JENICE JOY SUMAWAY

HAFEZ H. ABURASHIDEH

University of the Philippines - Manila

OUTLINE1. Institutionalization: A forerunner of Culture

2. What is Organizational Culture?

3. 7 orientations of organization‟s culture

4. What do cultures do?

5. Creating and Sustaining Culture

6. Keeping a Culture Alive

7. Cultural diversity

8. Social Culture values

9. Characteristics of organization‟s culture

10. Measuring organizational culture

11. Communicating and changing culture

What is Organizational Culture?CULTURE the integrated pattern of human

knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations

the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization

Refers to a system of shared meaning held by members that distinguishes the organization from other organizations.

ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

•Refers to a system of shared meaning held by members that distinguishes the organization from other organizations.

•is an idea in the field of organizational studies and management which describes the psychology, attitudes, experiences, beliefs and values (personal and cultural values) of an organization

•the specific collection of values and norms that are shared by people and groups in an organization and that control the way they interact with each other and with stakeholders outside the organization."

Institutionalization: A forerunner of CultureInstitutionalization operates to produce common

understanding among members about what is appropriate

and, fundamentally, meaningful behavior.

When an organization becomes institutionalized…

It takes on a life of its own part from its founders or any of

its members.

It becomes valued for itself, not merely for the goods or

services it produces. It acquires immortality. It redefines

itself.

Strong vs Weak CultureSTRONG CULTURE

The organization‟s core values are both intensely and widely shared.

Strong culture is said to exist where staff respond to stimulus because of their alignment to organizational values. In such environments, strong cultures help firms operate like well-oiled machines, cruising along with outstanding execution and perhaps minor tweaking of existing procedures here and there.

WEAK CULTURE

there is little alignment with organizational values and control must be exercised through extensive procedures and bureaucracy.

Training meeting about sustainable design. The photo shows a training meeting

with factory workers in a stainless steelecodesign company from Rio de Janeiro,

Brazil. These type of meetings are important in order to establish a strong

culture in the corporation

7 Orientations of organization’s culture

Characteristics

Innovation & risk taking

Attention to detail

Outcome orientation

People orientation

Team orientation

Aggre-siveness

Stability

What do cultures do?

1. Its boundary defining role creates distinctions between one organization and others.

2. It conveys sense of identity for organization members.

3. Culture facilitates the generation of commitment to something larger than one’s individual self-interest.

4. Enhances the stability of the social system.

Culture as a Liability

Barriers

To Change

To Diversity

To Acquisition & Mergers

Creating and Sustaining CultureCulture creation occurs in 3 ways:

1. Founders hire and keep only employees who think and feel the same way they do.

2. They indoctrinate and socialize these employees to their way of thinking and feeling.

3. The founder’s own behavior acts a role model that encourages employees to identify with them and thereby internalize beliefs, values and assumptions.

Keeping a Culture Alive3 forces that play important part in maintaining culture:

• Ensure a proper match, results in hiring of people who have values essentially consistent with those of organization.

Selection

• Through what they say and how they behave, senior executives establish norms that filter down through organization as to whether risk taking is desirable.

Top Management

• Adaptation process, wherein employees adapt to its culture.Socialization

Organizational culture caseIBM MICROSOFT

•Overconfident•Bureaucratic •Focus on internal numbers and goals

•"had no business competing with IBM“•had an outstanding organizational culture based on customers' needs•Focus on getting things done

Cultural diversity

Employees in any organization are divided into subgroups of various Kinds. Formation of groups is determined by two broad sets of conditions.

Job-related (organizationally created) differences and similarities, such as type of work, rank in the organization, and physical proximity to one another, sometimes cause people to align themselves into groups.

Non-job related conditions (those related to culture, ethnicity, socioeconomics, sex, and race) arise primarily from an individual‟s personal background, these conditions are highly important for legal, moral, and economical reasons.

This cultural diversity, or rich variety of differences among people at work, raises the issues of fair treatment for workers who are not in positions of authority.

Problems my persist because of a key difference in this context between discrimination and prejudice.

Discrimination is generally exhibited in an action, whereas prejudice is an attitude. Either may exist without the other. The law focuses on an employer‟s action, not feelings. Any action lead to what is legally determined to be discriminatory results, this action is considered unlawful regardless of the intentions.

Programs aimed at managing and valuing diversity build

from a key premise: prejudicial stereotypes develop from

unfounded assumptions about others and from their

overlooked qualities.

Differences need to be recognized, acknowledged,

appreciated, and used to collective advantage.

Social Culture values

over many years different cultures emphasized work as a desirable and fulfilling activity. The result of this emphasis is a work ethic for many people, meaning that they view work as very important and a desirable goal of life. They usually have a stronger commitment to the organization and to its goals than do other employees.

The available research indicates two conclusions can be safely reached. First, the proportion of employees with a strong work ethic varies sharply among sample groups. The differences depends on factors such as personal background, type of work performed, and geographical location.

Second, the general level of work ethic has declined

gradually over many decades. The decline is most evident

in the different attitudes between younger and older

workers. Not only the younger employees are not as

supportive of the work ethics, but the level of support that

young people once exhibited has dropped substantially.

Why has the work ethics declined?

Dramatic social changes have brought about the work

ethic‟s deterioration. Competing social values have

emerged, such as a leisure ethic ( a high priority is placed

on personal gratification), desire for intimacy (an

emphasis on close personal relationships), and entitlement

(a belief that people should receive benefits without the

need to work).

In addition, changes in social policy and tax laws have

reduced incentives to work and occasionally even

penalized hard work and success.

Finally, the ‘instant wealth’ phenomenon has blossomed

in the recent years. This occur when thousands of people-

either as employees in high-tech start-up companies or as

fortunate investors in real estate or the stock market-

become millionaires after just a few years of work.

Social responsibility: it is the recognition that

organizations have significant influence on the social

system and that this influence must be properly considered

and balanced in all organizational actions.

One bit of evidence that organizations are increasingly

concerned about social responsibility is provided by the

criteria used to publicly judge their overall performance.

fortune magazine annually assesses „America‟s Most

Admired Companies‟ and does so by evaluating over 300

organizations. One of the criteria used is „social

responsibility‟. Firms such as GE, Microsoft, Dell, Cisco,

Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and Southwest Airlines have

received high overall ratings.

Characteristics of organizational cultures Organizations are unique. Each has its own history, patterns of

communications, systems and procedures, mission statements and visions, stories and myths which, in their totality, constitute its distinctive culture. Cultures are relatively stable in nature, usually changing only slowly over time. However, an exception occur when a major crisis threats a firm or when two organizations merge with each other (requiring a careful blending of the two so as to avoid culture clash).

most organizational cultures are historically implicit rather than explicit, however, recently organizations have begun to speak about their intended cultures and many top leaders are willing to tell about what environment they would like to create within their firms.

Another characteristic of organizational culture is that it has symbolic representation of its underlying beliefs and values. Rarely we read a description of a firm culture, rather, usually we make inferences from the stories told about the way things are done, from reading slogans that portray corporate ideals, from observing key artifacts, or from watching ceremonies in which certain type of employees are honored.

Another dimension of culture is that there is no best culture for all firms; culture clearly depends on the organization‟s goals, industry, nature of competition, and other factors in its environment.

Cultures are better recognized when their elements usually integrated and consistent with each others. Most members must at least accept, if not embrace the assumptions and values of the culture.

Most cultures evolve directly from the top management, who can have a powerful influence on their employees by what they say. However, management‟s actions are even more important to watchful employees, who can quickly detect when management truly support certain ideals.

A culture may exist across an entire organization, or may

be made up of various subcultures in different divisions,

branches, or departments.

Finally, cultures have varying strengths; they can be

classified as relatively strong or weak depending on the

degree of their impact on employees behavior and how

widely the underlying beliefs and values are held.

10 characteristics

Unique Stable ImplicitSymbolic

representation

No best culture for all firms

Integrated AcceptedEvolves from

the top management

Made of subcultures

Of varying strengths

Measuring organizational culture:

Systemic measurement and comparison of cultures is difficult at best. Most early attempts by researchers relied on examination of stories, symbols, rituals, and ceremonies to obtain clues and construct a composite portrait, while others have used interviews and open-ended questionnaires in an attempt to assess employee values and beliefs.

In other cases, examination of corporate philosophy statements has provided insight to espoused culture (stated publicly). One of the more interesting methods is to become a member of the organization and engage in participant observation. This approach allows direct sensing from the perspective of a member who is experiencing the culture.

Organizational cultures are in the process of changing and

need to be monitored regularly and by a variety of

methods to gain a better picture, so attempts to capture a

snapshot of the culture at a point can be only imperfect

assessment.

Communicating and changing culture: People are generally more willing to adapt and learn when they

want to please others, gain approval, and learn about their new work environment. Similarly, organizations are eager to have the new employees fit in , therefore an intentional approach that helps make this happen is used by many firms.

Examples of formal communication ways of transmitting organizational culture include executive visions of the firm‟s future, corporate philosophy statements, and code of ethical conduct.

Informal means involve publicly recognizing heroes, retelling historical success stories, and even allowing myths to become exaggerated without popping the hot-air balloon.

Elements of organization‟s culture might be as well

unintentionally communicated to employees in a variety of

ways, such as when news of a manager‟s error and an

executive‟s forgiveness of it are accidentally leaked throughout

the firm.

Collectively, these cultural communication acts may be lumped

under the umbrella of organizational socialization, which can

be defined as the continuous process of transmitting key

elements of an organization‟s culture to its employees. It

consists of both formal and informal methods.

All the approaches of communication help shape the

attitude, thoughts, and behavior of the employees. Viewed

from organization‟s perspective, organizational

socialization is like placing an organization‟s fingerprints

on people or stamping its own genetic code on them,

while from the employee‟s viewpoint, it is the essential

process of learning the ropes to survive and prosper within

the firm.

One means to forge a culture and build organizational identity is storytelling. Good stories tap into the emotions of an audience and have proven to be powerful ways to create shared meaning and purpose. Stories convey a sense of tradition, explain how past problems have been solved, and enhance cohesion around key values. The most memorable stories entertain as well as inform and uplift as well as teach.

A reciprocal process emerges when changes occur in the other direction; employees can also have an active impact on the nature of organization‟s culture and operations. Individualization occurs when employees successfully exert influence on the social system around them at work by challenging the culture or deviating from it.

Conformity Creative individualism

Isolation Rebellion

High

Socialization

Low

Low Individualization High

Effectiveness of methods for changing organizational culture

Communicate top management support

Train employees

Formulate value statements

Reward behaviors

Use stories and myths

Publicly recognize heroes

Use slogans

Appoint a manager of

culture

Case study

Delbert little is an engineer who works for a major American electronics firm. A highly creative, energetic, and talented worker, he prides himself on giving 110 percent effort to his job. Although he is totally accept his employer‟s values regarding the needs to create new and improved products through technological breakthroughs, he also flaunts his rejection of some corporate norms regarding personal behavior (modes of dress and deference of authority). He communicates to his workers with great passion, regularly imploring them to exercise similar direction, he writes passionate memos to top executives detailing his reasoning and trying to persuade them to change their minds.

Delbert can be described as exercising creative

individualism (but bordering on rebellion). He accepts

some norms and values but reject others (and therefore is

moderately socialized). He fights fiercely for what he

thinks is right and attempts to change others‟ thinking, too.

Consequently, he has a relatively high impact on his

portion of the organization (individualism). “the company

tolerates my behavior” he laughed one day, “only because

I have produce d over 100 patents while working here” .

Google CultureThough Google has grown a lot since it opened in 1998, Google still maintain a

small company feel.

Google commitment to innovation depends on everyone being comfortable sharing ideas and opinions.

Every employee is a hands-on contributor, and everyone wears several hats. Because we believe that each Googler is an equally important part of our success.

Google are aggressively inclusive in our hiring, and we favor ability over experience.

Google is a team that reflects the global audience Google serves

Google always look for those who share a commitment to creating search perfection and having a great time doing it.

Google offices Local expressions of each location, from a mural in Buenos Aires to ski gondolas in Zurich,

showcasing each office’s region and personality.

Bicycles or scooters for efficient travel between meetings; dogs; lava lamps; massage chairs; large inflatable balls.

Googlers sharing cubes, yurts and huddle rooms – and very few solo offices.

Laptops everywhere – standard issue for mobile coding, email on the go and note-taking.

Foosball, pool tables, volleyball courts, assorted video games, pianos, ping pong tables, and gyms that offer yoga and dance classes.

Grassroots employee groups for all interests, like meditation, film, wine tasting and salsa dancing.

Healthy lunches and dinners for all staff at a variety of cafés.

Break rooms packed with a variety of snacks and drinks to keep Googlers going.

Experiential exercise

Consider yourself as the subordinate in this class, with the

instructor as your manager:

In the student-instructor relationship in this class, identify:

A. Your perception of your student roles

B. Your perception of the instructor‟s roles

C. Your perception of the instructor‟s perception of your

roles as a student.

5 4 3 2 1

I feel comfortable challenging statements made by my instructor

My instructor heavily penalizes assignments that are not turned in on time

My instructor believes that “it finals result that counts

A large portion of my grade depends on how well I work with others

My instructor is sensitive to my personal needs

I often feel nervous and tense when come to class

My instructor seems to prefer stability over change

My instructor encourages me to develop new & different ideas

My instructor has a tolerance for sloppy thinking

My instructor is more concerned of how I came to conclusion than with the conclusion itself

My instructor treats all students alike

My instructor frowns on class members helping each other with assignments

Aggressive & competitive people have a distinct advantage in this class

My instructor encourages me to see the world differently

Experiential Exercise

5 4 3 2 1

I feel comfortable challenging statements made by my instructor

My instructor heavily penalizes assignments that are not turned in on time

My instructor believes that “it finals result that counts

A large portion of my grade depends on how well I work with others

My instructor is sensitive to my personal needs

I often feel nervous and tense when come to class

My instructor seems to prefer stability over change

My instructor encourages me to develop new & different ideas

My instructor has a tolerance for sloppy thinking

My instructor is more concerned of how I came to conclusion than with the conclusion itself

My instructor treats all students alike

My instructor frowns on class members helping each other with assignments

Aggressive & competitive people have a distinct advantage in this class

My instructor encourages me to see the world differently

Experiential Exercise

Experiential Exercise

49 ABOVE 35 OR BELOW

OpenRisk-takingSupportiveHumanisticTeam-orientedEasy-goingGrowth-oriented

ClosedStructuredTask-orientedIndividualisticTenseStability-oriented

REFERENCES

1. John W. Newstrom: Organizational Behavior: human

behavior at work, 12th edition, 2007.

2. Stephen P. Robbins & Timothy A. Judge: Organizational

Behavior, 9th edition, 2009.

3. www.wikipedia.com