Chapter 13 High Performance Organizational Cultures

Study questions. What is organizational culture? What are the observable aspects of organizational culture? How do values and assumptions influence organizational culture? How can organizational culture be managed, nurtured, and guided?
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Chapter 13 High Performance Organizational Cultures

Study questions cont. How can the process of organization development enhance organizational culture?

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13

What is organizational culture?

Organizational culture.
The system of shared actions, values, and

beliefs that develops within an organization and guides the behavior of its members.
Called corporate culture in the business

setting.
No two organizational cultures are identical.
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What is organizational culture?

Organizational culture addresses two

important survival issues.

External adaptation. What precisely needs to be accomplished, and how can it be done? Internal integration. How do members resolve the daily problems associated with living and working together?
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What is organizational culture?

External adaptation.
Involves reaching goals and dealing with outsiders. Issues to be considered:
Tasks to be accomplished.
Methods to be used to achieve goals. Methods of coping with success and failure. Developing acceptable ways of telling outsiders how good

they really are.

Knowing when to admit defeat.

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13

What is organizational culture?

External adaptation involves answering important goal-

related questions regarding coping with reality.

What is the real mission? How do we contribute?

What are our goals?

How do we reach our goals? What external forces are important? How do we measure results?

What do we do if specific targets are not met?

How do we tell others how good we are? When do we quit?
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What is organizational culture?

Internal integration. Involves the creation of a collective identity and with finding ways of matching methods of working and living together. Issues to be considered:
Deciding who is a member and who is not. Developing an understanding of acceptable and

unacceptable behavior. Separating friends from enemies.

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What is organizational culture?

Internal integration involves answering important

questions associated with living together.

What is our unique identity?

How do we view the world?

Who is a member? How do we allocate power, status, and authority? How do we communicate? What is the basis for friendship?

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13

What is organizational culture?

Dominant culture, subcultures, and

countercultures.
Subcultures.
Groups of individuals with a unique pattern of

values and philosophy that is consistent with the organizations dominant values and philosophy.
Strong subcultures are often found in high

performance teams.
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What is organizational culture?

Dominant culture, subcultures, and

countercultures cont.
Countercultures.
Groups of individuals with a pattern of values and

philosophy that reject the surrounding culture.

Mergers and acquisitions may produce

countercultures in an organization.
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What is organizational culture?

Importing subcultures.
Large organizations import potentially important

subcultures when hiring people.

Globalization and expansion through mergers and

acquisitions produce challenges with importing subcultures and dealing with culture clash.
The relevance of subcultures to the entire organization

can affect operations and the ability to change.

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What is organizational culture?

Valuing cultural diversity the

multicultural organization.
A firm that values diversity but systematically

works to block the transfer of societally based subcultures into the fabric of the organization. Taylor Cox provides a five step program for developing a multicultural organization.
May not apply to organizations located in countries

with relatively homogeneous populations.

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What is organizational culture?

Taylor Coxs five step program. Step 1: The organization should develop pluralism. Step 2: The organization should fully integrate its structure. Step 3: The organization must integrate the informal networks. Step 4: The organization should break the linkage between naturally occurring group identity and organizational identity. Step 5: The organization must actively work to eliminate identity-based interpersonal conflict.
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What is organizational culture?

Problems in implementing Coxs program.
Separating the organization from the larger

culture in which it must operate.

Eliminating some societally-based groupings

that are relevant for achieving the organizations goals.

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What is organizational culture?

Levels of organizational culture. Level 1: Observable culture.
The way things are done in the organization.

Level 2: Shared values. All members have been exposed to the value and recognize their importance. Level 3: Common assumptions. The taken-for-granted truths that members share as a result of their joint experience.
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What are the observable aspects of organizational culture?

Stories, rites, rituals, and symbols. Organizations are rich with stories about the

organizations culture and operations. Sagas.

Heroic accounts of organizational

accomplishments.

Rites. Standardized and recurring activities that are used at special times to influence organizational members.
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What are the observable aspects of organizational culture?

Stories, rites, rituals, and symbols cont. Rituals.
Systems of rites.

Cultural symbols. Any object, act, or event that serves to transmit cultural meaning.

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What are the observable aspects of organizational culture?

Culture often specifies rules and roles.
Rules.
The various types of actions that are appropriate.

Roles.
Where individual members stand in the social

system.

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What are the observable aspects of organizational culture?

The evolution of shared meaning from

observable culture.
Outside observers may not see the same

cultural aspects as organizational members do.

This is because outside observers do not have

the same shared set of meanings and perceptions.

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How do values and assumptions influence organizational culture?

Shared common values lie at the heart of

culture. Shared values help:

Turn routine activities into valuable, important

actions. Tie the company to the important values of society. Provide a distinctive source of competitive advantage.
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How do values and assumptions influence organizational culture?

Some successful organizations have strong

cultures.
A strong culture reflects a broadly and deeply

shared value system.

A strong culture can reinforce a singular view

or the organization and its environment.

Needed dramatic change may be prevented.
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How do values and assumptions influence organizational culture?

Organizational myths. Unproven and often unstated beliefs that are accepted uncritically. Each firm needs managerial myths.
Myths enable managers to redefine impossible

problems. Myths can facilitate experimentation and creativity. Myths allow managers to govern.
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How do values and assumptions influence organizational culture?

National culture influences. Widely held common assumptions may be traced to the larger culture of the host society. National cultural values may become embedded in expectations of organization members. Managers need to be sensitive to national cultural differences and their impact on organizational culture.
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How can organizational culture be managed, nurtured, and guided?

Management philosophy.
Reflects the management subculture. Links key goal-related strategic issues with

key collaboration issues and comes up with a series of general ways by which the firm will manage its affairs.

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How can organizational culture be managed, nurtured, and guided?

A well-developed management

philosophy:
Establishes generally understood boundaries

on on all members of the firm. Provides a consistent way for approaching new and novel situations. Helps hold individuals together by showing them a known path to success.
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How can organizational culture be managed, nurtured, and guided?

Strategies for managing or building,

reinforcing, and changing organizational culture.

Directly modifying observable culture, shared

values, and common assumptions.

Using organization development techniques to

modify specific elements of the culture.

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How can organizational culture be managed, nurtured, and guided?

Continuous cultural development.
Organization development (OD) is the

application of behavioral science knowledge in a long-range effort to improve an organizations ability to cope with change in its external environment and to increase its internal problem-solving capabilities.

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How can the process of organization development enhance organizational culture?

Organizational development.
Provides well-proven methods for developing

and changing external adaptation and internal integration.

Helps organization members become more

active and confident in maintaining the culture and pursuing effectiveness.

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How can the process of organization development enhance organizational culture?

Underlying assumptions of OD.
Individual level.
Respect for people and their capabilities.

Group level.
Belief that groups can be good for both people and organizations.

Organizational level.
Respect for the complexity of an organization as a system of interdependent parts.
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How can the process of organization development enhance organizational culture?

Organization development goals. Outcome goals.
Mainly deal with issues of external adaptation. Achieving improvements in task performance by

improving external adaptation capabilities.

Process goals. Mainly deal with issues of internal integration. Achieving improvements in communication, interaction, and decision making among organizations members.
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How can the process of organization development enhance organizational culture?

In pursuing outcome and process goals, OD helps

by:
Creating an open problem solving climate. Supplementing formal authority with knowledge and

competence. Moving decision making where relevant information is available. Building trust and maximizing collaboration. Increasing the sense of organizational ownership. Allowing people to exercise self-direction and selfcontrol.
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How can the process of organization development enhance organizational culture?

Action research.
The process of systematically collecting data

on an organization, feeding it back to the members for action planning, and evaluating the results by collecting and reflecting on more data after the planned actions have been taken.
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How can the process of organization development enhance organizational culture?

Action research diagnostics.
Diagnosis can use the systems approach for

assessing inputs, throughputs, and outputs at three levels.

Organizational.

Group.
Individual.
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How can the process of organization development enhance organizational culture?

Systemwide OD interventions. Survey feedback.
Collection and feedback of data to organization

members for action planning purposes.

Confrontation meetings. Activities for quickly determining how an organization can be improved and taking initial actions for betterment.

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How can the process of organization development enhance organizational culture?

Systemwide OD interventions cont. Structural redesign.
Realigning the organizations structure or major

subsystems.

Collateral organization. Using representative organizational members in periodic small group problem-solving sessions.

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How can the process of organization development enhance organizational culture?

Group and intergroup OD interventions. Team building.
Activities to improve the functioning of a group.

Process consultation. Activities to improve the functioning of key team processes. Intergroup team building. Activities to improve the functioning or two or more groups.
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How can the process of organization development enhance organizational culture?

Individual OD interventions. Role negotiation.
Clarifying expectations in working relationships.

Job redesign. Creating long-term congruence between individual goals and organizational career opportunities. Career planning. Structured opportunities for individuals to work with managers or staff experts on career issues.
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