Chapter 16: Organizational Culture

What is person-organization it, and how does it affect job performance and organizational commitment?

-Person-organization fit is the degree to which a person's values and personality match the culture of the organization. - Person-organization fit has a weak positive effect on job performance and a strong positive effect on organizational commitment.

What general and specific tasks can be used to describe an organization's culture?

An organization's culture can be described on dimensions such as solidarity and sociability to create four general culture types: 1) networked 2) communal 3) fragmented 4) mercenary - Organizations often strive to create a specific cultural emphasis, as in customer service cultures, safety cultures, diversity cultures, and creativity cultures.

Observable artifacts

Are the manifestations of an organization's culture that employees can easily see or talk about. - They supply the signals that employees interpret to gauge how they should act during the workday. Ex) Symbols, physical structure, language, stories, rituals, & ceremonies.

3) Networked culture

Cultures in which all employees are friendly to one another, but everyone thinks differently and does his or her own thing.

1) Fragmented culture

In which employees are distant and disconnected from one another.

2) Mercenary culture

In which employees think alike but aren't friendly to one another.

***Customer service culture

Many organizations try to create this in which it is focused on service quality.

What is organizational culture, and what are its components?

Organizational culture- is the shared social knowledge within an organization regarding the rules, norms, and values that shape the attitudes and behaviors of its employees. -There are three components of organizational cultures: 1) observable artifacts 2) espoused values 3) basic underlying assumptions - Observable artifacts include symbols, physical structures, language, stories, rituals, and ceremonies.

How do organizations maintain their culture and how do they change it?

Organizations maintain their cultures through attraction, selection, and attribution processes and socialization practices. - Organizations change their cultures by changing their leadership or through mergers and acquisitions.

4) Communal culture

Organizations with friendly employees who all think alike.

What makes culture strong, and is it always good for an organization to have a strong culture?

Strong cultures have the ability to influence employee behaviors and attitudes. - Strong cultures exist when employees agree on the way things are supposed to happen and their behaviors are consistent with those expectations. - Strong cultures are not necessarily good or bad. - Generally, a culture's effectiveness depends on how well it matches the company's outside environment. To this degree, adaptive cultures can be very useful.

What steps can organizations take to make sure that newcomers will fit with their culture?

There are a number of practices organizations can utilize to improve the socialization of new employees, including: 1) realistic job previews 2) orientation programs 3) mentoring