Ch. 14 - Organizational Culture and Change
Newcomer Orientation
A common form of training during which new hires learn more about the organization; an effective way to start the socialization process --> effective transmitters of socialization content --> employees who complete orientation have higher levels of satisfaction, commitment, and performance than those who don't --> allow employees to become productive much more quickly
Subcultures
A culture created within a small subset of the organization's employees; may be created because there is a strong leader in one area of the company that engenders different norms and values or because different divisions in a company act independently and create their own culture; exist when the overall organizational culture is supplemented by another culture governing a more specific set of employees; more likely to exist in large organizations than in small companies; can be very useful for organizations if certain areas have different demands and needs for their employees
Reality shock
A mismatch of information that occurs when an employee finds that aspects of working at a company are not what the employee expected it to be
Creativity Culture
A specific culture type focused on fostering a creative atmosphere; importance of new ideas and innovation in many industries; Creativity cultures affect both the quantity and quality of creative ideas within an organization
Diversity Culture
A specific culture type focused on fostering or taking advantage of a diverse group of employees; Differences in people are seen as valuable and potential assets; Strategy include hiring people who have the technical, behavioural, and diversity requirements for the position being filled, investing heavily in training throughout the company and by promoting internal mentoring relationships
Customer service Culture
A specific culture type focused on service quality; organizations that have successfully created a service culture have ben shown to change employee attitudes and behaviours toward customers --> changes in attitudes and behaviours manifest themselves in higher levels of customer satisfaction and sales.
Safety culture
A specific culture type focused on the safety of employees; companies require that their employees work in environments where the risk of accidents or injuries is very high; payoff --> increased level of safety-related awareness and behaviours and lower accidents; strong management commitment to protecting and promoting safety, careful selection and training of its new employees, extensive and mandatory safety rules and procedures, required safety-knowledge training and testing, and opportunities for members to participate in world-class emergency response teams; very important that what management says about safety is also how it acts
Encounter stage
A stage of socialization beginning the day an employee starts work, during which the employee compares the information as an outsider to the information learned as an insider; To the degree that the information in the two stages is similar, employees will have a smoother time adjusting to the organization --> problems occur when the two sets of information don't quite match
Anticipatory stage
A stage of socialization that begins as soon as a potential employee develops an image of what it would be lie to work for a company; Bulk of the information acquired during this stage occurs during the recruitment and selection processes that employees go through prior to joining an organization. Relevant information includes the way employees are treated during the recruitment process, the things that organizational insiders tell them about the organization, and any other information that employees acquire about what the organization is like and what working there entails
Counterculture
A subculture whose values do not match those of the organization; can sometimes serve as a useful purpose by challenging the values of the overall organization or signifying the need for change; OR can split the organization's culture right down the middle, resulting in a differentiated culture
ASA framework
A theory (attraction-selection-Attrition) that states that employees will be drawn to organizations with cultures that math their personality, organizations will select employees that match, and employees that leave or be forced out when they are nota good fit
Why do some organization have different cultures than others
ASA processes, socialization, changes in leadership, mergers and acquisitions --> some ways in which the three components of organizational culture are influenced --> specific combinations of those culture components give rise to both general and specific culture types --> cultures can be categorized on basis of solidarity and sociability --> can also be categorized into more specific types --> general and specific types can be further classified according to the strength of the culture
Maintaining an Organizational Culture
Attraction-Selection-Attrition, and Socialization
Pros and Cons of a Strong Culture
Advantages: - Differentiates the organization from others; - Allows employees to identify themselves with the organization; - Facilitates desired behaviours among employees; - Creates stability within the organization; Disadvantages: - Makes merging with another organization more difficult; - Attracts and retains similar kinds of employees thereby limiting diversity of thought; - Can be "too much of a good thing" if it creates extreme behaviours among employees; - Makes adapting to the environment more difficult
Fragmented culture
An organizational culture type in which employees are distant and disconnected from one another
Communal culture
An organizational culture type in which employees are friendly to another and all think alike;
Networked culture
An organizational culture type in which employees are friendly to one another, but everyone thinks differently and does his or her own thing; many highly creative organizations;
Mercenary culture
An organizational culture type in which employees think alike but are not friendly to one another; these types are likely to be very political, "what's in it for me" environments
Stories
Anecdotes, accounts, legends, and myths passed down from cohort to cohort within an organization; telling stories can be a major mechanism through which leaders and employees describe what the company values or finds important --> provides an accepted account of something the organization values, such as innovation or entrepreneurial spirit --> power of storytelling to foster culture
Observable artifacts
Aspects of an organization's culture that employees and outsiders can easily see or talk about; Supply the signals that employees interpret to gauge how they should act during the workday; primary means of transmitting an organization's culture to its workforce; Help show not only current employees but also potential employees, customers, shareholders, and investors what the organization is all about. Six major types of artifacts: symbols, physical structures, language, stories, rituals, ceremonies
Ceremonies
Formal events, generally performed in front of an audience of organizational members; convocation; Organizations frequently use public reward ceremonies to recognize individuals and teams who best exemplify what the culture values; Ceremonies can also be used to convey important cultural changes
Specific Culture Types
Many organizations attempt to manipulate observable artifacts and espoused values to create specific cultures that help them achieve their organizational goals; Some of these specific cultures are more relevant in some industries than in others; Customer Service Culture, Safety Culture, Diversity Culture, Creativity Culture, and more
Mergers and Acquisitions
Merging two companies with two distinct cultures is a sure-fire way to change the culture in an organization; problem = no way to know what culture will look like after the merger --> what new culture resembles is a function both of the strength of the two cultures involved in the merger and of how similar they are to each other ideally a new culture would be created out of a compromise in which the best of each company is represented by the new culture; Mergers rarely result in the strong culture that mangers hope will appear when they make the decision to merge most merged companies operate under a differentiated culture for an extended period of time and some never really adopt a new identity and when they do, many of them are seen as failures by the outside world; Merging two different cultures has major effects on the attitudes and behaviors of organizational employees; Acquisitions - company doing the acquiring has a dominant culture to which the other is expected to adapt
What is it that an employee needs to learn and adapt in order to be socialized into his or her new role within an organization?
Most of the important information can be grouped into six dimensions (each is an important area in the process of socialization and each has a unique contributions to job performance, organizational commitment, and person-organization fit): - Goals and Values = Adoption of the spoken and unspoken goals and values of the organization; - Performance Proficiency = Knowledge of the roles required and the tasks involved in the job; - Language = Knowledge of the acronyms, slang, and jargon that are unique to the organization; - History = Information regarding the organization's traditions, customs, myths, and rituals; - Politics = Information regarding formal and informal work relationships and power structures within the organization; - People = Successful and satisfying relationships with organizational members; the more quickly and effectively an employee is socialize, the sooner that employee becomes a productive worker within the organization; length of the process depends on characteristics of the employee, not just the company --> proactivity on the part of employee being socialized has a significant effect on socialization outcomes; Some organizations might help their employees socialize more quickly because they have stronger cultures or cultures that are more easily understandable; some organizations simply work harder at socializing their employees than others
General culture types
One popular general typology divides organizational culture along two dimension: - solidarity (degree to which group members think and act alike) - sociability ( how friendly employees are to one another); fragmented (low on both dimensions), mercenary (low sociability, high solidarity), networked ( high sociability, low solidarity), communal (high on both); organizations have a tendency to move through the cultures as they get larger --> Small organizations generally start out as communal cultures oriented around the owner and founder --> as they grow they tend to move toward a networked culture b/c solidarity is harder to foster when groups get really large
Effects of Person-Organization Fit on Commitment
Person-organization fit has a strong positive effect on Commitment. Employees who fit with their organization tend to have higher levels of Affective Commitment. Not much is known about the impact of fit on Continuance or Normative Commitment; Employees judge fit by thinking about the values they prioritize the most, and then judging whether the organization shares those values; when they match --> they experience higher levels of job satisfaction and feel less stress about their day-to-day tasks --> also feel higher levels of trust toward their managers --> taken together, highly correlated with organizational commitment --> when they feel they fit with their organization's culture, they're much more likely to develop an emotional attachment to the company
Effects of Person-Organization Fit on Performance
Person-organization fit has a weak positive effect on Performance. Employees who fit with their organization tend to have slightly higher levels of Task performance, with effects on Citizenship Behaviour slightly stronger. Not much is known about the impact of fit on Counterproductive Behaviour; Person-organization fit is more related to citizenship behaviours than to task performance --> employees who sense a good fit are therefore more likely to help their colleagues and go the extra mile of the company
The Service Culture Process
Service-Oriented Leadership Behaviour --> Service Culture --> Service-oriented Employee Behaviours --> Customer Satisfaction --> Unit sales
Tactics Organizations Use to Socialize New Employees
Tactic Designed to Encourage Adaptation to the Organization's Culture: - Orient new employees along with a group of other new employees; - Put newcomers through orientation apart from current organizational members; - Provide hurdles that are required to be met prior to organizational membership; - Provide role models for newcomers; - Constantly remind newcomers that they are now part of a group and that this new group helps define who they are; Tactics Designed to Discourage Adaptation to the Organization's Culture ( organization doesn't have a strong culture that they want employees to adapt to, or they might be trying to change their culture and want new employees to come in and "shake things up"): - Orient new employees by themselves - Allow newcomers to interact with current employees while they are being oriented; - Allow organizational membership regardless of whether any specific requirements have been met; - Use no examples of what an employee is supposed to be like; - Constantly affirm to newcomers that they are to be themselves and that they were chosen for the organization on the basis of who they are
Espoused values
The beliefs, philosophies, and norms that a company explicitly states; Can range from published documents (vision or mission statement) to verbal statements made to employees by executives and managers; Difference between espoused values and enacted values --> one thing for a company to outwardly say something is important and it's another thing for employees to consistently act in ways that support those espoused values; When a company holds to its espoused values over time, the values become more believable both to employees and outsiders;
Rituals
The daily or weekly planned routines that occur in an organization; casual Fridays
Person-Organization fit
The degree to which a person's values and personality match the culture of the organization;
Culture strength
The degree to which employees agree about how things should happen within the organization and behave accordingly; Strong culture - culture that creates a sense of definite norms and appropriate behaviours for their employees --> Employees definitively agree about the way things are supposed to happen within the organization (high consensus) and when their subsequent behaviours are consistent with those expectations (high intensity) --> serves to unite and direct employees, long time to develop and very difficult to change, individuals working within strong cultures are typically very aware of it, strong cultures guide employee attitudes and behaviours but that doesn't always mean that they guide them toward the most successful organizational outcomes; Weak culture - employees disagree about the way things are supposed to be or what is expected of them, meaning that there is nothing to unite or direct their attitudes and actions
Understanding and Adaptation
The final stage of socialization, during which newcomers come to learn the content areas of socialization and internalize the norms and expected behaviours of the organization; important part of this stage is change on the part of the employee; Some would say this last stage never truly ends because an organization's culture continues to change and evolve over time
Symbols
The images an organization uses, which generally convey messages; corporate logo, images on website, uniforms employees wear,
Basic underlying assumptions
The ingrained beliefs and philosophies of employees; taken-for-granted beliefs and philosophies that employees simply act on them rather than questioning the validity of their behaviour in a given situation; represent the deepest and least observable part of a culture and may not be consciously apparent, even to organizational veterans; it's hidden beliefs are those that are the most likely to dictate employee behaviour and affect employee attitudes; is the aspects of an organizational culture that are the most long-lasting and difficult to change
Language
The jargon, slang, and slogans used within an organization
Physical structures
The organization's buildings and internal office designs; is the workplace open, does top management work in a separate section of the building, is the setting devoid of anything unique or can employees express their personalities, physical layout of office, positioning of desk and chairs
Socialization
The primary process by which employees learn the social knowledge that enables them to understand and adapt to the organization's culture; Three relatively distinct stages: - Anticipatory stage, - Encounter stage, - Understanding and Adaptation; Process that begins before an employee starts work and doesn't end until an employee leaves the organization
Mentoring
The process by which a junior-level employee develops a deep and long-lasting relationship with a more senior-level employee within the organization; Mentor can provide social knowledge, resources, and psychological support to protégé both at the beginning of employment and as the protégé continues his or her career with the company; Formal programs allow the company to provide consistent information, train mentors, and ensure that all newcomers have the opportunity to develop one of these fruitful relationships
Realistic job previews
The process of ensuring that a prospective employee understands both the positive and the negative aspects of the job; one of the most inexpensive and effective ways of reducing early turnover among new employees; occur during the anticipatory stage of socialization during the recruitment process; making sure a potential employee has an accurate picture of what working for an organization is going to be like by providing both the positive and the negative aspects of the job; reduces the likelihood of significant reality shock and shortening the encounter stage that generally accompanies initial employment
Organizational culture
The shared social knowledge within an organization regarding the rules, norms, and values that shape the attitudes and behaviours of its employees; employees learn about most important aspects of culture through other employees; transfer of knowledge might be through explicit communication, simple observation, or other less obvious methods; Culture is shared knowledge --> members of the organization understand and have a degree of consensus regarding what the culture is; Shapes and reinforces certain employee attitudes and behaviours by creating a system of control over employees --> evidence that your individual goals and values will grow over time to match those of the organization for which you work
Changes in leadership
There is perhaps no bigger driver of culture than the leaders and top executives of organizations; Founders and originators of organizations set the tone and develop the culture of a new company, subsequent CEOs and presidents leave their mark on the culture; Other times, leaders have to be the driving force for changes as the environment around the organizations shifts --> this expectation is one of the biggest reasons that organizations change their top leadership --> new leader would bring a new culture to the company
The Change Process
Unfreezing - occurs when the organization comes to the realization that the status quo is unacceptable --> a need for change has been recognized; Change initiative - plan and implement the change initiative --> in the case of culture change, this may involve bringing in a new leader, introducing a new reward system, or implementing a new training program; Refreezing - the newly developed attitudes and behaviors (i.e. new ways of thinking, feeling, and acting) need to "harden up", becoming entrenched as new norms, values, and shared understandings; Issues to overcome: Proper diagnosis of the underlying problem = will the remedies address the core problems and produce the desired culture change?; Resistance = if the culture has been established and maintained for some time, then it probably won't change easily --> can be quite difficult for people to adopt new ways (attitudes, values, behaviours), Will business staffers and software developers start interacting and learning from each other? Will new understanding about how to coordinate become a new norm, or will existing patterns prevail?; Building trust and transformational leadership are two ways of overcoming resistance to change; Even if an organization is able to address some of these issues, change is neither easy nor assured
Culture components
observable artifacts, espoused values, basic underlying assumption
Three other major ways in which organizations routinely and effectively help speed up the socialization process of newcomers
realistic job previews, Orientation programs, and Mentoring