two complementary constructs, but reveal overlapping nuances in the social and psychological life of complex organizations.
The former tends to take a sociological approach, using qualitative methodology, to examine symbolic and cultural forms of organizations.
Understanding organizational culture
Perspectives on organizational culture
Leadership scholars adopt different perspectives from cultural theorists on the study of organizational culture:
Durkheim’s concern for social solidarity through ideological consensus suggests that culture is the social ‘glue’ binding an organization together whereas Weber emphasizes that individuals behave ‘not out of obedience, but … because … of unreflective habituation to a regularity of life that has engraved itself as a custom’ (Weber, 1922/1968, p. 312, emphasis added).
Contemporary literature identifies four perspectives:
Managerialist
An organization-wide set of values devised by senior managers in order to produce a committed and loyal workforce, through managing employees.
Focus on the role of leaders, their style of leadership and the kinds of culture most appropriate to the achievement of the goals of the organization.
Symbolic-Interactionist
Shared meanings produced by workers and management in regular, routine contact – it is not fixed but subject to negotiation over time.
Perspectives on organizational culture
Contemporary literature identifies four perspectives:
Social Conflict
Rooted in Karl Marx’s analysis of capitalism.
Assumes that conflict is a basic feature of all organizations as members struggle for control over scarce resources.
Perspectives on organizational culture
Values, norms and beliefs are assumed to develop to maintain the power and control of management.
Joanne Martin (1992) found that organizational culture is characterized by so much ephemerality, ambiguity and change, and so exposes the truth claims of monolithic and united corporate cultures – exposing the naivety of thinking that there is no ambiguity in what cultural members believe and do.
Perspectives on organizational culture
Feminist
Gender is a central aspect of organizational analysis.
Gender, defined here as the “patterned, socially produced, distinctions between female and male, feminine and masculine (Ackers, 1992: 250), is crucial for understanding how people encounter support, encouragement and skepticism in organizational contexts (Alvesson and Billing, 2009, p. 1).
Gender analysis is important because some organizations (e.g. schools, media) directly play a part in the socializing processes in which people acquire gender identities (Helm Mills and Mills, 2000).
Perspectives on organizational culture
Organizational culture, climate and leadership
In terms of cultural change strategies, Alvesson (2011, p.152) explores three perspectives on organizational culture and leadership:
The role of leaders in creating an organizational culture.
Leadership as maintenance and reproduction of organizational culture.
Culture as framing and reframing by leadership.
Organizational culture, climate and leadership
While HR practices may ostensibly be able to create a particular culture during the organization’s formative years, over time “other complexities and other influences than founder values often undermine the impact of the latter” (Martin et al, 1985, cited in Alvesson, 2011, p.157).
There are also other influential factors such as:
Culture as a constraint on leadership
Ideology as part of culture
The role of employee engagement and voice
