2. Understanding Culture
• Prithu Gupta (aged 15 yrs) just became a Grand Master (GM) in Chess. R
Praggnanandhaa (aged 14 yrs) became a GM in 2018, the fourth youngest
person on Earth to do so. Now India has 64 GMs, 23 of which are from Tamil
nadu, 8 from WB and 7 from Maharashtra. 10 of these hail from a specific
school in Chennai, hashtag#Velammal
• In this journey to India's count to 64 GMs, there must be a pool of atleast 640
potential GMs who Almost made it and just fell Short. What's about Velammal
that is able to create that Hunger and Desire in young Minds to set on the GM
journey? What's the undercurrent in Tamil Nadu chess culture?
• Looking at Vellamal as a case, Is there a critical mass before 'desired Culture'
becomes a Natural Phenomenon in an Organization?
3. • Set of key values, assumptions, understanding, and
norms that is shared by members of an organization
and taught to ne members as correct.
• Culture is a pattern of shared assumptions and beliefs
about how things are done in an organization
4/7/2020 3
What is Culture ??
4. • Norms are shared standards that defines what
behaviors are acceptable and desirable with-in a
group of people.
4/7/2020 4
What do we mean by Norms ??
5. Culture and its Characteristics
• 1. Culture is prescriptive. It prescribes the kinds of behavior considered
acceptable in the society. The prescriptive characteristics of culture simplify a
consumer’s decision-making process by limiting product choices to those,
which are socially acceptable.
• 2. Culture is socially shared. Culture, out of necessity, must be based on
social interaction and creation. It cannot exist by itself. It must be shared by
members of a society, thus acting to reinforce culture’s prescriptive nature.
• 3. Culture facilitates communication. One useful function provided by culture
is to facilitate communication. Culture usually imposes common habits of
thought and feeling among people. Thus, within a given group culture makes
it easier for people to communicate with one another. But culture may also
impede communication across groups because of a lack of shared common
cultural values.
6. • 6. Culture is enduring. Because culture is shared and passed along from
generation to generation, it is relatively stable and somewhat permanent. Old
habits are hard to break, and people tend to maintain its own heritage in spite of
a continuously changing world. This explains why India and China, despite severe
overcrowding, have a great difficulty with birth control. The Chinese view a large
family as a blessing and assume that children will take care of parents when
growth old.
• 7. Culture is cumulative. Culture is based on hundreds or even thousands of years
of accumulated circumstances. Each generation adds something of its own to the
culture before passing the heritage on to the next generation.
• 8. Culture is dynamic. Culture is passed along from generation to generation, but
one should not assume that culture is static and immune to change. Far from
being the case, culture is constantly changing-it adapts itself to new situations
and new sources of knowledge.
7.
8. • 1) Surface Level: Visible artifacts e.g. manner of dress, patterns of behavior,
physical symbols, office layouts, organizational ceremonies.
• Things which one can see, hear or observe by watching members of the
organization.
• 2) Deeper level: Expressed values and beliefs, not observable but can be
discerned from how people explain and justify what they do.
4/7/2020 8
Levels of corporate culture
9. 3) Deeply embedded values: These underlying assumptions are
the essence of the culture.
• Assumptions start with the expressed values.
• Overtime they become more deeply embedded and less
open to question.
4/7/2020 9
10. Continue……..
Organizational culture can be assessed on many
dimensions:
• Extent of collaboration versus isolation among people
and departments
• The importance of control and where control is
concentrated.
• Organizations time orientation is short term or long term.
Specifically two dimensions are commonly used:
1. Extent to which competitive environment requires
flexibility or stability.
2. Extent to which the organizations strategic focus and
strength is internal or external.
4/7/2020 10
11. Understanding Cultural differences
• There is nothing Good or Bad about
any Culture. There are only differences.
• Understanding Cultural Differences are
often the determining factor in success
or failure in Business
4/7/2020 11
12. • The difference between desired and actual values and behaviors
• Immense in case of mergers
• FedEx & Kinko’s
• High Performance Culture
4/7/2020 12
Culture Gap
13. • Degree of agreement among employees about the importance of
values and ways of doing things.
• Effect of strong culture is not always positive one.
4/7/2020 13
Culture Strength
14. Organizational Values (OV) and Culture
• OV ‘s are the enduring beliefs that have worth, merit, and
importance for the organization.
• Unhealthy cultural values played a crucial role in many of
the mistakes that companies make.
• Changes in the nature of work, globalization, increasing
diversity in the work force, made the topic of values one
of considerable concern to managers.
• How can I determine what cultural values are important?
4/7/2020 14
15. • Are some values better than others ?
• How can the organization culture help us to be more
competitive ?
• Cultures can vary widely across organizations
• The correct relationship among cultural values organizational
strategy and the external environment can enhance
organizational performance.
4/7/2020 15
Continue…..
16. Adaptability culture
• Is characterized by strategic leaders encouraging
values that support the organization ability to
interpret and translate signals from the environment
into new behavior response new needs
• Employees have autonomy to make decisions.
• Act freely to meet new needs
• Responsiveness to customers is highly valued
• Encouraging and rewarding creativity
• Experimentation and risk taking
• Example Google
4/7/2020 16
17. Achievement culture
• Is characterized by a clear vision of the organization goal.
• Focus on the achievement of specific target such as sales,
growth, profitability and market share.
• Concerned with serving specific customers in the external
environment but without the need for flexibility and rapid
change is suited to the achievement culture.
• This is result oriented culture that values competitiveness
• aggressiveness
• personal initiative and
• willingness to work long and hard to achieve results
• Example: Netflix
4/7/2020 17
18. Clan Culture
• Has an internal focus on the involvement and participation of
employees to meet changing expectation s from the external
environments
• This culture places value on meeting the needs of
organization members
• Friendly places to work, and employees may seem like a
family.
• Emphasize cooperation consideration of both employees and
customers and avoiding status differences
• Emphasize on fairness and reaching agreement with others
• Example: In and Out Burger fast food Chain
4/7/2020 18
19. Bureaucratic culture
• It has internal focus and consistency orientation
for a stable environment
• It support a methodical, rational , orderly way of
doing business.
• Following the rules and being thrifty are valued.
• The organization succeed by being highly
integrated.
4/7/2020 19
