Understanding Organisational Culture Chapter 18: Understanding Organisational Culture Learning Objectives Understand the Meaning and Significance of Organisational Culture Understand How to Recognize Culture in an Organisation Explore What are Strong, Weak and Dominant Cultures Understand the Concept of Organisational Climate Discuss How Effective Cultures and Climate can be created Especially in The Context of Organisations in India

Organizational Culture and its Significance It is the organisation’s culture that tells what things members of the organisation should pay attention to, how they react emotionally, and what actions they should take Various dimensions of Organisational Culture Innovativeness Stability Attention to detail Respect for people Team orientation Outcome orientation Aggressiveness

Organizational Culture: Meaning and Definition Culture is “…a pattern of basic assumptions – invented, discovered or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration – that has worked well enough to be considered valid, and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to the problems

Recognizing Culture in an Organization

Types of Culture and Organizational Structure Power culture: This culture draws from the power and influence of a central figure or a select few such that power radiates form the power - center like a web Role culture: This culture is built on the basis of defined jobs, rules and procedures. This culture operates according to logic and rationality, and its strength lies in its functions or specialists Task culture: This culture is team or project oriented and adaptable. Focus is on problem-solving by pooling required resources and people from various parts of the firm on a temporary basis Person culture: The individual is the central point in the person culture. The organisation exists to help the individual rather than the other way around

Strong cultures and Weak cultures Various authors characterize strong culture as: More members of the organisation display the shared traits more frequently and with greater commitment. Homogeneous, or uniform across the organisation Stable across time and situations, etc. The agreement that some organisations are superior in performance compared to their rivals is because of their effective organisational cultures, is theoretically considered quite a powerful macro level explanation for organisational performance This notion is also of great operational value to managers who can segregate pro-performance values, develop, communicate and reinforce them throughout the organisation

Limitations of the study and practice of Strong culture Cultures are not uniformly strong throughout the organisation Aspects of a strong culture may not affect different performance-related processes in the same organisation in the same way Usefulness of the concept of strong cultures is limited by the fact that even if one organisation succeeded in creating strong culture for itself, it is difficult to replicate it elsewhere Cultures are highly particular to specific nations, industries, and individual organisations When a strong culture also becomes ‘old’, it generates deep involvement of the members Culture serves as an informal structure of the organisation and affects how the firm will balance the needs for exploration of new opportunities and exploitation of the ones already developed

Sub-cultures and Weak Cultures Many experts agree that creating a uniform, strong culture for the whole organisation may not make the best sense at least for a large, diverse organisation What managers need may be to encourage thriving subcultures yet create and maintain effectively the Dominant values Weak culture – a conceptual opposite of Strong culture – implies that there is no congruence between the values of the top management and the employees of the organisation

How Can Effective Culture Be Sustained? Culture usually refers to a set of values and norms that helped the organisation adapt effectively to its external environment, and kept it integrated internally Creation of artifacts that penetrate at various levels: By definition, values are beliefs that generate preferences Reinforcement of cultural messages through rewards system – the deciding of who gets rewarded and why - is an unequivocal statement of organisation’s values Role modeling is done by usually the senior, more experienced and more powerful persons in the organisation; who guide, support and even mentor the juniors The different elements of culture at various levels of visibility, articulation, manifestation and consciousness should be consistent among themselves and coherent as a set

Organizational Climate

Managing Cultural Effectiveness in Organizations in India A typical culture in an organisation in India is characterized by: Affiliative and showing marked preference for personalized relationships over contractual ones Prone to dependency and the work ethic of ‘aram-se’ (at ease), ‘chalta hai’(it’s fine): low work and high leisure Hierarchy, status and authority oriented Affection-deference relationships within in-groups and likely nepotism and Power-play Governed by social models and beliefs of responsibility, authority, equality, and interpersonal relationships even in the work context Emphasis on applying parent-child model to boss-subordinate relationship, expectation of directiveness from boss and obedience from the subordinate

Managing Cultural Effectiveness in Organizations in India Creating commitment to super-ordinate goals Creating tolerance for dissent Encouraging participative decision-making Emphasizing ethics and developing norms for ethical conduct Use of training and development