Ground Rules and Admin

• Arrive on time
• Cell phones on silent
• Think imaginatively and conceptually about a significant theme or problem.
• Don’t just “cover the material”
• Let’s respect each other and listen to what is being said without interrupting each
other
• What you put into this lecture is what you’ll get out, so let’s participate and
contribute 100%
• We are all here for a reason, let’s make this lecture count by being professional
• You are expected to submit work of high a standard. To merely reproduce sections
of the tutorial matter is not acceptable and illegal.
• Expand on the topic by drawing on relevant reference material, consulting your
prescribed
books and observing practical situations.
• All tutorial are mandatory – An announcement will be placed on Ulink with your
tutor’s details
• You are expected to do a thorough literature study with the STUDY GUIDE
providing structure and allowing you to form expectations regarding the
emphasis in exercises, tests and examinations.

Recommended books
• Moss, S, Papastefanou, N and Tubbs, S. (2012). Human Communication:
Principless and contexts. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company
• Shockley-Zalabak, P. S. (2012) Fundamentals of organisational communication.
Colorado: Pearson
Contact Details and Assessment Opportunities
Kea Nkitseng
Tel: 011 559 1258
Office: K Green 10
E-mail: kea_nkitseng@icloud.com

Consultation times
Monday: 10 am – 11 am
Thursday: 12 p.m – 1 pm
ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
UNIT 1
Overview:

• Defining organisational communication

• Defining organisational culture
• Types of organisational culture
• Organisational culture audit

Outcome:

• Define organisational communication

• Define organisational culture
• Distinguish among different types of organisational culture
• Explain the effect of leadership on organisational culture
• Conduct organisational culture audit
Defining organisational communication

• Organisational Communication is all

communication occurring in an organisational
context, internally or externally
• Internal communication includes all internal
meetings, notice boards and computer aided
communication
• External communication includes media
relations, public relations, interviews or
communication with journalists & people
outside the organisation
 Computer aided communication
_______________________________________________
Includes electronic mail (e-mail), intranet and extranet
links, and video-conferencing:
Electronic mail (e-mail)
• Uses the Internet to transmit and receive computer-generated
text and documents.
• A recent study found that most professional employee
receives thirty-one e-mail messages daily.

Benefits
• Message can be quickly written, edited, and stored.
• Messages can be distributed to one person or thousands.
• Messages can be read, in their entirety, at the convenience of
the recipient.
• The cost of sending formal e-mail messages is a fraction of
the cost to print, duplicate, and distribute a comparable letter
or brochure.
Computer aided communication (2)
______________________________________________
Electronic mail (e-mail)
Drawbacks
• Information overload.
• Time consuming to read, absorb, and respond to
messages daily.
• Messages lack emotional content. The
nonverbal cues in a face-to-face message or the
tone of voice doesn’t come across in e-mail.
• Messages tend to be cold and impersonal.
• Not the best means to convey certain information
such as layoffs, plant closings, or other
messages that might evoke emotional responses
and require empathy or social support.
Computer aided communication (3)

Intranet and extranet

• Intranets are private, organization-wide
information networks that look and act like a
Web site but to which only people in an
organization have access.
• Extranet links connect internal employees with
selected suppliers, customers, and strategic
partners.
Computer aided communication (4)
________________________________________
Video-conferencing
• Permits employees in an organization to have meetings
with people at different locations.
• Live audio and video images of members allow them to
see, hear, and talk with each other.
• Unlike previous specially-equipped rooms, cameras and
microphones are now being attached to individual
computers, allowing people to participate without leaving
their desks.
Conclusion
• It is no longer necessary for employees to be at their
workstation to be available. Pagers, cellular phones, and
personal communicators allow location flexibility for
employees. (5 stages in the history of communication )
• Organisational boundaries become less relevant as a
result of computer-aided communications. Networked
computers allow employees to conduct business on a
broader basis.
Defining organisational culture
Organisational culture refers to a system of
shared values, moral, social and behavioral
norms of an organization based on the beliefs,
attitudes and priorities of its members
 Elements of Organizational Culture

• There are five elements that combine to form an

organisation's culture. Core beliefs, values,
fears, behaviour norms and infrastructure
Core Beliefs
• These are the foundation of all organisational cultures.
They are a set of beliefs about what makes the
organisation successful and unsuccessful. They are
developed over time and through experience. Eventually
they combine to form the organisation's “success
formula.”
Values
• Core beliefs have strong positive and negative emotions
associate with them. The positive emotions are
expressed as values. Every core belief holds a promise
of success that is transformed into a set of values. “We
value the tenacity and risk taking that individual
champions bring to the organization!”
Fears

• Every core belief also has an associated fear of what will happen if
the organization ignores the belief; “Without champions the
bureaucracy will micro-manage and kill new products!” Therefore
any product that does not have a champion is doomed to failure.

Normative Behaviors

• Values and fears form the boundaries of normative behaviors —

also known as “how we do things around here!” Product
champions, for example, routinely ignore management, exaggerate
the positive, and work outside of their areas of responsibility to get
things done. The Champion may be an expert in one area, but they
behave as a generalist, doing what ever it takes to get the product
developed.
Infrastructure
• Normative behaviors become institutionalized in the organisation's
infrastructure. Infrastructure establishes roles, rules and structure
to support the Core Beliefs. Accountability is achieved by
developing a system of rewards and punishments — the things the
culture values are rewarded and the things it fears are punished.
Now the organization's Core Beliefs are locked into the “way we do
things around here.”
Types of organisational culture
Four predominant types of culture
Tough-guy-macho culture
• High-risk org, fortunes made and lost
Work-hard-play-hard customers’ needs
• Focus on sales and meeting
Bet-your-company culture
• High risk but slow feedback
Process culture
• Is a low-risk, slow feedback type of culture
• Employees seldom see results of their work
Leadership styles

Authoritarian leaders Democratic leaders

• Task oriented • People oriented
• Direct control • Guide than direct
• Unilateral decisions • Joint decisions

Laissez-faire leadership
• Don’t direct group at all
• Don’t actively participate in group
decisions
• Group members free to progress
Conducting organisational culture audit
How are things done around here?
• While it’s hard to pinpoint a standard definition for corporate
culture, the most common shorthand is that culture is “the way
we do things around here.”
1. What’s the communication style? Are there more one-way
broadcasts from leadership or grassroots conversations?
2. How are decisions made? Is the approach more hierarchical
or consensual?
3. How are employees treated? How are they expected to
behave day to day?
4. What’s the approach to getting work done? Is the emphasis
more on group collaboration or individual achievement? Do
people pay more attention to methods or results?
5. How freely is money spent? What is money spent on?
6. What’s the tolerance for risk? Are strategies more daring or
conservative?
7. How is customer service done? What kinds of relationships
are developed with customers?
What is the environment?
• The actions of a company and its employees do not exist in a
vacuum; they are influenced by many factors around them.
1. What is the company’s vision? What does the leadership want the
organization to be?
2. What are the company’s stated and implicit values? What is
important to the organization?
3. What structures are in place? These could be physical,
technological, or procedural structures.
4. How are desirable actions rewarded? How are undesirable
actions discouraged?
5. How do customers talk about the company? How do they
interact with employees?
6. What is the competition like? How does the market behave?
7. What countries is the company operating in? Where is it
headquartered?