Culture and Behaviour
By Dr Amanda Marshall-Ponting – licensed under the Creative
Commons Attribution – Non-Commercial – Share Alike License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Culture and behaviour
Structure of the work package
Introductory
presentation
Reflective
questions &
problem scenarios
Background
reading materials
Presentation
Solutions and
worked examples
Describing, measuring & managing
culture
Changing organisational culture &
behaviour
Additional reading
Experiencing culture in the work place
Tests, reflective questions &
problem scenarios
Culture: What is it & why is it
important in the work place?
Theoretical models & key
debates
Structure of the work package
Culture, what is it?
“...the way of life, especially the general customs
and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a
particular time”
(Cambridge dictionary, 2011)
And
“...the set of shared meanings held by the team
members that make team work possible”
(Thompson, 2000)
Culture, why is it important?
• Interest in culture increased as studies aimed
to understand the success of Japanese
companies in the 1970s
• Two assumptions were made in 1980s and 90s
studies:
– Organisational performance depends upon
alignment to its strategy
– Belief that management can manipulate culture to
achieve its goals
Culture, why is it important?
• Size and contribution construction sector
makes to the UK’s GDP:
– Over 2.5 million people employed in construction
in 2009
– 8% of GDP from construction
• Increasing globalisation and the rise of multinational companies
Experiencing culture in the
workplace
• This section discusses how we can start to
explore culture:
– The impacts that assumptions and beliefs have
upon culture
– The objects that illustrate culture
– How culture and its artefacts shape behaviour
• The Iceberg model will be introduced
• You will be able to reflect upon your
company’s culture
Experiencing culture in the
workplace
EXERCISE: You can test your cultural
awareness using the quiz in section 1 of the
Exercises document.
The answers can be found in section 1 of the
Solutions document.
Culture: The iceberg analogy
Language
Rituals
Methods
Techniques
Laws & customs
Norms
Roles
Beliefs
Philosophy
Doing
Thinking
Values
Attitudes
Myths
Expectations
Feeling
Culture: The iceberg analogy
• This has 2 main parts and the latter help us to
understand the former:
– The visible part – components we come into direct
contact with
• Language, food, music, architecture, behaviours
– The hidden part – behavioural drivers
• Motivations, gender differences, attitudes
• Culture will affect internal and external
relationships and has formal and informal
components
Experiencing culture in the
workplace: culture and behaviour
Organisation A
Organisation B
Operates on the assumption that:
 ideas come ultimately from individuals
 people are responsible, motivated and capable
of governing themselves
 the truth in practice can only be arrived at by
fighting things out in groups
 such fighting is possible because the
organisations members see themselves as a
family that take care of themselves
Therefore it is safe to fight and be competitive.
There are open office landscapes, few closed
doors, people milling about, intense conversations
and arguments and a general air of informality.
Operates on the assumption that:
 truth comes from older, wiser and higher-status
members
 people are capable of loyalty and discipline in
carrying out directions
 relationships are lineal and vertical
 each person has a niche in the organisation that
cannot be invaded
 the organisation is responsible for taking care of
its members
There is a hush in the air and everyone is on an office
with closed doors.
Nothing is done without
appointment and prearranged agenda. When people
of different ranks are present there is real deference
and obedience and an air of formality permeates
everything.
(Schein, 1984)
Experiencing culture in the
workplace: Your organisation
EXERCISE: You can explore your organisation’s
culture by completing exercise 2.
This exercise asks you to reflect upon the
culture of your organisation, how its values
are expressed, the assumptions it makes and
how the culture is manifested
Measuring & managing
organisational culture & behaviour
• This section discusses how we can describe
culture
• Models are presented by:
– Charles Handy (1985)
– Geert Hofstede (1980)
• Some implications for cross cultural
management are presented
Measuring culture: Handy’s four
cultures
In his book Understanding Organizations Charles
Handy (1985) argues that there are four main
types of culture:
• Power
• Role
• Task
• Person
They can be represented pictorially.
Measuring culture: Handy’s four
cultures
• Central power source with influence radiating from
the centre
• A shared understanding of the organisation’s
approach is essential
• Competition & trust important
• Power orientation, risk taking
• Low morale & high turnover
• Small, entrepreneurial organisations
• e.g. property, finance, trading
The power culture (Handy)
companies
Measuring culture: Handy’s four
cultures
• Bureaucracy stereotype: its strength is its specialities &
a focus upon procedures
• Coordination by small number of senior management
• Emphasis upon role rather than individual performance
• Successful in stable, predictable markets
– slow response to change
• Good security
• e.g. Civil service, auto & oil
• industries, life insurance
The role culture (Handy)
Measuring culture: Handy’s four
cultures
• Flexible, matrix organisation structure
• Emphasis upon getting the job done – right people &
resources brought together to achieve this
• Team culture empowered to make own decisions;
agreeable team climate essential
• Prevalent in competitive markets
• E.g. management consultancies,
advertising agencies
• Use of political influence causes morale
drop and role or power culture
The task culture (Handy)
Measuring culture: Handy’s four
cultures
• Rare but many organisations incorporate its values
placing individual at centre
• Few organisations can exist with this culture –
control & management hierarchies are impossible
• Any structure exists to assist its members
• Expert power
• e.g. University professors
The person culture (Handy)
Measuring culture: Handy’s four
cultures
EXERCISE 3 asks you to reflect upon Handy’s
(1985) model by considering the advantages
and disadvantages of working in organisations
with each of the four types of culture he
identifies and to identify which culture you
would prefer to work in.
Measuring & managing culture:
Hofstede’s cultural dimensions
• 116,000 IBM employees from 40 countries completed
Hofstede’s questionnaire
• The job and procedures were the same: Hofstede
concluded variations in responses were due to
cultural attitudes & values
• Four underlying cultural dimensions were identified:
– power distance – acceptance of unequal power distribution
– Uncertainty avoidance – tolerance of ambiguity/uncertainty
– Individualism – emphasis upon individual vs. collective
achievement
– Masculinity – tendency towards assertiveness, acquisition
Measuring & managing culture:
Hofstede’s cultural dimensions
Implications of culture on structure, behaviour, expectation & values
Rating
Low
High
Dimension
Power distance
Less centralisation; flat organisational
pyramids; smaller wage differentials;
manual & clerical jobs equal
Greater centralisation; tall org. pyramids; more
supervisory personnel; white-collar jobs valued
more than blue-collar jobs
Masculinity
Sex roles minimised; no interference with
personal lives; more women in more
qualified jobs; reward of soft, intuitive
skills; social rewards valued
Clear sex role differentiation; organisations may
interfere to protect interests; fewer women in
qualified jobs; aggression, competition, justice
rewarded; work valued as central life interest
Individualism
Organisation as “family”; org. defends
employee interests; practices based on
sense of loyalty, duty, group participation
Org. more impersonal; employees defend own
self-interests; practices encourage individual
initiative
Uncertainty
avoidance
Less structuring of activities; fewer written
rules; more generalists; variability; greater
willingness to take risks; less ritualistic
behaviour
More structuring activities; more written rules;
more specialists; standardisation; less
willingness to take risks; more realistic
behaviour
Measuring & managing culture:
Hofstede’s cultural dimensions
Example countries for each cultural dimension
Dimension
Low
High
Power distance
Australia, Israel, Denmark,
Sweden
Philippines, Mexico, Venezuela,
India, Brazil
Masculinity
Sweden, Denmark, Thailand,
Finland, Yugoslavia
Japan, Australia, Venezuela, Italy,
Mexico
Individualism
Venezuela, Columbia, Taiwan,
Mexico, Greece
U.S., Australia, Great Britain,
Canada, Netherlands
Uncertainty
avoidance
Denmark, Sweden, Great
Britain, U.S., India
Greece, Portugal, Japan, Peru,
France
Measuring & managing culture:
Hofstede’s cultural dimensions
Exercise 4 uses five scenarios to test your
understanding of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions
model.
A worked example is included in section 4 of the
Solutions document.
Changing organisational culture
• This section focuses on the difficulties of cultural and
behavioural change
• The McKinsey Group’s 7S model illustrates the
interrelatedness of ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ culture
components
• Communities of practice, informal groups enabled by
new technologies, are introduced
Changing organisational culture:
McKinsey 7S model
• This model has been used
by academics and
practitioners to analyse
culture
• If organisational change is
to be successful changes
will be needed to all
components
• ‘Hard’, tangible
components are easier to
change than ‘soft’ ones
structure
systems
strategy
shared
values
style
skills
staff
Changing organisational culture:
McKinsey 7S model
Systems: Support
daily activities &
implement strategy.
Technology is allowing
processes to become
simpler, decisions to
be taken more widely
with greater customer
emphasis
Shared values:
Commonly held
fundamental ideas
about the company
they maintain
coherence in teams &
focus upon goals
Skills: Numbers &
types of personnel
and their
competencies and
abilities that help it to
be distinctive from its
competitors
Staff: Growing
importance of human
resources in knowledge
economy with much
effort placed on hiring,
training & mentoring to
achieve competitive
advantage
Strategy:
organisational plan
of action. Focussed
upon where the
organisation is,
where it wants to be,
how it will get there
Structure: Shape of
the business.
Dependent upon its
objectives & culture,
it dictates the way it
operates & performs
Style/Culture:
Distinct, this includes
values & norms
which develop over
time. There is an
increasing preference
for openness,
innovation & smaller
command chains
Changing organisational culture:
Communities of practice
• Self-selecting membership, meeting likeminded people
• Creatively share knowledge & expertise,
enabled by technology
• Community decides structure & protocols
• Some organisations more open to their use
than others
Changing organisational culture:
Communities of practice
Characteristic
Description
Purpose
Membership
Size
Scope
Structure
Meeting frequency
Ethos
Topics covered
Source of cohesion
Outputs
Organisational support
Typical habitat
Assessment
Lifespan
Adding value, sharing knowledge, building member capabilities
Diverse, self-selecting
Can be hundreds
Narrow or wide; can span several organisations
Self-organising
Whenever necessary
Informal, sharing
Anything defined useful by members
Members commitment to topic
Knowledge sharing, new understanding
Funding, overcoming obstacles to community encounters
Knowledge driven organisations
Stories told by members about performance improvement
As long as members want it
(Wenger & Snyder, 2000)
Conclusions
This presentation has provided an overview of
the culture and behaviour learning package.
To deepen your understanding, you should work
through:
• Background document
• Exercises and reflective questions
• Additional reading
Reading
Key texts
Handy, C.B. (1985) Understanding organizations (3rd ed.) Penguin Books, London.
Hofstede, G. (1991) Cultures and Organisations: software of the mind. McGraw-Hill, London.
Schein (1984) Coming to a new awareness of organizational culture, Sloan Management
Review.
Waterman Jr., R.H., Peters, T.J., and Phillips, J.R. (1980) Structure is not organisation.
Business Horizons, 23 (3) pp14-16.
Additional reading
Gordon, G.G. and DiTomaso, N. (1992) Predicting corporate performance from organizational
culture. Journal of Management Studies, 29 (6), pp783-798.
Jermier, J.M., Slocum, J.W., Fry, L.W. and Gaines, J. (1991) Organizational subcultures in a
soft bureaucracy: Resistance behind the myth and façade of an official culture. Organization
Science, 2 (2), pp170-194.
Ling, F., Ang, A. and Lim, S. (2007) Encounters between foreigners and Chinese: Perception
and management of cultural differences. Engineering, Construction and Architectural
Management, 14 (6), pp501-18.
Ogbonna, E. and Harris, L.C. (2002) Organizational culture: A ten year, two-phase study of
change in the UK food retailing sector. Journal of Management Studies, 39 (5), pp673-706.