Personal Reflection Paper

Module 8: Organizational Culture (Chapter 14)

Lecture 1:  Understanding Culture

Lecture 2:  Cultural Leadership

• Define “organizational culture”

• Discuss the business value of culture

• Explain Schein’s levels of culture

• Recognize the characteristics of a responsive,           as opposed to a resistant, culture

Lecture 1 Objectives

Organizational Culture Informal Definitions

• “The way we do things around here”

• “The unwritten rules about how to really behave”

• “The personality of the organization”

Organizational Culture Defined

Set of key values, assumptions,  understandings, and norms 

 Shared by members of an organization  Taught to new members 

Norms ‐ Shared standards that define what behaviors are  acceptable and desirable within a group of people

Importance of Culture

It integrates members so that they  know how to relate to one another

It helps the organization adapt to  the external environment

Internal Integration

Helps develop a collective identity

Aids members in working together effectively

Maintains day‐to‐day working relationships

Determines how people communicate in the  organization

Determines what behavior is acceptable 

Determines how power and status are allocated

External Adaptation

 Determines how the organization meets goals and deals with outsiders

 Helps the organization respond rapidly to: • customer needs  • the moves of a competitor

 Encourages employee commitment to the core purpose of the organization

 Determines what the organization needs to meet external challenges

 Embodies the values and assumptions needed by the organization to succeed

• Revenue: 166% • Work Force: 36% • Stock Price: 74% • Net Income: 1%

Business Value of Organizational Culture

No Culture Culture  Emphasis Emphasis

• Revenue: 166% 682% • Work Force: 36% 282% • Stock Price: 74% 901% • Net Income: 1% 756%

Business Value of Organizational Culture

No Culture Culture  Emphasis Emphasis

John P. Kotter and James L. Heskett, Corporate Culture and Performance 

Levels of Culture

Artifacts

Levels of Culture

Espoused Values

Artifacts

Levels of Culture

Basic, Underlying  Assumptions

Espoused Values

Artifacts

Levels of Culture

Responsive Cultures

• Responsive versus Resistant Cultures

• High Performance Cultures

• Strong Cultures

Responsive Cultures

Cultures can be responsive or resistant

Culture gap: Difference between desired and actual  values and behaviors

To restructure a culture, leaders should recognize when  members are: 

• Upholding the wrong values  • Not upholding the important values strongly

Responsive versus Resistant Cultures

John P. Kotter and James L. Heskett, Corporate Culture and Performance (New York: The Free Press, 1992), p. 51

High Performance Culture

• Based on a solid organizational mission or purpose

• Embodies shared responsive values that guide  decisions and business practices

• Encourages individual employee ownership of both bottom‐line results and the organization’s cultural  backbone

Combining Culture and Performance

Sources: Adapted from Jeff Rosenthal and Mary Ann Masarech, “High-Performance Cultures: How Values Can Drive Business Results,” Journal of Organizational Excellence (Spring 2003), pp.3-18; and Dave Ulrich, Steve Kerr, and Ron Ashkenas, Figure 11-2, GE Leadership Decision Matrix, The GE Work-Out: How to Implement GE’s Revolutionary Method for Busing Bureaucracy and Attaching Organizational Problems- Fast! (New York: McGraw Hill, 2002), p. 230

Strong Cultures

Degree of agreement among employees about the  importance of specific values and ways of doing things

 Widespread consensus results in a strong and cohesive culture  Extensive agreement results in a weak culture

At times strong culture can encourage the wrong values  and cause harm

Strong Cultures

CULTURE

Strong Cultures

Corporate Culture – Apple 

VIDEO