TERM PAPER OF

ORGANIZATION BEHAVIOR

TOPIC: ORGANIZATION CULTURE

Submitted to: MEGHA MEHTA

Submitted by: Jugraj singh

Roll no.: R341A23

Course: BBA(hons.)-MBA

Regd. No: 10801306

D.O.S: 22-12-2008
INDEX
INTRODUCTION
Emergence of organizational culture
Review of literature
How companies are holding in
organization culture
critical appraisal (postive point)
critical appraisal (Negative point)
Bibliography
INTRODUCTION
The presence of a strong and appropriate
organizational culture has become
essential for an organization to function
effectively and efficiently in the modern
era. Organizational culture is the
consciously or subconsciously accepted
and followed way of life or manner of
performing day-to-day activities in an
organization. It plays an important role in
determining and controlling employee
behavior at workplace. The core values,
assumptions, norms, procedures, etc. that
are followed in an organization constitute
its culture. These are more often than not,
accepted and followed throughout the
organization, without much deviation.

However, the presence of individuals from

various social cultures and backgrounds in
an organization, may lend a slight
variation to the beliefs and ideologies of
the organizational members. This
difference results in the formation of
subcultures within organizations. The
presence of subcultures may be
advantageous to an organization as the
deviations from the norm may throw up
alternatives to existing practices, which
are often useful to the organization in
adapting to changes in the external
environment. Such adaptability is
essential for the organization to survive.
However, if the differences in ideologies
go beyond a desirable level, they may
have a negative effect on the organization
and undermine it. The strength of an
organizational culture depends on the
sharedness and intensity of the core
values of the organization. A strong
culture tends to enhance employee
commitment and loyalty towards the
organization. Organizational cultures have
been classified into four major types -
market culture, adhocracy, clan culture
and hierarchical culture.

Organizational culture deals with the

internalization of the core values and
norms. If the organizational culture is well
internalized, it can replace the
formalization of rules and procedures in an
organization. The difference between the
two lies in the fact that, while
formalization deals with the
standardization of jobs and involves
documentation of accepted values and
norms, a strong organizational culture can
achieve a certain amount of uniformity in
work processes without documentation
being required.

Organizational culture plays a variety of

roles in strengthening bonds between the
members of an organization. The
boundary-defining role of organizational
culture implies that it helps to draw
distinctions between one organization and
another. It also creates a sense of identity
and belongingness among the employees
of the organization. Organization culture
synergizes the efforts of organizational
members towards the achievement of the
common objectives of the organization. It
also maintains the stability of the social
system in the organization by minimizing
individual differences between employees.

Organizational culture is determined

largely by the values, assumptions and
personal traits of the founders. These
values lay the foundation for the
organizational culture, which is then
accepted and followed throughout the
organization. Culture in organizations is
also learnt by its members through
artifacts like stories, legends, rituals and
material symbols. Stories pertaining to
significant events in the company's
history, the rituals of the organization, and
even material symbols such as the
physical layout of the organization, serve
to transmit the core values of the
organization. Language, which refers to
the commonly used terminology, jargon
and acronyms unique to a particular
organization, also helps in the permeation
of organizational culture.

Change in organizational culture is

sometimes inevitable as the organization
needs to adapt to changes in the
environment. However, the highly
complex and pervasive nature of
organizational culture makes it difficult to
push through any change in its culture. As
members of the organization internalize
the core values over a period of time,
attempts to change it often invite
enormous resistance from employees.
Nevertheless, a well thought out action
plan, with a change agent to assist in its
implementation, can result in the
successful transformation of an outdated
organizational culture, to one which is
more aligned to the external environment.
Emergence of
organizational culture

Emergence is a phenomenon that has

been studied in many disciplines and it
refers to the way complex systems
and patterns arise out of a multiplicity
of relatively simple interactions with
no central coordination. Emergence is
seen in systems such as nature, stock
markets, traffic patterns and
organisations. For instance, an ant hill
is an emergent structure created by
hundreds of ants, each of which is
engaged in a particular kind of activity
without being aware of the re sultant
structure. Similarly, complex flocking
patterns amongst birds actually
emerge out of simple behaviours on
the part of individual birds (such as
trying not to collide with other birds
while still being part of the flock). In
other words, the emergent structure is
more than just the sum of the parts. In
this article I propose two ideas — first,
that organisational culture is an
emergent phenomenon and second,
that ‘values’ are the underlying
‘simple rules’ governing culture
An emergent reality

It is possible to view organisational

culture as an emergent outcome of
the countless interactions that take
place between the various
constituents of an organisation. Each
participant is not aware of his
contribution to the overall emergent
culture, and behaves in an
independent manner in all situations
based on his own personal beliefs.
If this is the case, it would appear that
it is very hard to ‘control’ what kind of
culture may emerge in a given
organisation as the behaviour of
individuals is hard to predict. How
then does one go about creating a
particular kind of culture? The answer
may lie in our understanding of
emergent systems as being an
outcome of individual agents acting on
the basis of simple rules. When these
rules are executed by a large number
of participants, an emergent structure
presents itself. Extending this to an
organisational scenario, if a few simple
rules were to be set that governs all
interactions of an organisation’s
members, the emergent reality — in
this case organisational culture — can
be managed to produce favourable
end states.

Review of literature

First and foremost, the text scores

high on readability. The matter is
well organised. The layout and
construction are user-friendly. The
additional features, such as a bird’s
eye view of each chapter, the
review questions and the case
illustrations at the end (many
Indian), contribute to an attractive
get-up, increasing the probability of
a reader holding the book open
longer. A contemporary, non-
jargonistic style of presentation
helps. However, it could do with
greater internal consistency. The
occasional grammatical oddities
and the frequent spelling errors jar
against the otherwise generally
elegant construction. It gives the
impression of casualness in
manuscript preparation. This is
evident even in the literature
citations, with details of some
references cited in the text not
provided at the end of the chapter,
and vice versa. Yet, it must be said
that the overall readability remains
high.

As a part of the introduction, the

author looks at literature
encompassing bodies of social
theory such as the information
society, globalisation and
technopoles in order to understand
the linkages that his study has with
these theories. He juxtaposes the
cybernetic model which privileges
control with the complexity model
that stresses interaction, showing
them to be opposites. He similarly
contrasts the structural sociology
perspective with that of network
externalities. The author’s clear
purpose is not to define either
information or the information
society, but to study perceptions of
people and the models with which
they operate.

This also determines the primary

readership of the book: the student
of management with a special
interest in organisational studies,
especially in doing something
about strengthening organisations.
It is a need that was waiting to be
met. A second readership
constituency is also evident. If the
faculty of management schools will
condescend to look at an Indian
author with an objective eye, they
might find the book a worthwhile
addition to their reading list in
teaching the subject. I believe
there is a third category of
readership for the book: the large
number of people who today find
themselves in managerial positions
both in business-industry and non-
profit work with neither the formal
MBA-type training nor the life
experience for them.

Although the book has great

breadth in the treatment of the
subject, it remains primarily an OD
text with a social psychological
bias. This is not to mean that the
coverage is faulty. Social
psychologists have indeed made
some of the most significant
contributions to the field over the
last 50 years. The main lapses in
the book are in the omission or
inadequate treatment of a few very
important theory-methodology
streams to the field of OD: the work
of the cyberneticians like Stafford
Beer and Russell Ackoff, especially
in interventions in large, complex
systems; the contribution of
Gestaltists; and the socio-technical
systems group. The landmark
project in Ahmedabad by AK Rice
was long before the Michigan
school’s work in Volvo. In fact even
the Michigan school’s work is
inadequately reported.

The enormous significance of OD in

social development tasks, again in
large, complex systems, deserves a
chapter to itself in a book of this
kind. In the US, the work of
AmericaSpeaks is a very good
example of methodology
development for large scale citizen
involvement in civic issues. In
developing countries, the methods
employed in much of community
organisation and the formation of
Self-Help Groups draw heavily from
techniques in OD. The relevance
and great need for OD in large
programmes of sustainable
agriculture, community health,
education, dissemination of
appropriate technologies, and so
on, pose challenges for which there
are no quick fix solutions in
conventional literature. Original
Indian work in this field is quite
considerable too.

While the chapters on organisation

culture, values, and the section on
the ethics of intervention must be
lauded as welcome and timely, a
little more on the philosophical
questions of OD theory and
methodology could have been
included in the book. For instance,
the paradox of change ‘strategies’,
or the naiveté in assumptions of
change from state A to a desired
state B, when the originally
conceived state B might itself be
changing in an ever changing
environmental context. Similarly,
the practice of OD has unstated
undercurrent assumptions of
control, power, ownership, rights,
and so on, raising philosophical
issues that are never addressed
adequately – certainly not by
increasing the sophistication of
appraisal systems! The section on
the ‘participation spectrum’
touches on this, which is perhaps
all one should expect from a good
introductory book, although the
issue merits deeper treatment.

This reviewer was particularly

happy with the inclusion of the
section on organisational values in
the book. In fact the subject of
organisational culture is probably
best approached through the more
rigorous methodology of values. It
is amply evident that every
management system that has held
centre-stage at any time in the
history of management literature
has really been a product of its
time and, therefore, with some
value premises embedded in it. For
instance, the value premises in
Quality Circles and TQM for the line
manager are: 1) The person on the
job knows the working conditions
better than I do (hence the
significance of employee
suggestions); and 2) My best
efforts on the job are meant for the
benefit of others (hence the
customer orientation – both
internal and external). Without
these central beliefs, the motions
of quality drills can never produce
results. TQM failures (which are not
uncommon, over 60% by some
estimates) can often be traced to
incompatibility between the
organisation’s management
structures, management systems
and management values.

The apparent conflict in theory

building in management between a
universal principle and a highly
contextual one – corresponding to
the polarity in scientific thought
between the ideopathic and
nomothetic propositions to explain
phenomena – is implicit in more
than one part of the book. At the
end of the day we cannot help
asking if there can really be any
nomothetic proposition at all in the
science of human organisations.

A naïve assumption in much

‘amateur OD’ practice is that a
technique that works in influencing
behaviour at a lower system level,
say, in individual change, can be
scaled up to bring about changes in
the team, the group, the
department or the organisation. It
needs to be remembered that in
trying to develop the organisation,
we have to contend with
organisational variables, over and
above individual variables. If we
consider the track record of an
employee (and most employees
have had work experience
elsewhere), we often come up
against the question: How is it that
the same person, with the same
bundle of competencies, was
productive in one situation (and
recognised as such), but could not
accomplish much in another
situation? The difference lies in the
organisational environment.

A good part of the explanation for

continued reliance on the ‘building
block’ model is the unshakeable
faith in the individual as the unit of
social change – another
philosophical issue as well.
Questions ‘beyond freedom and
dignity’ raise uncomfortable
dissonances in many entrenched
societal belief systems. One of the
most enduring (and strongest)
legacies of OD methodology has
been the creation of process
sensitivity in the organisation – i.e.
getting people to see how the very
structures and systems created
and installed by them influence
vital organisational processes
which, in turn, influence patterns of
behaviours. This perspective, along
with Action Research, an important
approach to process sensitivity,
could do with more detailed
treatment in the book.

The section on the critique of OD, a

useful and necessary section, is
restricted to literature mainly from
the 70s, and therefore represents
philosophical debates of that era.
In today’s context there would be
other debates needing attention,
such as the relationship between
OD and societal development,
especially in addressing the
underlying inequality and
exploitation, the relevance of OD in
increasingly complex, globalised
operations, calling for large, multi-
stakeholder systems, alliances,
partnerships and networks, and the
relationship between OD and HRM,
beyond the pat phrases employed
by HR managers.

Another welcome section in the

book is the one on the value
premises in OD theory and
methodology, and the professional-
ethical issues involved. The issue of
iatrogenics (treatment-induced
disorders) is as serious in
organisational interventions as in
medical interventions. The
extensive treatment of the field of
knowledge management (and the
relevance to OD) gives the book a
truly contemporary value.

The literature included in the book

gives the impression that the
author was keen on sharing
everything she had read over the
years with the reader. How else
does one explain the inclusion of
the trivial and the popular with the
rigorous and the respected?
(Parkinson’s laws! And Peters’
discredited search for excellence.)
There seems no justification for the
space given to stress management
and performance appraisal in a
book on OD. The early chapter on
systematic change is the weakest
part of the book, probably due to
the inadequacies described above.

Reverting to the very useful section

on organisation culture, it should
be pointed out that explanations of
OC have generally been from two
main perspectives: 1) the micro –
looking at factors within the
organisation, with a heavy
emphasis on leadership, especially
the characteristics of the leader;
and 2) the macro – looking at
historical, political and even
religious traditions in society,
seeking common features in large
socio-cultural groupings.

Considerable work in India has

shown that there is an
intermediate level of analysis that
may be both relevant and
significant, namely, the sectoral
field in which the organisation
exists. For instance, most textile
mills in Western India have
remarkably similar management
practices and top management
styles. Attempts to introduce
certain ‘modern’ management
practices have generally failed.
Management trainers and
consultants tend to see this
‘resistance to change’ as located in
the short-sightedness of the top
management, i.e. the Chief
Executive. What is not seen is that
the same CEO displays a quite
different style in another business
of the same corporate entity – in
electronics or pharmaceuticals or
petrochemicals. In other words, the
leader is the same, but the
leadership process is different.
Each sectoral field makes its own
demands on the management of
the enterprise and, therefore, calls
for an appropriate configuration of
core practices that characterise the
sector. The similarities-over-
differences are clearly
recognisable.
How companies are
holding in organization
culture

How Does Your

Organizational Culture Stack
Up? a Unique Perspective of
the 21st Century Workplace

You've felt it. We all have. A brief

walk-through gives you a sense, a
feel, for how an organization
functions. You don't have distinct,
defined reasons for those feelings.
You only know that you already
understand something about how
that company or business
operates.
This functioning has been labeled
organizational culture. Each one is
as distinct and personal as an
ethnic or a family culture. They
vary among organizations and are
determined by the ways in which
their members interact, decisions
are made, and rewards are given.

Individual success within these

structures depends upon the ability
to identify the clues that categorize
the people, moods and emotions
that are part of the culture. Here is
my own system for looking at an
organization based upon the roles
that its members choose to fill.
Much as players in a theatrical
performance, individuals determine
how they will cope by exhibiting
the traits inherent in one of six
roles.
The presence of these role players
and their degree of proliferation
provide insights into the workings
of any organization. By
understanding the culture,
strategies can be developed to
target important issues, improve
communications, and make needed
changes. Keep in mind these three
observations:
The person at the top of the
organization sets the tone for the
way in which the entire
organization functions. Leaders
imprint their organizations with
values, beliefs and operational
philosophies. A brief conversation
with the person at the top will tell
you much about how all levels of
the organization think and feel.
Someone within the organization
has the solution to every perceived
organizational problem. How can
you come up with solutions in
relatively short periods of time?
Ask the person who is closest to
the problem and who already
knows the answer. Often, that
person has been waiting to share
this information with a decision-
maker, but no one has asked.
An organization's work distribution
and communication channels adapt
to the individuals who join and
leave the organization. Realizing
the importance of formalized job
descriptions to many companies,
you have probably seen
descriptions that were written in
the not-too-distant past, but which
no longer apply because staff
changes have taken place.
Organizations are living, growing
entities. As the people within
develop and mature, come and go,
the internal channels are revised.
With these Observations in mind,
here are the six Players in an
organizational culture.
Power Players regard the
organization as a battleground with
control viewed as "winning." They
see most interactions as win-lose
situations and try to maximize their
wins. Any compromises are made
with an eye toward turning the
concessions into future victories.
They regard new people and ideas
as opportunities for combat. Power
Players will buy into someone
else's changes, but will try to claim
the changes as their own
innovations.
Gatekeepers see the organization
as exchanges of information and
intrigues. He or she who gathers
and channels the most of both is in
control. As with Power Players,
Gatekeepers like to win, but view
their victories in more subtle terms.
They allow others to fight their
battles by selectively releasing
information to those individuals
who will create the outcomes the
Gatekeepers desire.
Mentors like to take others under
their wings and share information
about the organization. They are
willing to teach new members how
to work within the structure and to
maximize results. Mentors
encourage people to return to
them so both sides can ask
questions and share current
information. They play win-win and
judge the culture by the harmony
which coworkers exude.

Peers perceive all members of an

organization as being equal. From
the top to the bottom of the
structure, they see everyone as
being in the same boat and
succeeding or failing together. As a
result, they are free with their flow
of information and make no
distinctions about who should be
involved in the decision-making.
Peers believe every person should
have a voice in how the
organization is run.
Workers schedule their daily output
based upon what they know will
come across their desks or into
their realms of responsibility. Their
comfort is in routines they have
learned and within which they
perform extremely well. They are
content to march in the same
direction with the same cadence
that has proven to be successful in
the past. No organization has ever
been hurt by a true Worker. Yet,
very few have ever had their ideas
implemented because they will
take "no" for an answer.

Gliders do enough to get by and

little else. They consider the
organization to be something which
must be endured to make it
through life, but don't want to rock
the boat lest they put themselves
into a position in which more may
be required of them. They play
neither win-lose nor win-win
because they simply don't want to
get involved in the game. Gliders
want to be left alone and don't care
if they are regarded as outsiders.
An organization may have all or
nearly all of these Players present,
but it is the authority and influence
of each that predicts how the
organization functions. These six
Players determine the existence of
one of three main Cultures based
upon the prevalent attitudes of the
individuals.
CONTROL CULTURE - Power Players
and Gatekeepers emphasize
control. Organizations that have an
abundance of these Players in
higher positions operate in a highly
competitive culture. Dominant
personalities are rewarded,
promoted and seen as the norm
during interpersonal encounters.
COMMUNICATIONS CULTURE -
Mentors and Peers focus on
communications. When these
Players permeate the management
of an organization, information
flows smoothly. The culture is one
that fosters personal growth and
readily accepts the need for
change. Job titles are not as
important as the people who hold
these titles.
CONTENTMENT CULTURE - Workers
and Gliders at the management
level are totally agreeable to
operating in a culture of
contentment. Very few new ideas
are implemented. Those that are
have been tried and perfected by
other organizations first, ensuring
they are safe and will not
jeopardize the status quo.
In the marketplace of the 21st
century, ideas must be exchanged
easily and effectively. As a product
reaches the consumer, it is already
obsolete and in the process of
being replaced by one, two or three
new generations of the same
product. The only culture that can
consistently support this fast-paced
environment is the
Communications Culture. This
means that successful
organizations must foster the
development of Mentors and Peers
to ensure long-term viability.
The new millennium is here.
Organizations that look at
themselves, understand their
culture, and tweak the dials to
improve performance, will assume
the leadership positions in our
global marketplace.
critical appraisal
(postive point)

The impact of
organizational culture on
the successful
implementation of total
quality management
Abstract:
Purpose – The purpose of the
paper is to determine the impact of
cultural values on the success of
TQM implementation in Isfahan
University Hospitals (IUHs), Iran,
2004.

Design/methodology/approac
h – In this paper survey
questionnaires were used to elicit
responses from hospital managers
and employees. Data collected
included the characteristics of
organizational culture in IUHs and
the degree of TQM success and its
implementation problems in these
hospitals.

Findings – The paper finds that

TQM success in IUHs was medium.
Implementation of TQM was very
low, low, medium and highly
successful respectively in 16.7,
16.7, 58.3 and 8.3 percent of
hospitals. TQM had the most effect
on process management, focus on
customers and leadership and
management and less effect on
focus on suppliers, performance
results, strategic planning and
focus on material resources.
Human resource problems,
performance appraisal and
strategic problems were the most
important obstacles to TQM
success respectively. A total of 75
and 25 percent of hospitals had
mechanistic and organic structure
respectively. In total 41.6 percent
of hospitals had weak
organizational culture versus 58.4
percent medium culture. The
success of TQM in hospitals with
organic organizational structure
and medium organizational culture
was higher than mechanistic and
bureaucratic hospitals with weak
organizational culture (p<0.05).

Originality/value – The paper

shows that TQM requires a quality-
oriented organizational culture
supported by senior management
commitment and involvement,
organizational learning and
entrepreneurship, team working
and collaboration, risk taking, open
communication, continuous
improvement, customers focus
(both internal and external),
partnership with suppliers, and
monitoring and evaluation of
quality. By replicating this study in
different countries and contexts
the results could be very helpful for
developing a model of TQM that
can be implemented successfully in
a cross-cultural context.
critical appraisal
(Negative point)
Unraveling the Determinants
and Consequences of an Inn
Ovation-Supportive
Organizational Culture.

The current research identifies

constructs that are supportive of
an innovative culture in small to
medium-sized enterprises. A
sample of 429 employees in 23
small to medium-sized
manufacturing firms was used to
identify constructs associated with
an innovative culture. Supervisory
support and reward system support
are both positively related to an
innovative culture. Perceived work
overload is negatively related.
Companies with cultures
supportive of innovation tend to be
smaller, have fewer formalized
human resource practices, and less
munificent resources. There is no
direct relationship between an
innovative culture and firm
performance; however, when the
competitive environment is
changing rapidly firm earnings are
enhanced by an innovative culture.

There is an abundance of literature

that expounds on the importance
of creativity and innovation to keep
organizations healthy, viable, and
competitive. A relatively smaller
body of research focuses on the
organizational characteristics that
lead to innovation. For example,
Woodman, Sawyer, and Griffin
(1993) proposed that
organizational culture, rewards,
and resources are determinants of
creative behavior in organizations.
Similarly, Amabile, Conti, Coon,
Lazenby, and Herron, (1996) found
that the perceived work
environment influences the level of
creativity in organizations.
Damanpour (1991), in a study of
the antecedents of organizational
innovation, found that managerial
attitude toward change, and
internal and external
communication were positively
related to innovation. Given the
relevance of organizational culture
to innovation, the managerial and
human resource practices
sassociated with an "innovation-
supportive culture" become a
subject of research interest. As
Woodman et al. note, "we ... know
litt le about how organizations can
successfully promote and manage
individual and organizational
creativity" (1993, p. 316).

Although not explicitly stated,

much of the existing literature
assumes that it is important and
desirable to foster creativity and
innovation in all organizations (e.g.,
Lumpkin & Dess, 1996; Covin &
Slevin, 1991; Zahra, 1993, 1994;
Lawless & Anderson, 1996) and
does not address the question of
under which circumstances a
culture supportive of innovation is
associated with positive
organizational-level outcomes.
However, Chandler (1993) points
out that some organizations
perform better when key
employees believe they are
rewarded for being innovative,
while other organizations perform
better when key employees believe
they are rewarded for conforming
to the rules and not being very
innovative

Bibliography

1) Google.com

2) wikipedia