Chapter 14 - Organizational Culture
Deculturation
acquiring firm imposes its culture on unwilling acquired firm
Adaptive culture
an organizational culture that encourages confidence and risk taking among employees, has leadership that produces change, and focuses on the changing needs of customers
encounter (newcomer)
Test expectations against perceived realities
espoused values
The values that corporate leaders hope will eventually become the organization's culture, or at least the values they want others to believe guide the organization's decisions and actions
values
are stable, evaluative beliefs that guide our preferences for outcomes or courses of action in a variety of situations
shared values
* Conscious beliefs * Evaluate what is good or bad, right or wrong
socialization outcomes
-Higher motivation -Higher loyalty -Higher satisfaction -Lower stress -Lower turnover
Role Management (insider)
-strengthen work relationships -practice new role behaviors -resolve work-nonwork conflicts
3 main contingencies that link strong culture to improving organizational effectiveness
1 the culture content is aligned with the environment 2 the culture is moderately strong, not cultlike 3 the culture incorporates an adaptive culture.
Stages of Organizational Socialization
1) Pre-employment socialization (outsider) 2) Encounter (newcomer) 3) Role management (insider) 4) Socialization outcomes
5 strategies for altering and strengthening corporate culture
1. Actions of founders and leaders 2. Align artifacts with the desired culture 3. Introduce culturally consistent rewards/recognition 4. Support workforce stability and communication 5. Use attraction, selection, and socialization for cultural "fit"
Strategies for merging different cultures
1. Assimilation 2. Deculturation 3. Integration 4. Separation
Functions of a strong culture
1. Control Systems 2. Social Glue 3. Sense Making
Characteristics of a strong organizational culture
1. How widely and deeply employees hold the company's dominant values and assumptions. 2. In a strong organizational culture, most employees across all subunits understand and embrace the dominant values. 3. The values and assumptions are also institutionalized through well-established artifacts, which further entrench the culture.
Outcomes of culture strength...
1. Organizational performance 2. Employee well-being
Two functions of subcultures
1. They maintain the organization's standards of performance and ethical behavior. Employees who hold countercultural values are an important source of surveillance and critical review of the dominant order. They encourage constructive conflict and more creative thinking about how the organization should interact with its environment. Subcultures potentially support ethical conduct by preventing employees from blindly following one set of values. 2. To act as spawning grounds for emerging values that keep the firm aligned with the evolving needs and expectations of customers, suppliers, communities, and other stakeholders. Companies eventually need to replace their existing dominant values with ones that are more appropriate for the changing environment.
Characteristics of a week organizational culture
1. When the dominant values are held mainly by a few people at the top of the organization 2. The culture is difficult to interpret from artifacts 3. The cultural values and assumptions are unstable over time or highly varied across the organization.
Benefits of culture strength depend on....
1. Whether culture content fits the environment 2. Moderate, not cultlike, strength 3. An adaptive culture
Two elements of shared assumptions
1. non-conscious, taken for granted beliefs 2. Implicit Mental Models, ideal prototypes of behavior
Control Systems
A deeply embedded for of social control that influences employee decisions and behavior.
Separation works best when...
Firms operate successfully in different businesses requiring different cultures
Assimilation
Acquired company embraces acquiring firm's culture
Assimilation works best when...
Acquired firm has a weak culture and acquiring firm's culture is strong and successful
attraction
Applicants self-select based on compatible values
Relational Psychological contract
Belief that organization will take care of employee in return for employee's continued loyalty
Social glue
Bonds people together and makes them feel part of the organizational experience
Culture is ________________ while artifacts are _____________________
Cognitive Observable
attrition
Employees with incompatible values quit or are removed.
Integration works best when...
Existing cultures at both firms are relatively weak or have overlapping values and can be improved.
selection
How well the person "fits in" with the company's culture is often a factor in deciding which job applicants to hire.
Seven Corporate Cultures
Innovation Stability Respect for People Outcome Orientation Attention to Detail Team Orientation Aggressiveness
9 most frequently stated values
Integrity Teamwork Innovation Respect Quality Safety Community Communication Hard Work
preemployment socialization
Learn about the organization and job, form employment relationship expectations
Adaptive cultures have a strong?
Learning orientation
Integration
Merging companies combine the two or more cultures into a new composite culture
Physical Structures that support controlling and competitive cultures
More individual space More formal than informal space High/medium enclosure More fixed environment More structured, symmetrical layout
Physical Structures that support collaborative and creative cultures
More team space Informal space Low/medium enclosure Flexible environment Organic layout
Adjustment Process
Newcomers adapt to new work roles, team norms, etc.
learning process
Newcomers make sense of the organization's physical, social, and strategic/cultural dynamics
sense making
Organizational culture helps employees make sense of what goes on and why things happen in the company.
The problem with cultural models
Over simplify the diversity of cultural values Organizations ignore the shared assumptions aspects Many measures of organizational culture incorrectly assume that organizations have a fairly clear, unified culture that is easily decipherable
Examples of artifacts
Physical structures ceremonies language Stories The way visitors are greeted Physical layout How employees are awarded
Deculturation works best when...
Rarely works—may be necessary only when acquired firm's culture is dysfunctional but its employees aren't yet aware of the problems
Transactional Psychological Contract
Short-term economic exchanges
psychological contract
The individual's beliefs about the terms and conditions of a reciprocal exchange agreement between that person and another party (typically an employer)
Values are enacted when
They actually guide and influence decisions and behavior
Why are VERY strong corporate cultures (cults) maybe less effective?
They lock people into mental models which blind them to new opportunities Maybe dysfunctional if they suppress dissenting cultures
attraction-selection-attrition (ASA) theory
a theory that states that organizations have a natural tendency to attract, select, and retain people with values and personality characteristics that are consistent with the organization's character, resulting in a more homogeneous organization and a stronger culture
enacted values
Values and norms actually exhibited in the organization
Organizational Language
Words used to address co-workers, describe customers, express anger, greet stakeholders, etc Used by leaders to anchor or change culture Also differentiates subcultures
Counterculture
a culture whose values run counter to those of the establishment
shared assumptions
a deeper element that some experts believe is the essence of corporate culture
Realistic Job Preview (RJP)
a method of improving organizational socialization in which job applicants are given a balance of positive and negative information about the job and work context
bicultural audit
a process of diagnosing cultural relations between companies and determining the extent to which cultural clashes will likely occur
Workforce Stability is important because....
because it takes time for employees to fully understand the organization's culture and how to enact it in their daily work lives. The organization's culture can literally disintegrate during periods of high turnover and precipitous downsizing because the corporate memory leaves with these employees.
If the dominant values are _________________ with the environment, then employees are ____________ ____________ to engage in decisions and behaviors that _____________ the organization's interaction with that environment.
congruent more likely improve
Good behavior is driven by...
ethical values
Artifacts of Organizational Culture
physical structures language rituals and ceremonies stories and legends
Subculture
located throughout the various divisions, geographic regions, and occupational groups throughout an organization. Some subcultures enhance the dominant culture by espousing parallel assumptions and values. Others differ from but do not conflict with the dominant culture.
Separation
merging companies remain distinct entities with minimal exchange of culture or organizational practices
Studies have found only a ___________________________ ________________________ relationship between culture strength and organizational effectiveness.
moderately positive
Ceremonies
planned displays of organizational culture, conducted specifically for the benefit of an audience
effective socialization supports newcomers _____________________ ___________________
organizational comprehension
4 categories of artifacts
organizational stories and legends language rituals and ceremonies physical structures and symbols
Organizational stories and legends serve as.....
powerful social prescriptions of the way things should (or should not) be done. They add human realism to corporate expectations, individual performance standards, and the criteria for getting fired. Stories also produce emotions in listeners, and these emotions tend to improve listeners' memory of the lesson within the story.
organizational comprehension
refers to how well employees understand the organization, including its strategic direction, social dynamics, and physical layout
The benefits of a strong culture depend on
the culture's dominant values and assumptions are aligned with the external environment.
Artifacts
the observable symbols and signs of an organization's culture
organizational socialization
the process by which newcomers learn an organization's values and norms and acquire the work behaviors necessary to perform jobs effectively
Rituals
the programmed routines of daily organizational life that dramatize an organization's culture
Reality shock
the stress that results when employees perceive discrepancies between their pre-employment expectations and on-the-job reality
dominant culture
the values and assumptions shared most consistently and widely by the organization's members
organizational culture
the values and assumptions shared within an organization
Types of Psychological Contracts
transactional and relational
Stories and legends are most effective when they
•Describe real people •Are assumed to be true •Known throughout the organization •Are prescriptive