Business & Society Chapter 18: Organization Culture

What can managers do to increase the probability that ethics training influences organization members to act ethically over time?

-After ethics training concludes, management can provide employees with a means for making ethical queries anonymously -Establishing methods for reviewing the topics covered in ethics training -Promoting employees who behave ethically

Track and Talk About Organizational Performance

-As performance is tracked, corrective action should be taken, if necessary, to foster performance improvement -When organization members receive regular communication regarding the performance of the entire organization, they tend to stay focused on contributing to that performance

Adhocracy Culture

-Characterized by a *creative workplace* wherein people are entrepreneurial, *taking risks* to achieve success -Characterized by *flexibility and discretion* along with an *external focus* -Has a simple structure or lack of structure

Clan Culture

-Characterized by a *strong internal focus* with a *high degree of flexibility and discretion* -Similar to a *family* -Includes activities that reflect shared values and goals, cohesion among organization members, teamwork, and organization commitment to employees

Hierarchy Culture

-Characterized by an internal focus along with an emphasis on stability and control -Formal and structured

Basic Questions Used to Help Define a Culture

-Do people innovate and take risks? -Are people attentive to detail? -Are people focused on the outcome of what they do? -Is the organization sensitive to detail? -Do people function as a team? -Are people in the organization aggressive? -Are people focused on maintaining the status quo?

Activities of Managers in a Clan Culture

-Establishing a clear goal for the work team -Establish specific work targets with deadlines that the team can accomplish

Tactics for keeping an organization culture alive and well

-Establishing a vision of organization culture -Building and maintaining organization culture through artifacts -Integrating new employees within organization culture -Maintaining the health of organization culture.

Dimensions commonly observed in modern organization cultures

-Focusing on quality, ethics, innovation, spirituality, diversity, and customers

Link Work to Organizational Mission

-Helping employees understand how their work contributes to accomplishing the organizational mission is critical

Activities of Mangers in an Adhocracy Culture

-Holding people accountable for generating new ideas

Activities of Managers in a Hierarchy Culture

-Make sure employees know exactly what's expected of them -Give employees regular feedback on how they're performing

Activities of Managers in a Market Culture

-Making sure everyone can name their three most important customers -Giving customers what they want the first time -Tracking and understanding competitors

Invest in Talent

-Management must recognize that, although talented employees may be more expensive to hire and retain, such employees are normally an effective means to achieve better organizational performance -Managers must retain talented employees once they're hired -Managers must invest in improving the talents of current employees

Recognize and Reward

-Management needs to help employees learn to be high performers -When management reinforces appropriate performance, appropriate performance tends to be repeate

Establishing a vision of organization culture

-Managers should strive to establish the dimensions in their own culture that will best contribute to accomplishing the organizational mission

Organizational Rewards

-Modify behavior in some way in most organizations -Includes rewards from within the organization >Such as compensation, satisfying work, and verbal recognition -Includes rewards from outside the organization >Such as comments from customers, competitors, and suppliers

Eight Characteristics of a Healthy Organization

-Openness and humility from top to bottom of the organization -An environment of accountability and personal responsibility -Freedom from risk-taking within appropriate limits -A fierce commitment to 'do it right' -A willingness to tolerate and learn from mistakes -Unquestioned integrity and consistency -A pursuit of collaboration, integration, and holistic thinking -Courage and persistance in the face of difficulty

Market Culture

-Reflects values that emphasize stability and control along with an external focus -Emphasizes relationships with all constituencies, including customers, suppliers, contractors, government regulators, and unions -Have hard-driving leaders

Hold Managers Accountable

-The performance of managers should be tracked, with job-related progress being communicated to them both formally and informally -Managers should understand what is necessary for employees to be high performers and advise, coach, and counsel them about how to improve their performance and reach performance goals

Steps managers can take to help create an organization culture that yields high performance

1. Lead as Champion 2. Link Work to Organizational Mission 3. Track and Talk about Performance 4. Build a hierarchy of objectives 5. Invest in Talent 6. Recognize and Reward 7. Hold managers accountable 8. Build organizational commitment

Steps of the Socialization Process

1. Recruit new employees 2. Provide initial work experiences 3. Provide role models 4. Define informal organization 5. Evaluate cultural fit

Organizational Subculture

A *mini-culture* within an organization that can reflect the values and beliefs of a *specific segment* of the organization that is formed along lines such as established *departments or geographic regions* -Can negatively or positively affect management efforts

Organizational Saga

A *narrative* describing the *adventures of a heroic individual or family* significantly *linked to an organization's past or present* -The purpose is to identify and perpetuate the organization's shared values

Cultural Artifact

A dimension of an organization that helps to describe and reinforce the culture—or the beliefs, values, and norms

Code of Conduct

A document that reflects the core values of an organization and suggests how organization members should act in relation to those values

Organizational Ceremonies

A formal activity conducted on important organizational occasions -Such as openings of new stores, anniversary dates of when employees were hired, and employee promotions

Values Statement

A formally drafted document that summarizes the primary values within the culture of a specific organization -It gives managers the opportunity to communicate effectively and efficiently the values that drive the organization and thereby help increase the probability that appropriate values will influence organization member behavior

Value

A person or social group's belief in which they have an emotional investment -Reflected in organizational characteristics, including strategy, structure, and processes -Also reflected in the way leaders lead as well as in organizational rules, reward systems, policies, and procedures

Organizational Myth

A popular *belief or story* that has become associated with a *person or institution* and is considered to *illustrate an organization culture ideal* -Stimulates organization members to do a good job and provide the logic for actions taken

Building a Hierarchy of Objectives

A set of objectives wherein the overall objectives of the organization are divided into sub-objectives for all sections and levels of the organization -Objectives should be challenging and have obvious rewards to be earned when the objectives are reached

Organizational Symbol

An object that has meaning beyond its intrinsic content -Provide a road map indicating what is important in a particular organization -Such as logos, flags, coats of arms, and impressive buildings

Spirituality dimension of organization culture

Encourages organization members to integrate spiritual life and work life

Innovation dimension of organization culture

Encourages the application of new ideas to improve organizational processes, products, or services -Can become significantly weakened or even disappear if it is not properly nurtured -A spiritually reflective work environment will be personally satisfying to organization members, who will thereby become more productive and creative

Diversity dimension of organization culture

Encourages the existence of basic human differences among organization members -Benefits include an increased number of perspectives on how to solve problems and how to relate to diverse customers better

Customer Dimension of Organizational Culture

Focuses on catering to the needs of those individuals who buy the goods or services the organization produces

Quality Dimension of Organizational Culture

Focuses on making sure a product, in the opinion of the customer, does what it is supposed to do -Focus on communicating to customers their focus on quality and explaining how quality processes operate within the organization -The goal is to earn customer loyalty and repeat purchases because of customer satisfaction with products or services

Ethics dimension of organization culture

Focuses on making sure that an organization emphasizes not only what is good for the organization, but also what is good for other human beings -Ethics training is most commonly used >Designed to give employees a usable framework for ethical reasoning that will help them make ethical choices in various organizational situations after training ends

Functions of Organizational Culture Within an Organization

Influencing organization members to act in ways that are consistent with the accepted values of the organization -Can enhance organizational productivity -Can serve as a component of organizational strategy -Provides a rationale for staffing -Can act as a guideline for making operational decisions

Healthy Organizational Culture

Is characterized by *humility from top management*

Lead as Champion

Leaders must explain repeatedly why the practices that help build organization culture are necessary and how such practices will benefit the organization

Build Organizational Commitment

Maintaining an organizational focus on providing excellent customer service -Increases the employees' desire to remain in the organization and to focus on providing quality goods and services -Serves as a "psychological bond" that influences individuals to act in ways that are consistent with the interests of the organization

Unhealthy Organizational Culture

One that does not facilitate the achievement of the organization's mission and objectives

Healthy organizational culture

One that facilitates the achievement of the organization's mission and objectives -Is usually people-oriented

Competing Values Framework

Presents a rationale that managers can use to categorize organization cultures -Cultures differ in respect to two sets of opposite values: >Organizational flexibility and discretion versus organizational stability, order, and control >An internal organizational focus versus an external organizational focus

Organizational Culture Skill

The *ability to establish* a set of *shared values of organization members* regarding the functioning and existence of their organization to enhance the probability of organizational success

Organizational Commitment

The dedication of organization members to uphold the values of the organization and to make worthwhile contributions to fulfilling the organizational purpose

Organizational Socialization

The process by which management can appropriately integrate new employees into the organization's culture

Organization Culture

The set of *shared values that organization members* have regarding the *functioning and existence* of their organization -The personality of the organization and a description of how the organization functions -Contains dimensions such as organizational rituals, special language, norms, and habits

Dominant Organizational Culture

The shared values about organizational functioning held by the *majority* of organization members -Managers have a tendency to only manage this