Organisational Culture Yu Fu Email: yu.fu@heig-vd.chyu.fu@heig-vd.ch

Organisational Culture

Yu Fu

Email: yu.fu@heig-vd.ch

Learning objectives

• What is organisational culture?• How do you understand an organisational

culture?• How can the organisational culture be

managed?

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Organisational Culture

• A system of beliefs, customs, values, and attitudes shared and transmitted by members of a particular group or organisation.

• The system of shared meaning is, on closer examination, a set of key characteristics that the organisation values.

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Primary Characteristics

• Innovation and risk taking• Attention to details• Outcome orientation• People orientation• Team orientation• Aggressiveness• Stability

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Organisational Culture

• Innovation and risk taking (3M)

• Outcome orientation (Bausch & Lomb)

• Aggressiveness: to enable people and businesses throughout the world to realise their full potentials (Microsoft)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSSeDJPVfrY

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Comparison of Two Competing Perspectives on Organisational Culture

VARIABLE• Something the

organisation “has”; a tool, skill, or lever

• Inform workplace of values

• Change occurs through management directive and intervention

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ROOT METAPHOR• Something the

organisation “is”; expressive form

• Create sustain and influence culture

• Change occurs through natural evolution; all members influence culture

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Organisational Culture

• Culture is SHARED

• Culture is INTANGIBLE

• Culture AFFECTS HUMAN BEHAVIOUR

• Communicative creations

• Historical

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Organisational Culture

Visible

• Unconscious, taken-for-granted perceptions or beliefs

• Mental models of ideals

Shared assumptions

• Conscious beliefs• Evaluate what is good or bad, right

or wrong

Shared values

ArtifactsArtifacts

• Stories/legends• Rituals/ceremonies• Organisational language• Physical structures/décor

• Stories/legends• Rituals/ceremonies• Organisational language• Physical structures/décor

Invisible(below the surface)

Elements of Culture

• Artifacts: things representing group beliefs & culture.

• Values: beliefs about use of time and hard work; the way things ought to be (according to founder).

• Basic assumptions: core beliefs of the group, relationship between individuals and group, supervisor-supervisee relationships, risk-taking,new worker orientation, benefits.

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Functions of Organisational Culture

• Culture provides a sense of identity to members and increases their commitment to the organisation

• Culture is a sense-making device for organisation members

• Culture reinforces the values of the organisation• Culture serves as a control mechanism for

shaping behaviour

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Do Organisations Have Uniform Cultures?

• Organisational culture represents a common perception held by the organisation’s members.

• Most large organisations have a dominant culture and numerous sets of subcultures.

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Organisational Culture

• A dominant culture expresses the core values that are shared by a majority of the organisation’s members.

• Subcultures tend to develop in large organisations to reflect common problems, situations, or experiences that members face.

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Problems associated with subcultural divisions within the larger culture

• Subordinate groups are likely to form into a counterculture pursuing self-interests.

• The firm may encounter extreme difficulty in coping with broader cultural changes.

• Embracing natural divisions from the larger culture may lead to difficulty in international operations.

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What Organisational Culture Does

FUNCTIONS• Provides an external

identity• Creates a sense of

commitment• Acts as source of

high reliability• Defines an

interpretive scheme• Acts as a social

control mechanismOrganisational Behaviour 2

DYSFUNCTIONS• Can create barriers to

change• Can create conflict

within the organisation• Subcultures can

change at different rates than other units

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Wal-Mart, Inc.

• Wal-Mart’s headquarters almost screams out frugality and efficiency. The world’s largest retailer has a spartan waiting room for suppliers, rather like a government office waiting areas. Visitors pay for their own soft drinks and coffee. In each of the building’s inexpensive cubicles, employees sit at inexpensive desk finding ways to squeeze more efficiencies and lower costs out of suppliers as well as their own work processes.

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ICICI Bank

• India’s second largest bank exudes a performance-oriented culture. Its organisational practices place a premium on training, career development, goal setting, and pay-for-performance, all with the intent of maximizing employee performance and customer service.

• “We believe in defining clear performance for employees and empowering them to achieve their goals “ says ICICI Bank executive director Kalpana Moraria. “This has helped to create a culture of high performance across the organisation.

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Convergence or Divergence?

• Industrialisation• Emphasis on

standardisation• Organisational strategies

for managing culture globally

• Emphasis on consistency across borders– MNCs– Global institutions

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• Use of organisational culture as a competitive tool

• Impact of diverse national cultures on organisational culture

• Benefits in specific and culturally sensitive ways– Seniority– Job security – Group versus

individual

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National culture influences

• Widely held common assumptions may be traced to the larger culture of the host society.

• National cultural values may become embedded in expectations of organisation members.

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National culture influences

• National culture must be taken into account if accurate predictions are to be made about organisational behaviour in different countries.

• The research indicates that national culture has a greater impact on employ ees than does their organisation’s culture.

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Culture-Free Approach

It argues that technology, policies, rules, organisational structure, and other variables that contribute to efficiency and effectiveness make national culture irrelevant for management.• McDonald’s fast food service • World Disney • IKEA

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Implications for Managers

• For managerial effectiveness, it is helpful to analyse organisational cultures in order to coordinate activities or change them;

• Understand what levels of culture can be influenced and how;

• Know how national culture and organisational culture can interact to influence management philosophy and employee behaviours.

• Person-culture fit for individual career success

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EXERCISES: What Does Our Culture Reveal About Us?

1. pick an organisation to examine—social group, the college or university, a workplace, and so on.

2. Evaluate that organisation’s culture in terms of the list of signs that reveal its culture.

3. Draw a conclusion as to the nature of its culture.

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