Kreitner/Kinicki/Cole
Fundamentals of Organizational Behaviour: Key Concepts, Skills, and Best Practices
Chapter 13
Organizational Culture and Change
Chapter Learning Objectives
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Discuss the layers and functions of organizational culture.
Summarize the methods used by organizations to embed their cultures.
Describe the three phases of organizational socialization.
Discuss the external and internal forces that create the need for
organizational change.
Describe Lewin’s change model and the systems model of change.
Review the 10 reasons employees resist change.
Identify alternative strategies for overcoming resistance to change.
Opening Case
In the Pit
This case profiles the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO), and chronicles
the significant changes it has encountered recently in its fight for survival. Many
internal and external forces for change are at work in this situation. The orchestra
appears to have been through the unfreezing stage and the change stage. One
of the big changes is the new CEO. Now the TSO is headed for the refreezing
stage. The new CEO seems to be fully aware of the difficulties that lie ahead and
appears to anticipate the need to deal with resistance to the changes. Given its
‘near-death’ experience, all stakeholders will be watching Andrew Shaw as he
guides the TSO into the next stage of its history.
Chapter Summary
Foundation of Organizational Culture
Organizational culture is the set of shared values, beliefs, and implicit
assumptions that underlie a company’s identity. There are three fundamental
layers of organizational culture, as shown in Figure 13-1. The three layers are
observable artifacts, espoused/championed values and basic underlying
assumptions.
Observable artifacts consist of the physical manifestations of an
organization’s culture such as dress, myths and stories. You might spend some
time on the terrible incident at Sitel Canada provided in the text.
Espoused values. Values are enduring beliefs in a mode of conduct or
end-state. Espoused values are the stated values and norms that are preferred
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by an organization. These values are often set by the founder and by the top
management team. Enacted values represent the values and norms that
actually are exhibited or converted into employee behaviour.
Basic assumptions are the underlying assumptions that are
unobservable and represent the core of the organizational culture. They are often
taken for granted and thus are highly resistant to change. You could discuss your
college or university and the culture in terms of what might be hard to change
and why.
Four Functions of Organizational Culture. There are four functions of
culture, as shown in Figure 13-2.
(1) Give members organizational identity—3M and innovation.
(2) Facilitate collective commitment—3M has a corporate value of being
proud of being a part of the company.
(3)Promote social system stability—3M has stayed steady even with
downturns in its own fortunes.
(4)Shape behaviour by helping members make sense of their
surroundings—3M sets expectations for innovation in a number of
ways such as through internships and co-op programs.
Outcomes Associated with Organizational Culture. Research has
discovered many things about organizational culture. Several studies have
shown that organizational culture was significantly correlated with employee
behaviour and attitudes. Why would this be the case? Results from other studies
revealed that the congruence between an individual’s values and organizational
values was significantly associated with organizational commitment, job
satisfaction, intention to quit, and turnover. Further, there is not one type of
organizational culture that drives financial performance. Finally, studies of
mergers indicate that they frequently fail due to incompatible cultures.
How Cultures are Embedded in Organizations. A culture is initially the
outgrowth of the founder’s philosophy. The following shows the mechanisms or
ways for embedding culture into an organization:
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Formal statements of philosophy, mission & values.
The design of physical space, work environments, and buildings.
Slogans, language, acronyms, and sayings.
Deliberate role modeling, training programs, teaching, and coaching by
managers and supervisors.
Explicit rewards, status symbols eg. titles, and promotion criteria.
Stories, legends, and myths about key people and events.
The organizational activities, processes, or outcomes that leaders pay
attention to, measure, and control.
Leaders’ reactions to critical incidents and organizational crises.
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The workflow and organizational structure.
Organizational systems and procedures.
Organizational goals and the associated criteria used for recruitment,
selection, development, promotion, layoffs, and retirement of people.
You might assign your students the task of interviewing teachers and/or students
in different departments in the college or university as to what they think their
culture is regarding the department and its students. They could devise a
questionnaire, complete a survey, tabulate the data and make a presentation to
class on the topic of culture as it applies to your college or university.
Embedding Organizational Culture Through Socialization
Process and Mentoring
There are two basic processes for embedding organizational culture into
the organization: socialization and mentoring. Organizational socialization is
defined as the process by which a person learns the values, norms, and required
behaviours that permit him to participate as a member of the organization. Where
else do we see socialization in our society? Do all organizations in all societies
socialize their employees and managers?
Mentoring is the process of forming and maintaining developmental
relationships between a mentor and a junior person. Mentoring contributes to
creating a sense of oneness by promoting the acceptance of the organization’s
core values throughout the organization. The socialization aspect of mentoring
also promotes a sense of membership. How do professors act as mentors?
A Three-Phase Model of Organizational Socialization. Initial
membership in an organization can be confusing. Organizational socialization
can help. The entire sequence can take from a few weeks to a year depending
on the individual and the complexity of the situation. A three-phase model of
organizational socialization is shown in Figure 13-3.
Phase 1: Anticipatory Socialization. This type of socialization happens
before one joins the organizations, such as seeing ads like those for the Armed
Forces. In this phase one anticipates realities about the organization and the new
job, the organization’s need for specific skills and abilities, and the organization’s
sensitivity to employees’ own needs and values. Unrealistic expectations about
the nature of work, pay and promotions may occur at this time. How does the
image of a company impact this phase?
Phase 2: Encounter. Once a new employee starts work and becomes a
member of the organization, many organizations use a combination of orientation
and training. What type of training and orientation does your college or university
use? Is it effective? Why or why not?
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Phase 3: Change and Acquisition. The mastery of important tasks and
resolution of role conflict signals the beginning of this final stage of socialization.
If one does not make it, one will leave voluntarily or involuntarily from the
organization.
Practical Applications of Socialization Research. Practical applications
of socialization research include the following:
(1) a formal organized approach should be used;
(2) managers play a key role in the encounter phase;
(3) the organization can benefit by training new employees to use
proactive socialization behaviours; and
(4) managers should pay attention to the socialization of diverse
employees. What does diversity mean in this context?
Mentoring. Research has shown that mentored employees perform better
on the job and experience more rapid career development. What happens to
mentoring when gender or racial issues may get in the way of the mentor or the
mentoree?
Functions of mentoring. There are two general functions of mentoring—
career and psychological. Five career functions that enhance career
development are sponsorship, exposure-and-visibility, coaching, protection, and
challenging assignments. Four psychological functions are role modeling,
acceptance-and-confirmation, counseling, and friendship. What happens when
there is a ‘bad’ role model as your boss? What can you do?
Getting the most out of mentoring. In order to get full benefits from a
mentoring program:
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Train mentors and protégés on how to use career and psychosocial
mentoring
Use both formal and informal mentoring.
Inform diverse employees about the benefits and drawbacks of meeting
with same/different employees.
Encourage women to mentor others.
Increase the number of diverse mentors in high-ranking positions.
A Model of Societal and Organizational Cultures
Societal culture involves shared meanings and socially-derived, taken-forgranted assumptions about how to think and act. Figure 13-4 illustrates how
culture influences organizational behaviour through the impact of organizational
culture and the impact of societal culture that employees bring with them to the
workplace. Both types of culture affect employees’ personal values/ethics,
attitudes, assumptions, and expectations, which in turn affects their behaviour in
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organizations. The Ethics at Work box highlights differences in hiring practices
between different societal cultures. The International OB box provides
information on recent changes to the traditional Japanese policy of jobs-for-life.
Forces of Change
Organizations encounter many different forces for change, from both
external and internal sources. Awareness of the forces for change can help
managers to determine when they should consider implementing an
organizational change.
External forces. External forces for change originate outside the
organization. There are four key external forces for change: demographic
characteristics, technological advancements, market changes, and social and
political pressures. Why should organizations not create their own change before
they are forced to change? Can strategies and planning future scenarios help
this? Can organizations always be scanning the environment and testing the
waters of change? What if they do not in a globalized environment? You might
want to ask your students if they think that religion and globalization should be
added and other broader categories such as economics and science?
Demographic characteristics. Organizations need to effectively manage
diversity if they are to receive maximum contribution and commitment from
employees. What about the continued reality of conflict and prejudice in our
nation and world? There are implications associated with hiring the 80 million
people dubbed the Net or Echo-Boom Generation born between 1977 and 1997
(most of the students in your classroom one might assume). These employees
are technologically equipped and therefore, armed with the most powerful tools
for business and that makes them unique in history. In one way it is the young
teaching the old which places the hierarchy upside down and is very confusing
for those used to being the knowledgeable ones and possessing the
power/authority. You might ask if any of your students are managing older people
and what it is like.
Technological advancements are increasingly used as means of
improving productivity and market competitiveness. This is one of the biggest
forces for change. Why?
Market changes include the emergence of a global economy that is
forcing companies to change the way they do business.
Social and political pressures. There are examples such as the tobacco
companies getting lots of pressure and political events such as the fall of the
Berlin Wall. You might want your students to fill in what they think the most
important social and political events of the last 20 years.
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Internal Forces. Internal forces for change include the changes that
comes from the inside to the organization. These forces can be subtle such as
low job satisfaction or can manifest in outward signs such as low productivity.
Models of Planned Change
North American managers are criticized for emphasizing the short-term,
quick-fix solutions to organizational problems (remember the demands of the
stock market and more active shareholders). Quick fixes do not work for really
changing an organization.
Lewin’s change model. Lewin’s model of change has three stages for
creating change:
Unfreezing. The unfreezing stage is focused on creating the motivation to
change where individuals are encouraged to replace old behaviours and attitudes
with those desired by management. How would you go about doing this stage?
Benchmarking can be used to help unfreeze an organization. Benchmarking is
a process by which a company compares its performance with that of highperforming organizations and tries to change accordingly.
Changing involves learning and at this stage the employee is provided
with new information, new behavioural models or new ways of looking at things.
How would you present these to be the most effective?
Refreezing is stabilizing the change by helping employees integrate the
changed behaviour or attitude into their normal way of doing things. How do you
think this might be done most effectively?
Kotter’s Eight Steps for Leading Organizational Change. Kotter’s
steps for change build on Lewin’s three stages, as seen in Table 13-1.
Organizational Development or OD is a set of techniques or tools that
are used to implement organizational change.
OD involves profound change using change agents for creating longlasting results.
OD is value-loaded because it is rooted partially in humanistic
psychology; many OD consultants carry certain values or biases into the client
organization. What consultant does not carry a pre-existing set of biases and
values?
OD is a diagnosis/prescription cycle because consultants have long
used the medical model of organizations, which uses such terms as ‘sick’ or
‘monitor’ progress. Why do they reify the process?
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OD is Process Oriented. It is at its best when it focuses in on the form
and not the content of behavioural and administrative dealings. Why might this
be?
OD Research and Practical Implications Planned organizational change
does work. Change programs are more successful when they are geared toward
meeting both short- and long-term goals. Organizational change is more likely to
succeed when top management is truly committed to the change process.
Understanding and Managing Resistance to Change
We are all creatures of habit and it is difficult to change. Managers must
learn to manage resistance to change because if they do not there can be a
number of costly consequences.
Why People Resist Change in the Workplace. Resistance to change is
an emotional/behavioural response to real or imagined threats to an established
work routine. Resistance can be subtle or overt. Ten of the leading reasons for
resistance to change are:
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An individual’s predisposition toward change.
Surprise and fear of the unknown.
Climate of mistrust.
Fear of failure.
Loss of status and/or job security.
Peer pressure.
Disruption of cultural traditions and/or group relationships.
Personality conflicts.
Lack of tact and/or poor timing.
Nonreinforcing reward systems.
Alternative Strategies for Overcoming Resistance to Change. Before
looking at strategies to overcome resistance to change, one must look at four key
conclusions: (1) an organization must be ready for change; (2) organizational
change is less successful when top management fails to keep employees
informed about the process of change; (3) do not assume that people are
consciously resisting change; and (4) provide employees the opportunity to
discuss how the proposed change might affect them. What do you think of the
list? Could you add any others? The Focus on Diversity box describes
initiatives in Canada aimed at facilitating employment equity, a change which has
faced considerable resistance.
Table 13-2 illustrates six strategies for overcoming resistance to change.
They are:
1. education + communication
2. participation + involvement
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3.
4.
5.
6.
facilitation + support
negotiation + agreement
manipulation + cooptation
explicit + implicit coercion.
What are the ethical concerns behind each of these approaches? Is ethical
behaviour important in changing behaviours?
Internet Exercises
1. Organizational Culture
This exercise asks students to look at organizational culture by reviewing
the Websites of two organizations to assess their culture. Students begin by
doing a general search on the key words ‘organizational culture’ and ‘corporate
vision and values’, in order to identify potential organizations that they could
investigate further.
You might designate some organizations that have undergone changes in
ethics and philosophy in recent times. Examples are H-P, IBM and Ford. Disney
has also changed under Eisner’s management from a “make people happy” to a
more money-oriented approach. You might have your students look at these
companies as they were initially established and how new management with
different ideas and different times chose different ethical guidelines for their
actions.
The questions asked are:
1. What are the organization’s espoused values and beliefs? Answers will
vary by organization.
2. What methods appear to have been used to embed culture in these
organizations? Answers will vary by organization.
2. How Comfortable Are You With Change?
This exercise provides an opportunity for students to assess their resistance
to
change.
They
are
instructed
to
go
to
the
Website
www.webhome.idirect.com/~kehamilt/ob14.html, review the information on
organizational change, and then click on the online quiz. The quiz is
automatically scored by clicking on ‘Score the Exercise’. The higher the score,
the greater the student’s comfort with change. The questions asked are:
1. What was your score? What does it tell you about your level of
acceptance of change? Personal opinion.
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2. If your score was low, indicating resistance to change, what might you do
to try to become more open to change? Explain. Personal opinion,
probably seeking out information about changes and discussing them with
others.
3. If your score was high, indicating comfort with change, think about how
this might make it difficult for you to deal with others who fear and resist
change. How might you try to understand their point of view? Explain.
Personal opinion, probably discussing the changes with others to find out
why they are uncomfortable. They may feel they will lose out as a result of
the change, and may see you as someone who will benefit.
Experiential Exercises
1. Assessing an Organization’s Readiness for Change
This exercise asks students to evaluate a company they work for, or are
familiar with, that has undertaken a change effort. After completing the 16-item
questionnaire using the 3-point scale provided, they sum their responses to
calculate a total score. The total score can be interpreted using the arbitrary
norms provided: 40-48 = high readiness for change; 24-39 = moderate readiness
for change; 16-23 = low readiness for change. The question asked is:
1. Did this level of readiness for change relate to the success of the
change effort? In most cases, the organizations with higher readiness
scores will have experienced more successful change efforts than those
with low scores.
2. Cross-Cultural Awareness
This exercise focuses on differences in societal culture and provides an
opportunity for students to compare their work goal priorities to those from people
in other countries. Students rank the 11 aspects of work life in order of
importance to them - the most important aspect of work life is ranked as ‘1’ and
the least important aspect is ranked ‘11’. Then they compare their rankings with
the rankings provided by workers in the US, Britain, Germany, and Japan. The
questions asked are:
1. Which national profile of work goals most closely matches your own? Is
this what you expected or not? Personal opinion.
2. Are you surprised by any of the rankings in the four national samples?
Explain. Personal opinion.
3. What types or motivational/leadership adjustments would a manager
make when moving between the four countries? Canadian managers
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would probably not make many changes in the US, Britain, or Germany,
other than ensuring that pay is competitive in Germany. In Japan, the
importance of autonomy could be addressed by instituting self-managed
teams and quality circles. It would also be important in Japan to take care
that employees are hired for jobs where they feel there is a good match
with their skills and preferences – this would mean extra work in the
selection process and in designing effective training.
Personal Awareness and Growth Exercises
1. Have You Been Adequately Socialized?
This exercise provides students with the opportunity to assess the
socialization experience at their workplace. After completing the 8-item
questionnaire using the 5-point scale provided, they sum their responses to
calculate a total score. The total score can be interpreted by comparing it to the
norms provided: 8-18 = low socialization; 19-29 = moderate socialization; 30-40 =
high socialization. Discussion can revolve around examples provided by students
in the high socialization category.
2. Creating Personal Change Through Force-Field Analysis
This exercise introduces the force-field analysis of change, and is a
supplement to the material provided in the chapter. A brief introduction should be
presented to the class, based on the material in the text. Detailed instructions for
the exercise are provided in the text. The questions asked are:
1. What was your reaction to doing a force-field analysis? Was it insightful
and helpful? Personal opinion.
2. Was it valuable to receive feedback about your force-field analysis from a
partner? Explain. Personal opinion.
3. How would you assess the probability of effectively implementing your
recommendations? Personal opinion.
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Video Case
Gap Adventures
This video profiles an adventure travel/ecotourism company owned by a
young entrepreneur, Bruce Poon Tip. The company has grown rapidly and a new
marketing expert, Dave Bowen, had been brought in to facilitate a change to
greater customer focus. The company has a strong culture, and resistance to
change soon appear when cultural assumptions are questioned, and artifacts are
redesigned. The questions asked are:
1. What corporate values have changed at Gap Adventures since the arrival
of Dave Bowen? Less focus on ethical sensibilities, conservationism, and
the laid-back family atmosphere, and more focus on customers, hard
work, discipline, efficiency.
2. Explain how the culture change at Gap Adventures has affected the four
functions of culture. The organizational identity has changed shifted from a
small, family atmosphere with entrepreneurial spirit to a more traditional
corporate identity. The collective commitment has been strained by Dave’s
style. The social system has become less stable with the advent of Dave’s
authority and the decrease in Bruce’s involvement in the day-to-day
activities of the company. The company may make less sense to
employees than it did before when it was so unique because its underlying
values have changed.
3. Do you agree with Bruce’s assessment of the changes at Gap
Adventures, as he expresses them at the end of the video? Personal
opinion, but many may agree with his view that the company is more
serious, more controlled, more corporate and less relaxed.
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