management
Rock1027
Cultures.pptEmpowering Human Potential at Work
MGT 551
Understanding Cultures
- Influences
- Moods
- Social support
- Information
- Climate
- Performance
- Comparisons
- Dissent
- Reputation
- Roles
Chapter 7 Topics
- Norms
- Rituals
- Change
- Diversity
- Prejudice
- Universalism – Particularism
- Individualism– Collectivism
- Power distance
- Cultural Intelligence
Chapter 8 Topics
The “personality” of the organization
The system of shared actions, values, and beliefs that develops within an organization and guides the behavior of its members
What is Organizational Culture?
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Based on “our” belief system
- Evident in our values, vision and mission statements
- Noted in our policies, catalogs, handbooks and materials.
Culture is…
How “we” express ourselves and communicate amongst ourselves
- Frequent use of e-mail
- Conference calls (WebEx) and meetings
- Use of plans and reports (strategic planning, plans and forecasts, use of data information systems)
Culture is…
How “we” do things
- System rules
- Procedures that correlate to policies
- Plans, forecasts, and outcomes
- Reports and key metrics
Culture is…
What “we” stand for
- Practices – ethical?
- Economic growth
- Stakeholder success
Culture is…
Great cultures are customer driven
and performance oriented
Strong cultures are clear,
well defined and widely shared among members
Strong Organizational Cultures
Great cultures often value employees as highly as they value customers.
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- A widely shared real understanding of what the firm stands for, often embodied in slogans
- A concern for individuals over rules, policies, procedures, and adherence to job duties
- A recognition of heroes whose actions illustrate the company’s shared philosophy and concerns
Characteristics
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By linking values and actions, the organization taps into some of the strongest and deepest realms of the individual.
The tasks a person performs are given not only meaning but value: what one does is not only workable but correct, right, and important.
Slogans activity here – name a company and its slogan and does it do a good job of communicating the company’s culture
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
Observable Culture
Observable culture is what you see and hear
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- A belief in ritual and ceremony as important to members and to building a common identity
- A well-understood sense of the informal rules and expectations so that employees and managers know what is expected of them
- An understanding and appreciation of the policies and procedures of the organization, and that these are enforced fairly.
Characteristics
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Successful organizations share some common cultural characteristics. Organizations with “strong cultures” possess a broadly and deeply shared value system.
Unique, shared values can provide a strong corporate identity, enhance collective commitment, provide a stable social system, and reduce the need for formal and bureaucratic controls.
- Historic accounts (sagas) of what makes the organization unique, or it has withstood to continue.
- Cultural symbols (often logos) that serve to transmit some cultural meaning.
Characteristics
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Analyzing Organizational Culture
Culture Types
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Ask class: “Is it possible for an organization to have multiple cultures within it?”
Answer: Yes
- Use examples from Ai / MC to illustrate various situations of culture disparity.
Constructive culture
- members are encouraged to work together in ways that meet higher order human needs
Passive / defensive culture
- members tend to act defensively in their working relationships
Aggressive / defensive culture
- members tend to act forcefully in their working relationships to protect their status and positions
Culture Types
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Using an instrument called the Organizational Culture Inventory, or OCI, people describe the behaviors and expectations that make up the prevailing cultures of their organizations. The OCI maps use these results to describe three alternative types of organizational cultures.
- First – observable culture
- Second – recognize that shared values can play a critical part in linking people together
- Third – common cultural assumptions
Layers of Cultural Analysis
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Important parts of an organization’s culture emerge from the collective experience of its members. These emergent aspects of the culture help make it unique and may well provide a competitive advantage for the organization. Some of these aspects may be directly observed in day-to-day practices.
Review Figure 16.1 – page 370
How can one “observe an organization’s culture?”
- The formality of the culture
- How members dress
- How members communicate (email, phone, verbally face to face)
Shared Values
- Not everyone has to share the exact same values, but everyone must be exposed and informed of the importance of the organization’s values
- Example – at a college – “The student is the customer”
Cultural assumptions
- “taken-for-granted truths” – difficult to observe
- Example – at a college, the focus should be on student success
- External adaptation
- Internal integration
Two Areas of Culture
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Involves reaching goals and dealing with outsiders regarding tasks to be accomplished
- Methods used to achieve the goals
- Developing ways to measure accomplishments
- Methods of coping with success and failure
- Creating explanations for not meeting goals
External Adaptation
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Through their shared experiences, members may develop common views that help guide their day-to-day activities.
Organizational members need to know the real mission of the organization, not just the pronouncements to key constituencies such as stockholders.
From talking with one another, members will naturally develop an understanding of how they contribute to the mission via interaction. This view may emphasize the importance of human resources.
Involves answering important goal-related questions regarding coping with reality
- What is the real mission?
- How do we contribute?
- What are our goals?
- How do we reach our goals?
- What external forces are important?
- How do we measure results?
- What do we do if specific targets are not met?
- How do we tell others how good we are?
- When do we quit?
External Adaptation
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The final issues in external adaptation deal with two important, but often neglected, aspects of coping with external reality.
First, individuals need to develop acceptable ways of telling outsiders just how good they really are.
Second, individuals must collectively know when to admit defeat.
- Deals with the creation of a collective identity and with finding ways of matching methods of working together
- Important aspects of working together
- Deciding who is a member and who is not
- Developing an informal understanding of acceptable and unacceptable behavior
- Separating friends from enemies
Internal Integration
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The process of internal integration often begins with the establishment of a unique identity; that is, each collection of individuals and each subculture within the organization develops some type of unique definition of itself.
Real progress toward innovation can begin when group members collectively believe that they can change important parts of the world around them, and that what appears to be a threat is actually an opportunity for change.
A group of individuals with a unique pattern of values and philosophy that are not inconsistent with the organization’s dominant values and philosophy
Subculture
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Strong subcultures are often found in task forces, teams, and special project groups in organizations. The subculture emerges to bind individuals working intensely together to accomplish a specific task.
Ask class “Give me an example of a subculture within an organization”
- Various departments act as subcultures
- Use the example of eTime and how various departments handle time off (comp days)
A group where the pattern of values and philosophies outwardly reject those of the larger organization or social system
Counterculture
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Within an organization mergers and acquisitions may produce adjustment problems. Employers and managers of an acquired firm may hold values and assumptions that are quite inconsistent with those of the acquiring firm. This is known as the “clash of corporate cultures.”
Capitalizing on the Positive Aspects of an Organization’s Culture
- Talk to positive individuals in the organization and ask them how THEY believe the organization can improve.
- Give those individuals the opportunity to TAKE ACTION to improve the organization.
- Publicly reinforce and reward behaviors that support the desired organizational culture.
Accentuate the Positive!
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Diversity and Global Cultures
DIVERSITY IN THE WORKPLACE
Business and Diversity
Glass Ceiling
Career advancement barrier to women and minorities
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DIVERSITY IN THE WORKPLACE
Managing Diversity
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GLOBAL CULTURES
Culture Shock
- Culture shock comes from discomfort in cross-cultural situations
- Stages include:
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GLOBAL CULTURES
Cultural Intelligence
Includes:
- Self awareness
- Flexibility
- Sensitivity
- Willingness to learn
- Willingness to
modify behavior
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GLOBAL CULTURES
Cultures
- Low – Context
- High – Context
- Monochronic
- Polychronic
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Hofstede’s Five Value Differences Among National Cultures
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GLOBAL CULTURES
Project GLOBE
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