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Category: Organizational Culture

  • Adaptive Perspective of Organizational Culture

    In the last byte, we looked at the fit perspective to understand its influence on organizational performance. We not move to another angle of looking at organizational culture – the Adaptive Perspective. 

    A culture could be called adaptive it it encourages confidence and risk taking amongst employee, possesses a leadership that produces change, and focuses on the changing needs of customers. 

    Researchers studies the performance of companies with adaptive and non-adaptive cultures and were surprised to find what differentiates them to be clearly striking! 
    Following is a brief summary of the same:
    Adaptive cultures facilitated change to meet the needs of three major groups of constituents:  stockholders, customers and employees. It was found that the managers strongly valued people and process that create useful change. The close attention of the managers to the customers (mostly and other constituencies to a limited extent) helped them identify when a change was needed and then act when the change served their legitimate interest and even if they entail taking some risk. 

    The non adaptive cultures were characterized by cautious management that often tried to protect its own interest. 

    Given the high-performing cultures are adaptive ones, it is important to know how managers can develop adaptive culture. We discuss the leaders role in managing organizational culture in the next byte.

  • Fit – prespective of Organizational Culture

    In the last byte, we looked at the role a strong culture is believed to have on performance of an organization. In today’s byte, we look at another way in which organizational culture is believed to have an influence on its performance – the “fit” perspective.

    The “fit” perspective, claims that a culture is good only if it fits the industry or the firms strategy. It identifies three particular characteristics of an industry that may affect its culture:
    1. Competitive Environment in which it operates
    2. Requirements of the Customer
    3. Expectations from Society
    Lets take the example of the computer manufacturing industry – it is notes that there is a highly competitive demand for products – new features, new experience and every vendor is pushing something new; customers wish for a highly reliable product; the overall society expects a state-of-the-art technology and high-quality service. The traditional hierarchical structure and stability wouldn’t work well in this industry – there should be a lot of experience, team/project centered decision making with keen oversight from the top management right!
     
    Note here that – the fit perspective is used in explaining short-term performance but not long-term performance.
     
    It is not going to be any easy to change culture quickly, especially if the culture is widely shared and deeply held.

  • A Strong Culture

    In the last byte, we looked at the function organizational culture plays. In today’s byte, we look at the strong culture perspective. 

    Strong culture in an organizational context refers to one where there is a consues on the values that drive the company and with an  intensity that is recognizable evel to outsiders. 

    It is generally observed that strong culture perspective steates that organizations with “strong” cultures perform better than other organizations. Strong culture is deeply held and widerly shared!
    Strong culture are ones that facilitate performance for three reasons:
    1. The culture is characterised by goal alignment
    2. It creates a high level of motivation of values shared by members
    3. It provides control without the oppressive effects of a bureaucracy
    However there is a perplexing set of questions that we believe is worth wondering:
    1. It has been observed that strong economic performance can create strong culture, but would it be the reverse?
    2. Would a strong culture always lead you up the path of growth?

  • Function of Org Culture

    In the last byte, we looked at assumptions and how they influence organization culture. In today’s byte, we look at what functions organizational culture performs.
     
    We could think of organizational culture to be playing the following 4 functions:
    1. Culture provides a sense of identity to members and increases their commitment to the organization: when a person internalizes the company’s values, they find their work intrinsically rewarding and identifying with the fellow workers!
    2. Culture is a sense-making device for organization members: It provides a way for members of the organization to interpret the meaning of  organizational event.
    3. Culture reinforces the values in the organization
    4. Culture serves as a control mechanism: norms guide behavior, and the culture should reinforce the norms. A task – think of what you need to do when you say the norm is one of teamwork!

  • Assumptions in Organizational Culture

    In the last byte, we looked at values for discussion. In today’s byte, we look at assumptions. 

    Assumptions refer to the deeply held beliefs that guide behavior and tell members of an organization how to perceive and think about things.

    Assumptions are the deepest and most fundamental level of an organization’s culture and form the essence of culture. If fact,  this is what gives it the strength! It is alsmost unthinkable to find some one violate these assumptions – this indicates the strength to which the members hold on to these assumptions. Organization members may not be aware of their assumptions, and so may be reluctant or unable to discuss them or change them.

    Though unconscious, assumptions often guide a firm’s actions and decisions, some companies are quite explicit in their assumptions about employees.

  • Values in Organization Culture

    In the last byte, we looked at a presentation on company culture by TaxiforSure. In today’s byte, we begin our discussion on Values. 

    We have already seen that values are the next layer of understanding culture after the visible representation of culture through artifacts. Values reflect the underlying belief of what should be or should not be – and often consistently articulated both in conversations and in a company’s mission statement or annual reports.

    Values could actually reside in two forms:
    1. espoused values: refers to what members of an organization say they value
    2. enacted values: refers to values reflected in the way individuals actually behave.
    It is interesting to note that a firm’s values and how it promotes and publicizes these also affect how employees would feel about their job and themselves – there has to be a synchronization between what is spoken and how it is acted on!

  • Sample – presentation on organizational culture

    Since we have been discussing about organizational culture for the last few days – I found a presentation on the same by Taxi4Sure.
    Please refer to the embedded presentation here in (they talk about their values and systems after the slide 25).

  • Role of stories in organizational culture

    In the last byte, we looked at the role played by ceremonies and rites in creating an organizational culture. In today’s byte, we discuss about stories.

    Stories regarding an organization play a huge role in reinforcing role in communicating the organizational values. As stories are told and retold, they give meaning and identity to organizations and are found to very helpful in orienting new employees. 

    Some of the themes of stories that are common in organization are:
    1. Stories about the boss
    2. Stories about getting fiered
    3. Stories about hwo the company deals with employees who have relocated
    4. Stories about whether lower-level employees can rise to the top
    5. Stories about how the company deals with crisis situation
    6. Stories about how status considerations work when rules are broken.
    The information from these stories serve to guide the behavior in an organization.
     
    Stories are extremely powerful medium of communication as the listener is left to draw his/her own conclusions.

    One should always remember that for stories to be effective as a cultural tool, the stories should be credible. Stories which are not backed by reality often lead to cynicism and mistrust.

  • Artifacts – Organizational Culture

    In the last byte, we looked at how organizational culture has different layers and visually understood what each layer contains. In today’s byte, we begin discussing about Artifacts.

    Artifacts refer to the symbols of culture in physical and social work environement. Clearly these are the most visible and accessible level of culture. We shall discuss three of these in today.

    Personal Enactment – refers to the behavior that reflects the organization’s values. For example: the way a manager at the top of he organizational hierarchy      behaves with his subordinates could reflect what the organization’s culture would be like.

    Rituals – refers to every day practices that are not repeated over and over. Often these are unwritten, but they send a clear message about “the way we do things around here”. For Ex: Imagine a case where Calling employees in an organization with their first name, and another where people always put refer each other with Mr. Mrs. etc and their surnames!

    Symbols – refer to the communication about an organizational culture through unspoken messages. These are representative of organizational identity and membership to employees. These also help build solidarity in the organizations.

  • Organizational Culture 2

    In the last byte, we listed the various means of communicating the organizational culture. We discuss the various levels of organizational culture today.

    The following diagram capture the various levels of organizational culture: