MGT 764 Chapter 15 Organizational Culture

Informal practices that influence culture include

"open-door management" to promote upward communication and the sharing of ideas, employees helping each other, and employees of different ranks eating lunch together to share ideas.

Culture boosts organizational performance when

(1) is strategically relevant, (2) is strong, and (3) emphasizes innovation and change to adapt to a changing environment.

The three elements of managing organization culture are

(1) taking advantage of the existing culture, (2) teaching the organization culture, and (3) changing the organization culture.

4 levels of culture

1. Artifacts 2. Assumptions 3. Espoused values 4. Enacted values

integrating diversity and inclusion into business in three phases

1. Awareness building: 2. Building competency and capacity 3. Embedding best practices:

How Leaders Can Influence an Organization's Culture

1. Develop a clear sense of mission and values about what the company should be, and communicate it to employees through what you pay attention to, measure, and control. 2. Select employees who can share, express, and reinforce the desired values in order to help build the desired culture. 3. Use daily routines and concrete actions and behaviors to demonstrate and exemplify appropriate values and beliefs. 4. Consistently role-model behaviors that reinforce the culture. 5. Leaders set the culture, and employees learn what behaviors and attitudes are appropriate from their leaders' behaviors. 6. Make your human resource management procedures and criteria consistent. Communicate your priorities in the way you reward employees. Linking raises and promotions to specific behaviors communicates leaders' priorities. 7. Nurture traditions and rituals that express, define, and reinforce the culture. Awards and recognition ceremonies, having the CEO address new employees during their orientations, and reciting stories of past company successes can all define and reinforce a firm's culture.

An organization's culture is influenced by

1. Its industry 2. National culture 3. Company founders and leaders

some of the ways intranets can both reflect and influence organizational culture

1. Their scope. Intranets with a narrow scope can reinforce a culture of secrecy and information hoarding. Intranets that contain information on a variety of topics and links to other useful sites such as human resources, company and industry news, blogs, wikis, interviews with company leaders, and performance indicators reflect a culture of openness and teamwork. 2. Their openness to employee feedback and contributions. Intranets that contain "like it or not?" feedback tools and features that allow employees to contribute reflect a participative culture that values employee contributions. A more centralized, heavily edited and filtered site reflects a culture in which information flows less freely and employee contributions are less valued. 3. The frequency with which they are updated. Intranets that are rarely updated are not likely to influence the company's culture and can reflect a culture that does not value employee contributions, has poor internal communication, and has poor attention to detail. 4. The number of intranets. This refers to whether there is just one company intranet, or several, each serving different groups of employees. For example, some organizations have one intranet for the sales force and another, completely different looking one, for the R&D group. 5. The use of symbols, stories, and ceremonies. Because these express a company's culture, intranets can convey such information via news of events affecting the organization, messages from CEOs, and announcements of employees' awards programs of importance to the organization.

Radical innovation

A major breakthrough that changes or creates whole industries

Organizational culture

A system of shared values, norms, and assumptions that guide members' attitudes and behaviors

passive conflict management norms

Avoid addressing conflict

Incremental innovation

Continues the technical improvement and extends the applications of radical and systems innovations; force organizations to continuously improve their products and keep abreast or ahead of the competition.

Systems innovation

Creates a new functionality by assembling parts in new ways

Intrapreneurship

Entrepreneurial activity that takes place within the context of a large corporation

Strong cultures can enhance organizational performance in two ways

First, they improve performance by energizing employees Second, strong cultures improve performance by coordinating employee behavior.

Types of Innovation

Innovation can be radical, systems, or incremental

disagreeable conflict management norms

Resolve conflict competitively

Agreeable conflict management norms

Resolve conflict in a cooperative manner

Active conflict management norms

Resolve conflict openly

Conflict cultures

Shared norms for managing conflict; reflect different degrees of active versus passive and agreeable versus disagreeable conflict management norms

Culture of inclusion

The extent to which majority members value efforts to increase minority representation, and whether the qualifications and abilities of minority members are questioned

Artifacts

The physical manifestation of the culture including open offices, awards, ceremonies, and formal lists of values

Espoused values and norms

The preferred values and norms explicitly stated by the organization

Innovation

The process of creating and doing new things that are introduced into the marketplace as products, processes, or services; involves every aspect of the organization, from research through development, manufacturing, and marketing.

Organizational socialization

The process through which employees learn about the firm's culture and pass their knowledge and understanding on to others

Socialization

The process through which individuals become social beings

Assumptions

Those organizational values that have become so taken for granted over time that they become the core of the company's culture

Enacted values and norms

Values and norms that employees exhibit based on their observations of what actually goes on in the organization

The profile of the entrepreneur typically includes

a need for achievement, a desire to assume responsibility, a willingness to take risks, and a focus on concrete results.

Collaborative conflict cultures

active and agreeable. Employees actively manage and resolve conflicts cooperatively to find the best solution for all involved parties.

Dominating conflict cultures

active and disagreeable—open confrontations are accepted as well as heated arguments and threats.

Performance management, feedback, and compensation systems

all help align espoused and enacted values and norms.

Passive-aggressive conflict cultures

both passive and disagreeable. Rather than dealing openly with conflict, this culture develops norms to handle it via passive resistance such as refusing to participate in conflict-related discussions, giving the silent treatment, withholding information, or withdrawing from work and from interactions with coworkers.

Strong cultures

clarify appropriate behavior, are widely shared, and are internally consistent.

Formal practices that influence culture include

compensation strategies like profit sharing, benefits, training and development programs, and even the use of teleconferencing to enable some employees to work from home.

two specific types of culture

cultures of conflict and cultures of inclusion

four types of conflict cultures

dominating, collaborative, avoidant, and passive-aggressive

Common organizational culture themes include

ethics, innovation, being casual or formal, and collaboration.

Cultures are made up of

formal and informal practices, artifacts, espoused values and norms, and assumptions.

Trust

is the foundation of culture, and is earned through repeated interactions over time.

organizational culture can be thought of as

its personality because it influences the way employees behave.

Avoidant conflict cultures

passive and agreeable. This type of culture strives to preserve order and control and/or to maintain harmony and interpersonal relationships.

If a business strategy and corporate culture are pulling in two different directions

the culture will win no matter how good the strategy is.

Because strong cultures create stable and consistent employee values and behaviors

they are slow to change.