OB Ch 13

Organizational Language

Words used to address co-workers, describe customers, express anger, greet stakeholders, etc.

Organizational Culture

values and assumptions shared within an organization.

Shared values

values that people within the organization or work unit have in common and place near the top of their hierarchy of values

Organizational Socialization

the process by which individuals learn the values, expected behaviors, and social knowledge necessary to assume their roles in the organization

Rituals

the programmed routines of daily organizational life that dramatized the organization's culture

Cultural Content

the relative ordering of values

Reality Shock

the stress that results when employees perceive discrepancies between their preemployment expectations and on-the-job reality.

Dominant culture

themes shared most widely by the organization's members

Aggressiveness

competitive, low emphasis on social responsibility

Adaptive Cultures

*-employees focus on the changing needs of customers and other stakeholders, and support initiatives to keep pace with those changes -External focus - firm's success depends on continuous change -Focus on processes more than goals -Employees assume responsibility for organizational performance 1) Proactive and quick 2) Seek out opportunities

Artifacts

*-the observable symbols and signs of an organization's culture -Reinforce and potentially support changes to an organization's culture -Serve as evidence of company's culture (values & assumptions cannot be observed - artifacts can)

Adjustment process of socialization: newcomers need to

-Adapt to their new work environment -Develop new work roles that reconfigure social identity -Adopt new team norms -Practice new behaviors

Stages of Socialization: Stage 1 Pre-employment socialization (outsider)

-All learning and adjustment before first day of work (gathering info) -Form employment relationship expectations

Changing and Strengthening Organizational Culture: D. Attracting, Selecting, and Socializing Employees

-Attraction-selection-attrition (ASA) theory

Stages of Socialization: Stage 2: Encounter (newcomer)

-Begins first day in new work environment -Test prior expectations with perceived reality -Reality shock

Artifacts: Physical Structures and Symbols

-Building structures - may shape and reflect culture -Office design and content convey cultural meaning (furniture, office size, wall hangings)

Effects of Subcultures

-Can enhance the dominant culture by espousing parallel values and assumptions -Can emphasize somewhat different but not competing values -Countercultures directly oppose the firm's dominant values -Subcultures and countercultures potentially create conflict and dissension

How do subcultures maintain standards of performance and ethical behavior

-Countercultures are an important source of surveillance & critique over the dominant order -Countercultures encourage constructive conflict and more creative thinking about how the organization should interact with its environment -Subcultures prevent employees from blindly following one set of values, and thereby help the organization to abide by society's ethical values

Strong organizational cultures do not always result in higher organizational performance because:

-Culture content might be misaligned with the organization's environment -Strong cultures may focus on mental models that blind employees to new opportunities and unique problems -Strong cultures suppress dissenting subcultural values

The Most effective stories and legends...

-Describe real people -Assumed to be true -Known throughout the organization -Are prescriptive: the advise people what to do or not to do

Changing and Strengthening Organizational Culture: A. Actions of founders and leaders

-Founders are often visionaries who provide a powerful role model for others to follow -Founders establish organization's culture & are sometimes able to reshape the culture if they are... -Transformational leaders - communicate and enact their vision

Why Is Organizational Culture Important?

-In strong cultures, organizational values are long-lasting, dispersed across subunits, deeply internalized, and institutionalized through well established artifacts *-control system *-social glue *-improves sense-making

Changing and Strengthening Organizational Culture: Aligning artifacts

-Moving a company or business unit into new offices that reflect a different culture -Creating memorable events that symbolize the cultural values to be developed or maintained -Transferring current employees who abide by the culture to new operations

Contingencies of Organizational Culture & Performance

-Only a modestly positive relationship exists between culture strength and success -Adaptive Cultures -business ethics

Bicultural Audit

-Part of due diligence in merger -Minimizes risk of cultural collision by diagnosing companies before merger

Changing and Strengthening Organizational Culture: C. Introducing Culturally Consistent Rewards

-Rewards reinforce behaviors that are consistent with cultural values

Organizational Stories and Legends

-Social prescriptions of desired (undesired) behavior -Provide human realism to corporate expectations, individual performance standards, and the criteria for getting fired Create emotions in listeners, which tends to improve their memory of the lesson within the story

Shared Assumptions

-Some experts believe shared assumptions are really the essence of corporate culture -Deepest part of organizational culture - unconscious taken-for-granted perceptions or beliefs -Worked so well in the past that they are considered the correct way to think and act toward problems and opportunities

Values

-Stable, evaluative beliefs that guide our preferences for outcomes or courses of action in a variety of situations. -Conscious perceptions about what is good or bad, right or wrong -Need to focus on enacted values (foundation of our actions), not espoused values (what people say they believe)

Stages of Socialization: Stage 3: Role Management (insider)

-Transition from newcomers to insiders -Strengthen work relationships -Practice new role behaviors -Resolve work-nonwork conflicts

Organizational Cultures and Business Ethics

-Values can become embedded in dominant culture -Dominant culture guides behavior

Ways of Changing and Strengthening Organizational Culture

1. Actions of founders and leaders 2. Aligning artifacts 3. Introducing Culturally Consistent Rewards 4. Attracting, Selecting, and Socializing Employees

Three steps in bicultural audit

1. Examine artifacts to identify cultural differences between the merging companies 2. Analyze data to determine which cultural values will result in conflict/compatibility 3. Identify strategies and action plans to bridge cultures

Two functions of subcultures

1. Maintain standards of performance and ethical behavior 2. Source of emerging values that keep the firm aligned with the needs of stakeholders

Stages of Socialization

1. Pre-employment socialization (outsider) 2. encounter (newcomer) 3. role management (insider)

Selection

Applicants selected based on values congruent with organization's culture

Attrition

Employee quite or are forced out when their values oppose company values

Socialization outcomes

Higher motivation, Higher loyalty, Higher satisfaction, Lower stress, Lower turnover

Socialization

a process of learning & adjustment

Assimilation

acquired company employees willingly embrace cultural values of acquiring firm -Acquired company has dysfunctional culture -Acquiring company's culture is strong with clearly defined values -Assimilation is rare

Deculturation

acquiring firm imposes its culture and business practices on acquired firm -Necessary when acquired firm's culture ineffective and employees not convinced -Strips away artifacts & reward systems that support the old culture - may include terminations -Potentially most destructive - increases socio-emotional conflict

Outcome orientation

action-oriented, high expectations, results-oriented

Attraction

applicants self-select and weed out companies based on compatible values

Elements of Organizational Culture

artifacts (visible), shared values, and shared assumptions (invisible/below the surface)

Strategies to Merge Different Organizational Cultures

assimilation, deculturation, integration, separation

Social glue

bonds people together (social identity) and makes them feel part of the organizational experience. May attract new staff and help retain top performers

Team orientation

collaboration, people-oriented

Integration

combine cultures to form new composite culture - preserves best of previous cultures -Slow and potentially risky - many forces preserving the existing cultures -Best when companies have relatively weak cultures, cultural values overlap, or employees realize existing cultures are ineffective, so are motivated to adopt a new set of dominant values

Innovation

experimenting, opportunity seeking, risk taking, few rules, low cautiousness

Respect for people

fairness, tolerance

Control system

influences employee decisions and behavior (automatic pilot)

Content of Organizational Culture

innovation, stability, respect for ppl, outcome orientation, attention to detail, team orientation, aggressiveness

Subcultures

located throughout the organization (e.g. various divisions, geographic regions, occupational groups)

Separation

merged firms keep their own corporate cultures and practices -Best when merging firms are in unrelated industries or different countries -Only 15% of acquisitions leave the purchased organization as a stand-alone unit

Learning process of Socialization

newcomers make sense of the organization's physical, social, and strategic/cultural dynamics

Attraction-selection-attrition (ASA) theory

organizations attract, select, and retain people with values and personality characteristics consistent with the organization's character, resulting in a more homogeneous organization and a stronger culture

Ceremonies

planned displays of organizational culture, conducted specifically for the benefit of an audience

Attention to detail

precise, analytic

Stability

predictability, security, rule-oriented

Sense-making

shared mental models, common understanding of organizational events and expectations