1. Week 13: Structure and Culture (12/5) Professor Payal Sharma
MANAGEMENT 101
Week 13: Structure and Culture (12/5)
Professor Payal Sharma

2. Next Time Week 14 (12/12): Last Class! In-class capstone exercise
Final exam review session
Study guide distributed
Study tips
Exam logistics, structure, etc.
Conceptual questions/discussion

3. Class Agenda Lecture: Structure and Culture
Pros and cons of structure types
Why culture matters
Cultural artifacts and elements
Enacted versus espoused values
Strong versus weak cultures
Changing culture
Chapter: Grouping Jobs Into Functions and Divisions
Chapter: Organizational Culture
Takeaways
Next Time

5. Organizational Design Defined
Organizational design refers to how the organization structures roles, tasks, jobs and projects into units as well as formal reporting and informational channels
Why does it matter? Promotes effective and efficient use of organizational resources and meeting the needs of the organization’s environment, strategy, technology, and human resources (i.e., “inputs”)

6. Pros and Cons of Structure Types
Functional: Each unit is responsible for a particular specialization (e.g., engineering, marketing, finance, etc.)
GlobalTech
Divisional: Each unit is run as if it is its own company. Each unit serves one product or market segment.
Product
Geographic
Market
Hybrid
Matrix
Team

7. Organizational Climate
The “what”
Refers to perceptions of practices, policies, procedures, routines and rewards in organizations
Created by strategy or structure – examples include customer service or safety climates
The surface-level organizational experience
That is, what do people see and report is happening to them in an organizational situation (James & Jones, 1974)
Viewed as temporal, subjective, and possibly subject to manipulation by organization’s management (Dennison, 1996)
Helps people experience and make sense of organizations

8. Organizational Culture
The “why”
Helps define why these things happen
A deeper-level phenomenon
“The way we do things around here”
Climate is more immediate than culture
Climate develops from the core of the culture
Culture provides the context for climate
Refers to shared attitudes and perceptions in an organization that are based on a set of basic assumptions, fundamental norms and values
Helps people experience and make sense of organizations

9. Why Culture Matters Organizational Culture Intrinsic Motivator
Control Mechanism
Provides a
sense of
Identity and
pride for
members
Generates
commitment
to the
organization’s
mission
Clarifies
and subtly
reinforces
standards
of behavior

10. How Culture is Learned Cultural artifacts Role of others: Mentoring
Observations
Interactions
Trial and error
Organizational rewards
Role of leaders

11. Layer #1: Cultural Artifacts
Refers to surface-level realizations of underlying values that represent manifestations of deeper assumptions or ideals
Four major categories:
Symbols: natural or manufactured objects, and physical settings
Organizational language: jargon, slang, gestures, signs, songs, jokes, rumors, metaphors and slogans
Narratives: stories, legends, sagas and myths
Practices: rituals, rites, and ceremonies

12. Layer #2: Espoused Values
Examples of values: teamwork; participation; commitment or loyalty; high performance; equitable rewards
Values are beliefs or concepts which pertain to and guide desirable behaviors, and transcend situations (i.e., are enduring)
Espoused values
Enacted values
Gap relates to employee attitudes and behaviors, including cynicism about safety program when gap in types of values exist (Clarke, 1999)

13. Layer #3: Basic Assumptions
Are un-observable
Reside at the core of culture
Rarely confronted or debated
Extremely difficult to change due to producing defensiveness or anxiety given role of providing employees with security about what to pay attention to and how to behave (Schein, 1992)

14. Strong vs. Weak Cultures
Agreement
LOW
HIGH
Weak
Warring Factions
Vacuous
Strong
LOW
Intensity
HIGH

15. Liabilities of Strong Cultures
Often fosters obedience and excessive conformity
Difficult to change

16. Liabilities (cont’d)
Goal attainment: How well the organization meets its objectives
Resource utilization: How well the organization makes use of available resources
Adaptability: Whether the organization is capable of changing and adapting to environmental changes

17. Research Findings
“Dirty work” stigma lends itself to strong cultures, coalesce around occupation and/or individual work groups (Ashforth & Kreiner, 1999)
Three factors at play:
Salience of occupational identity
Threats to self-esteem
“Us” versus “them”
Ethnographic studies of police sub-culture, often referred to as the 'canteen culture', argue that the culture enables officers to deal with the moral ambiguity inherent in the use of coercive authority, by 'celebrating' it, via a cult of masculinity (Waddington, 1999)

18. Changing Culture
Cultures are so spontaneous, elusive and hidden that they can’t be accurately diagnosed or intentionally changed
Cultures provide organizational members with continuity and stability; therefore, members are likely to resist even modest change efforts because of concerns about instability, threat to one’s self, misfit with personality, lack of certainty, and more!

19. Changing Culture Toolkit
Education and communication
Participation and involvement
Facilitation and support
Bargaining and negotiation
Hidden persuasion
Edict

20. Takeaways
Different types of structure exist, each with their own advantages and disadvantages
Organizational culture reflects an organization’s personality and can impact performance and effectiveness
Artifacts can help make culture ‘observable’ to newcomers
Gaps can exist in the values that espoused versus enacted by organizational members
Strong cultures reflect intensity and agreement between organizational members and also have their own liabilities
While changing cultures can be difficult, there are several approaches which managers are well-served to adopt – each with their own pros and cons