Organizational Culture

Organizational
Culture
Introduction
 Organizational Culture is the totality of beliefs ,
customs, traditions and values shared by the
members of the organization.

 Corporate culture can be looked at as a system.

 It is important to consider culture while managing
change in the organization.

 Culture can be both, as input and as output.

Key Characteristics of
Corporate Culture
 Innovation and Risk Taking
 Attention to Detail
 Outcome Orientation
 People Orientation
 Team Orientation
 Aggressiveness
 Stability
Types of Culture
 Authoritarian culture
 Participative culture
 Mechanistic culture
 Organic culture
 Sub-cultures and Dominant culture
As given by Jeffrey
Sonnenfeld
 Academy culture
 Baseball Team culture
 Club culture
 Fortress culture

Importance of Organizational
Culture
 Talent-attractor
 Talent-retainer
 Engages people
 Creates energy and momentum
 Changes the view of “work”
 Creates greater synergy
 Makes everyone more successful

Culture – Input and Output
 Product of action, i.e., input.
 Element of future action, i.e., output.
 Culture is the product of socio-technical systems.
 Management strategies, structures, procedures,
etc. influence culture.
 Culture can be self-perpetuating and highly
resistant to change.
 Adapted from Williams et al, 1989
The Organization

strategy
External Environment
Structure, systems, technology
Legislation
Politics
Technology Work Environment
Education
Society
Market place Work tasks, goals and procedures
Competitors
Consumers
Economy
Work group behaviorManager behavior

Culture: common beliefs, values

Characteristic
and attitudes
patterns of behavio
Organizational Culture v/s
National Culture
 National cultural values are learned early, held deeply
and change slowly over the course of generations.
 Organizational culture, on the other hand, is comprised of
broad guidelines which are rooted in organizational
practices.
 A nation’s culture is similar to that of an organization as
it is comprised of the symbols, values, rituals, and
traditions of the people living in a particular region.
 Cultures usually differ in relationships between the
individual and society, ways of dealing with conflict,
relationships to authority, and conceptions of class and
gender. All of these things are comparable to
organizational culture, just on a grander scale.

 Sustaining
Creating and
Organizational Culture
Sustaining
Organizational
Culture
Creating Corporate Culture
 The ultimate source of an organization’s culture is
its founders.
 Culture creation occurs in three ways:
◦ Employees hire and keep employees with
same thinking
◦ They indoctrinate and socialize the employees
with the organization’s thinking
◦ The founder’s behavior acts as a role model
for the employees
 With the organizational success, the founder’s
personality is embedded in the organizational
culture.
How Organization Cultures Form
Robbins, 1989

Sustaining Organizational
Culture
 Three forces play a particularly important
part in sustaining a culture:
 Selection practices
 Actions of top management
 Socialization methods
Selection
 Explicit goal – identifying and hiring individuals
having knowledge, skills and abilities to perform
the jobs successfully.

 Individuals having values consistent with those of
the organization are selected as per the decision
maker’s judgements.

 Selection becomes a ‘two-way street’ as it
provides information about the organization to
the applicants.


Top Management
 The actions of top management establishes the
norms for the organization as to:


 Whether risk taking is desirable

 How much freedom managers should give to
their subordinates
 What actions will pay off in terms of pay rises,
promotions and other rewards, etc.
◦

Socialization
 New employees are not familiar with the
organizational culture and are potentially likely
to disturb the existing culture.

 The process through which the employees are
proselytized about the customs and traditions of
the organization is known as socialization.

 It is the process of adaptation by which new
employees are to understand the basic values
and norms for becoming ‘accepted’ members of
the organization.
Socialization Process
 Socialization is a process made up of three
stages:
 Pre-arrival - All the learning occurring before a
new member joins.
 Encounter - The new employee sees what the
organization is really like and confronts the
possibility that expectations and reality may
diverge.
 Metamorphosis - The relatively long-lasting
changes take place. The new employee masters
the skills required for the job, successfully
performs the new roles, and makes the
adjustments to the work group’s values and
norms.
Socialization Model
How Employees Learn
Culture
 Stories – Depicting the past events of the
organization. Some organizations actually try to
manage this element of culture learning.


 Rituals – Repetitive sequential activities

reinforcing the values of the organization.


 Material Symbols – Conveying social equality,

desired organizational behavior, etc. by the top
management.


 Language – Acceptance and preservation of

culture.

Conclusion
 Culture adapts to diverse circumstances.
 Managers need to understand the nature and role
of culture.
 Managers must understand the importance of
culture for organizational change.
 Corporate culture also impacts the day-to-day
decision-making of the organization.