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