Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
– Basic assumptions
– Artifacts
– Values
Basic Assumptions
• What it is? What it stands for? What it is all about?
• It is what drives the organization, determines how its
members perceive, think, feel and believe.
• It represents the core ideology.
• For example-
– Market-oriented communication system (AT&T)
– Customer Orientation (Citi Bank)
– Risk Taking and Innovation (Boeing, HP)
– Employee Participation, Open Communication and
Security(Sony, Toyota)
Artifacts
• The visible manifestations of culture
– Its structure, systems and subsystems, symbols,
plaques, etc.
– Public documents it releases, media reports and
stories about it
– Its rituals, norms, rules and procedures
– The observable behavior of its members
For example, 24 hr hotline for customers that both
IBM and Citibank provide.
Values
• These are the social principles, goals and standards held by members of an
organization
• They evolve from the core of the culture and the basic assumptions
– Sam Walton captured the core value of Wal-Mart in the statement that Wal-Mart puts the
customer ahead of everything else.
– Boeing maintained that product safety, applying the most conservative safety standards,
testing, and analysis
– Belief and trust in employees, individual identity, and entrepreneurism reflect the 3M core
values.
They are reflected in the core capabilities of a company, form the basis of their policies and
actions, and are generally not compromised for short-term benefits or financial gains.
As long as organization reflects its espoused values in its relation with customers, and its
customers think it does, it can sell its products very well.
Basic Value Orientation that Influence Ways
of Doing Business
The five basic value orientations given by
Fons Trompenaars (1993) are –
– Universalism vs. Partcularism
– Collectivism vs. Individualism
– Neutral vs. Affective
– Diffuse vs. Specific
– Achievement vs. Ascription
– Norms
Dimensions of Culture
Manifest Aspects
The industry and its
competition; company history
and tradition; goals, policies
and procedures; Systems and
controls; technology, products
Intrinsic Aspects
Basic Assumptions;
Values, Norms
Organization Culture Dealing with Change
• OC could be a help or a hindrance to change.
• On the one hand it provides power for action, while on the
other, it filters information, exercises control over decision-
making, and restrains action options.
• The prevailing bureaucratic culture may not enable an
organization to quickly adapt to change
• In any change attempt, the existing culture has to be
diagnosed to see whether the proposed business strategy fits
in with it.
• However, cultural change is extremely difficult and long
drawn process
Identifying and Diagnosing Organization
Culture
• Diagnosing corporate culture requires uncovering and
understanding the basic assumptions, values, norms and
artifacts underlying organizational life as perceived and felt by
organizational members.
• One needs to examine the following-
– How managerial tasks are typically performed?
– How are tasks supervised?
– How is task performance monitored, appraised, and rewarded?
– How are decisions made and communicated?
– How organizational relationships are usually managed? Superior –
subordinate relationships, team-spirit, interdepartmental co-
ordination, union-management relations, customer-orientation, etc.
Some Techniques that Assist in
Identifying/ Diagnosing an Organization
Culture
• Interviewing employees at different levels
• Administering relevant questionnaires and
conducting attitudinal and morale surveys
• Analyzing the process aspects (organizational
policies, decisions, procedures, rules and regulations,
how resources are procured and managed)
• Examining the organization’s external relations with
its customers, clients, etc. to know their perception
and evaluation of the organization.
Difficulties in diagnosing the cultural
elements
• Cultural assumptions are generally taken for granted and
less talked about
• Culture is implicit and can only be inferred from cultural
artifacts
• Expressed beliefs and values may be different from
what one really believes in and follows
• Organizations are generally characterized by subcultures
• Customers and clients may perceive the culture as an
outcome of their personal experiences that may be
positive or negative
Developing New Culture
• The needed changes or adjustments in value orientation
• Employee attitudes, skills and behaviors that would be
congruent with the new values
• The entrenched habits have to be broken or modified to
bring in desired behaviors
• The needed changes in administrative and work processes
• For example, United Stationers Inc. US, 4000 employees
responses were analyzed to identify values for core
organizational culture.
Employee-Culture Compatibility
• It is easy to determine individual-job fit, but it
is difficult to determine whether he/she is right
for the company culture.
• It can be fostered through mentoring and
coaching a new hire.
• If the decisions and actions of the top
management are not congruent with the
corporate culture it will send a wrong signal to
employees
Assessing Cultural Risk
• The extent of cultural risk depends upon two
issues:
– How important the changes are to the strategy
– How compatible the changes are with the culture