Learning Objectives Understand the Meaning and

Significance of Organisational Culture Understand How to Recognize Culture in

an Organisation Explore What are Strong, Weak and

Dominant Cultures Understand the Concept of

Organisational Climate Discuss How Effective Cultures and

Climate can be created Especially in The Context of Organisations in India

It is the organisation’s culture that tells what things members of the organisation should pay attention to, how they react emotionally, and what actions they should take

Various dimensions of Organisational Culture

Innovativeness Stability Attention to detail Respect for people Team orientation Outcome orientation Aggressiveness

Culture is “…a pattern of basic assumptions – invented, discovered or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration – that has worked well enough to be considered valid, and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to the problems

Power culture: This culture draws from the power and influence of a central figure or a select few such that power radiates form the power - center like a web

Role culture: This culture is built on the basis of defined jobs, rules and procedures. This culture operates according to logic and rationality, and its strength lies in its functions or specialists

Task culture: This culture is team or project oriented and adaptable. Focus is on problem-solving by pooling required resources and people from various parts of the firm on a temporary basis

Person culture: The individual is the central point in the person culture. The organisation exists to help the individual rather than the other way around

Various authors characterize strong culture as: More members of the organisation display the shared

traits more frequently and with greater commitment. Homogeneous, or uniform across the organisation Stable across time and situations, etc.

The agreement that some organisations are superior in performance compared to their rivals is because of their effective organisational cultures, is theoretically considered quite a powerful macro level explanation for organisational performance

This notion is also of great operational value to managers who can segregate pro-performance values, develop, communicate and reinforce them throughout the organisation

Cultures are not uniformly strong throughout the organisation

Aspects of a strong culture may not affect different performance-related processes in the same organisation in the same way

Usefulness of the concept of strong cultures is limited by the fact that even if one organisation succeeded in creating strong culture for itself, it is difficult to replicate it elsewhere

Cultures are highly particular to specific nations, industries, and individual organisations

When a strong culture also becomes ‘old’, it generates deep involvement of the members

Culture serves as an informal structure of the organisation and affects how the firm will balance the needs for exploration of new opportunities and exploitation of the ones already developed

Many experts agree that creating a uniform, strong culture for the whole organisation may not make the best sense at least for a large, diverse organisation

What managers need may be to encourage thriving subcultures yet create and maintain effectively the Dominant values

Weak culture – a conceptual opposite of Strong culture – implies that there is no congruence between the values of the top management and the employees of the organisation

Culture usually refers to a set of values and norms that helped the organisation adapt effectively to its external environment, and kept it integrated internally

Creation of artifacts that penetrate at various levels: By definition, values are beliefs that generate preferences

Reinforcement of cultural messages through rewards system – the deciding of who gets rewarded and why - is an unequivocal statement of organisation’s values

Role modeling is done by usually the senior, more experienced and more powerful persons in the organisation; who guide, support and even mentor the juniors

The different elements of culture at various levels of visibility, articulation, manifestation and consciousness should be consistent among themselves and coherent as a set

A typical culture in an organisation in India is characterized by: Affiliative and showing marked preference for

personalized relationships over contractual ones Prone to dependency and the work ethic of ‘aram-

se’ (at ease), ‘chalta hai’(it’s fine): low work and high leisure

Hierarchy, status and authority oriented Affection-deference relationships within in-groups

and likely nepotism and Power-play Governed by social models and beliefs of

responsibility, authority, equality, and interpersonal relationships even in the work context

Emphasis on applying parent-child model to boss-subordinate relationship, expectation of directiveness from boss and obedience from the subordinate

Creating commitment to super-ordinate goals

Creating tolerance for dissent

Encouraging participative decision-making

Emphasizing ethics and developing norms for ethical conduct

Use of training and development