What’s involved in
Organisational Culture?
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Describe the meaning, importance, and origins of organisational culture.
2. Discuss cultures of conflict and cultures of inclusion.
3. Identify and discuss how technology and innovation affect organisational
culture.
4. Describe how effective organisations manage their culture.
WHAT DO WE MEAN BY
ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE?#
1-3
LEVELS OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
LEVELS OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
LEVELS OF CULTURE AT ZAPPOS
• Artifacts are at the first level of organisational culture and are the
easiest to see. What are some Zappos artifacts you can observe?
• Values appear at the next level of organisational culture. You can infer
a culture’s values from the behaviour of organisational members.
Which values appear in Zappos?
• Organisational members will unconsciously behave according to an
organisation culture’s assumptions. You also can infer these from
observed behaviour. Which assumptions appear at Zappos?
FUNCTIONS OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
Provides a sense of identity to members and increases their
commitment to the organisation
Serves as a sense-making device for organisation
members
Reinforces the values of the organisation
Serves as a control mechanism for shaping behaviour
How does Zappos demonstrate these functions?
DOES CULTURE MATTER?
•
Culture boosts organisational performance when it is...
 Strategically relevant
 Strong
 Emphasises innovation and change to adapt to a changing environment
•
Culture and competitive advantage
– Creating a culture that supports sharing and helping other employees can have
positive performance results.
•
Strong and weak cultures
– Strong cultures are not always better than weak cultures; they must be positive
not negative
•
Culture and unethical conduct
– Underlying many organisational problems is a culture that pushes for visible
results and individual performance above all else.
HOW LEADERS CREATE AND MAINTAIN CULTURE
• Varies by industry and national identity/society
• Culture is influenced by company founders and leaders
 Culture is shaped early on then reinforced by philosophy, values,
vision, and goals
 Cultural choices influence company structure, compensation
system, customer relations and human resources policies,
individual behaviour, and motivation
 All these items reinforce culture
• Culture may need to change due to changes in strategy, technology,
or organisational structure
• Culture may vary across different areas
of the organisation
CULTURE IN FOUR LAYERS
10
PARADIGM
11
THE CULTURAL WEB OF AN
ORGANISATION
12
CULTURAL WEB ELEMENTS
Stories tend to be about heroes, villains mavericks, successes, disasters, how
things were.
• What core beliefs do the stories reflect?
• What stories are commonly told e.g. to newcomers?
• How do these stories reflect core assumptions and beliefs?
• What norms do the mavericks deviate from?
Symbols are objects, events, acts or people that convey, maintain or create
meaning over and above their functional purpose.
• What objects, people or events do people particularly identify with?
• What are these related to in the history?
• What aspects of strategy are highlighted in publicity?
CULTURAL WEB ELEMENTS
What are the power structures?
• Where does power reside?
• Who makes things happen?
• Indicators include:
o
o
o
status
claim on resources
symbols of power
What are the organisational structures?
• How formal/informal are the organisational structures?
• Do structures encourage collaboration or competition?
• What types of power structure do they support?
CULTURAL WEB ELEMENTS
What are the control systems?
• What is most closely monitored/controlled?
• Is emphasis on reward or punishment?
• Are controls rooted in history or current strategies?
• Are there many/few controls?
What are the routines and rituals?
• Which routines are emphasised?
• Which are embedded in history?
• What behaviour do routines encourage?
• What are the key rituals?
• What assumptions and core beliefs do they reflect?
• What do training program emphasise?
• How easy are routines/rituals to change?
CULTURAL WEB OF ZAPPOS
16
ZAPPOS’ CULTURAL WEB ELEMENTS
ZAPPOS’ CULTURE
• What cultural web elements did you identify?
• What is the key to success at Zappos?
CULTURES FOR MANAGING CONFLICT
There are four kinds of cultures of conflict. These vary based on active
or passive norms and agreeable or disagreeable norms.
Disagreeable
Agreeable
Active
Dominating
Collaborative
Passive
Passive-Aggressive
Avoidant
EFFECTS OF TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION
ON CULTURE
•
Using intranets, social media and the cloud to build and maintain
culture
– Issue is not just about using the latest technologies but about
leveraging the right technologies for creating and maintaining a
positive culture
– Ways in which intranets influence culture
 Their scope
 Their openness to employee feedback and contributions
 The frequency with which they are updated
 The number of intranets
 The use of symbols, stories and ceremonies
EFFECTS OF TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION
ON CULTURE
•
Building and maintaining culture in the cloud
– Harder to reinforce cultural values
– Affect employee identification with the organisation
•
Innovation and culture
– Innovation: the process of creating and doing new things that are introduced
into the marketplace as products, processes, or services
 Radical (disruptive) innovation: A major breakthrough that changes or
creates whole industries
 Systems innovation: Creates new functionality by assembling existing
parts in new ways
 Incremental innovation: Continues the technical improvement and extends
the applications of radical and systems innovations
WAYS TO MANAGE ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
• Take advantage of the existing culture
 Managers must first be fully aware of the culture’s values and
what behaviours or actions those values support
• Teach the organisational culture through socialisation
 Socialisation is the process through which individuals
become social beings
 Organisational socialisation is the process through which
employees learn about the firm’s culture and pass their
knowledge and understanding on to others
CHANGING THE ORGANISATION’S CULTURE
• Managing symbols: organisation culture is understood and
communicated through the use of stories and other symbolic
media
• Difficulty of change: culture can be difficult to change when
upper management inadvertently reverts to old behaviours
• Stability of change: new values and beliefs must be seen as
stable and as influential as old ones
Changing value systems requires enormous effort because value
systems tend to be self-reinforcing
MANAGING ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE