ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

1. ORGANISATIONAL
CULTURE
• Dr. Rajesh Kamath
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Public Health
• Manipal University

2. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
• Organisational culture:
• A system of shared meaning held by members that
distinguishes the organisation from other organisations.
• 7 characteristics:
• 1. Innovation and risk taking
• 2. Attention to detail
• 3. Outcome orientation
• 4. People orientation
• 5. Team orientation
• 6. Aggressiveness
• 7. Stability

3. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
• 1. Innovation and risk taking : The degree to which employees are
encouraged to be innovative and take risks.
• 2. Attention to detail : The degree to which employees are expected to
exhibit precision, analysis and attention to detail.
• 3. Outcome orientation : The degree to which management focusses on
the results or outcomes rather than on the techniques and processes used
to achieve them. Which is more important in your opinion?
• 4. People orientation : The degree to which management decisions take
into consideration the effect of outcomes on people within the
organisation.
• 5. Team orientation : The degree to which work activities are organised
around teams rather than individuals.
• 6. Aggressiveness : The degree to which people are aggressive and
competitive rather than easygoing.
• 7. Stability : The degree to which organisational activities emphasize
maintaining the status quo in contrast to growth.

4. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
• What is the difference between Organisational
culture and Job satisfaction?
• Both overlap, but they are different…
ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE JOB SATISFACTION
1. Descriptive 1. Evaluative
2. How employees perceive
the characteristics of an
organisation’s culture.
2. How employees feel about
the organisation’s
expectations, reward
practices, and the like.

5. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
• Dominant culture : A culture that expresses the
core values that are shared by a majority of the
organisation’s members.
• Gives an organisation its distinct personality.
• Subculture : Minicultures within an organisation,
typically defined by department designations and
geographical seperation.
• Develop in large organisations to reflect common
problems, situations or experiences faced by
group members.

6. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE –
Strong vs Weak
• How to differentiate??
• If opinions vary widely, the culture is weak.
STRONG CULTURE WEAK CULTURE
If most employees responding to
management surveys have the same
opinions about the organisation’s
mission and values, the culture is strong.
If opinions vary widely, the culture is
weak.
Organisation’s core values are intensely
held and widely shared
Not so

7. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE –
Strong vs Weak
• The more members who accept the core values and
the greater their commitment, the stronger the culture
and the greater its influence on member behaviour
because the high degree of sharedness and intensity
creates an internal climate of high behavioural control.
• Eg. Tata employees confronting an ethical solution.
• Builds cohesiveness,
• Loyalty,
• Organisational commitment,…
• …thereby reducing employee turnover.

8. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE –
Functional and Dysfunctional effects
• Functions of Organisational Culture :
• 1. Boundary defining role : It creates distinctions
between organisations.
• 2. Sense of identity for members.
• 3. Generation of commitment for something larger
than individual self interest.
• 4. Enhances the stability of the social system by
providing appropriate standards for what employers
should say and do.
• 5. Sense making and control mechanism that guides
and shapes employees’ attitudes and behaviours.

9. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE –
Functional and Dysfunctional effects
• Organisational climate : The shared perceptions organisational
members have about their organisation and work environment.
• Culture created climate.
• Eg. Positive attitude inspires; Negative attitude demotivates.
• When everyone feels the same way – Synergy -- Effect will be more
than the sum of the individual parts.
• All about what aspects are encouraged.
• Dimensions:
• 1. Safety – safety gear
• 2. Justice – People will believe in doing the right thing – eg.
whistleblowing
• 3. Diversity – Discourages divisiveness of any kind-racism, casteism.
• 4. Customer service – Customer centric approach
• Positive climate for performance – person will do a good job.

10. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE –
Functional and Dysfunctional effects
• Culture as a liability :
• 1. Institutionalisation
• 2. Barriers to change
• 3. Barriers to diversity
• 4. Barriers to Acquisitions and Mergers

11. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE –
Functional and Dysfunctional effects
• 1. Institutionalisation :
• When an organisation becomes institutionalised, it is
valued for itself and not for the goods or services it
produces.
• It doesn’t go out of business even if it’s original goals are no
longer relevant.
• Behaviours and habits that should be questioned and
analysed become taken for granted, which can stifle
innovation and make maintaining the organisation’s culture
an end in itself.
• Eg.???
• The Armed forces
• Arts institutions

12. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE –
Functional and Dysfunctional effects
• 2. Barriers to change :
• Culture is a liability when it is not aligned with
the organisational goals.
• Eg. In times of rapid change – SAIL, ITC, SBI,
TATA STEEL, Indian Police department.
• Strong cultures worked well for them but if a
change is needed, it is difficult to enforce it.

13. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE –
Functional and Dysfunctional effects
• 3. Barriers to diversity :
• You hire different people to encourage
diversity…fine…
• But then you try to homogenise them with
organisational culture????

14. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE –
Functional and Dysfunctional effects
• 4. Barriers to Acquisitions and Mergers :
• Historically, in M & A decisions, the key factors were financial advantage
and product synergy.
• Now, it is cultural compatibility.
• Research reveals that the primary cause of failure of mergers is
conflicting organisational cultures.
• Eg: Merger of FLAKT and ABB. After the merger, the CEO of FLAKT was
moved out and a new CEO was brought in from ABB.
• Several employees were asked to leave during this period. Employees
were unhappy with the compensation being offered to them.
• Culture clash between the laid back culture of FLAKT and the more
dynamic culture of ABB.
• FLAKT employees were accused of lethargy and a negative attitude. They
were told that they could not be trusted.

15. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE – CREATING AND
SUSTAINING CULTURE – HOW A CULTURE BEGINS
• Factors that CREATE an organisation’s culture :
• Founders traditionally have a major impact on an organisation’s early
culture.
• Culture creation occurs in 3 ways :
• 1. Founders hire and keep only employees who think and feel the same
way as they do.
• 2. They indoctrinate and socialise these employees to their way of
thinking and feeling.
• 3. The founders’ own behaviour encourages employees to identify with
them and internalise their beliefs, values and assumptions. When the
organisation succeeds, the founders’ personality becomes embedded in
the culture. Eg Bill Gates – Microsoft, Narayana Murthy – Infosys, Azim
Premji – Wipro, Vijay Mallya – Kingfisher, Richard Branson – Virgin
group.

16. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE – CREATING AND
SUSTAINING CULTURE – KEEPING A CULTURE ALIVE
• Factors that keep a culture ALIVE :
• 1. Selection
• 2. Top Management
• 3. Socialisation

17. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE – CREATING AND
SUSTAINING CULTURE – KEEPING A CULTURE ALIVE
• 1. Selection : To identify and hire individuals with
the knowledge, skills and abilities to perform
successfully. Identification of people whose
values are consistent with the organisation’s.
• Selection also provides information to applicants.
• Selection thus becomes a 2-way street, allowing
employer or applicant to avoid a mismatch.

18. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE – CREATING AND
SUSTAINING CULTURE – KEEPING A CULTURE ALIVE
• 2. Top management : Through words and
behaviour, senior executives establish norms
about whether risk taking is desirable, how
much freedom managers should give
employees, what is appropriate dress, what
actions pay off in terms of pay raises,
promotions and other rewards.

19. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE – CREATING AND
SUSTAINING CULTURE – KEEPING A CULTURE ALIVE
• 3. Socialisation : A process that adapts employees to the organisation’s
culture.
• Necessary to ensure new employees do not disrupt beliefs and customs
already in place.
• Eg: Indian Military Academy, Dehradun : All officers must go through a
boot camp where they prove their commitment.
• Sometimes socialisation may not be very pleasant, eg. A German
government official said “Bribery was Siemens’ business model”.
Managers at Siemens were frequently socialised on how to bribe
officials, where to obtain the money (bribes were referred to as “useful
money”), and how to hide it in a sham accounting system. 2,700
Siemens’ contracts were found to be won through bribes and they had to
face severe penalties.

20. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE – A
SOCIALISATION MODEL
• SOCIALISATION MODEL
PREARRIVAL ENCOUNTER METAMORPHOSIS
PRODUCTIVITY COMMITMENT TURNOVER

21. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE –
SOCIALISATION – 3 STAGES
• Socialisation has 3 stages:
• 1. Prearrival stage
• 2. Encounter stage
• 3. Metamorphosis stage

22. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE –
SOCIALISATION – 3 STAGES
• 1. Prearrival stage – The period of learning in
the socialisation process that occurs before a
new employee joins the organisation.
• Eg.: Business schools socialise business
students to the attitudes and behaviours
business firms want.

23. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE –
SOCIALISATION – 3 STAGES
• 2. Encounter stage : The stage in which a new
employee sees what the organisation is really like and
confronts the possibility that expectations and reality
may diverge.
• If expectations were fairly accurate, the encounter
stage cements earlier perceptions...
• …or at the other extreme a new member may become
disillusioned enough to resign.
• As managers, we should know that proper recruitment
and selection significantly reduce negative outcomes.
Newcomers are more committed when friends and
coworkers help them “learn the ropes”.

24. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE –
SOCIALISATION – 3 STAGES
• 3. Metamorphosis stage in which the new
employee changes and adjusts to the job,
work group and organisation.

25. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE –
SOCIALISATION
• Entry Socialisation Options :
• 1. Formal vs Informal: Formal – New employee is segregated from the
ongoing work setting and differentiated in some way to make her role
explicit. Eg. Specific training programs.
• 2. Individual vs Collective : Individually, eg.in offices. In groups. Eg.
Military.
• 3. Fixed vs Variable : Time schedule. Fixed, eg. Probationary periods.
Variable schedules eg.Promotion where the time is not fixed.
• 4. Serial Vs Random : Serial: Uses role models, apprenticeship and
mentoring programs. Random : New employees are left on their own to
figure things out.
• 5. Investiture vs Divestiture : Investiture – assumes that the newcomer’s
qualities and qualifications are the necessary ingredients for job success,
so these are confirmed and supported. Divestiture strips away certain
characteristics of the recruit.

26. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE –
SOCIALISATION
• The 3 part socialisation process is complete when new
members have become comfortable with the organisation
and their job.
• They have internalised and accepted the norms of the
organisation and their work group, …
• …are confident in their competence, …
• …and feel trusted and valued by their peers.
• They understand the system – not only their own tasks but
the rules, procedures and informally accepted practices as
well.
• Finally, they know what is expected of them and what
criteria will be used to measure and evaluate their work.

27. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE – HOW
EMPLOYEES LEARN CULTURE
• How employees learn culture :
• 1. Stories
• 2. Rituals
• 3. Material symbols
• 4. Language

28. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE – HOW
EMPLOYEES LEARN CULTURE - STORIES
• 1. Stories : Eg. Wipro - Azim Premji was in a tier
2 city. An employee told him that a large client in
that city was keen to see him. Premji said that he
would go and personally see the client, since he
was free that morning!!
• Azim Premji has never recommended a cv to his
HR managers!!
• What Values do these 2 aspects of his behaviour
lay emphasis on…??
• Meritocracy …
• …and Customer relationship.

29. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE – HOW
EMPLOYEES LEARN CULTURE - RITUALS
• 2. Rituals : Repetitive sequences of activities that
express and reinforce the key valuesof the
organisation, which goals are most important,
which people are most important, and which are
expendable.
• Eg. At IIM Ahmedabad, students of various
dormitories have chants (known as tempo
chants) that they sing in the middle of the night
to increase solidarity and gain energy!!
The same chants have been continuing for years.

30. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE – HOW EMPLOYEES
LEARN CULTURE – MATERIAL SYMBOLS
• 3. Material Symbols :
• Layout of corporate headquarters.
• Types of automobiles top executives are given.
• Presence or absence of corporate aircraft.
• Size of offices.
• Elegance of furnishings, executive perks,
attire.

31. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE – HOW
EMPLOYEES LEARN CULTURE - LANGUAGE
• 4. Language :
• Unique terms describe equipment, officers, key
individuals, suppliers, customers or products that
relate to the business.
• Acronyms and Jargon.
• At Boeing, BOLD - Boeing Online Data
• CATIA - Computer Graphics Aided 3 dimensional
interactive application
• MAIDS – Manufacturing Assembly and Installation Data
System.
• SLO - Service Level Objectives.

32. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE – CREATING
AN ETHICAL ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
• Creating an ethical organisational culture :
• High ethical standards can be seen in cultures
with
• 1. High risk tolerance.
• 2. Low to moderate aggressiveness.
• 3. Focussed on means as well as outcomes.
• 4. Long term perspectives.
• 5. Balances the rights of multiple stakeholders
including the community.

33. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE – CREATING
AN ETHICAL ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
• Eg.: When poisoned bottles of Tylenol ( a Johnson
& Johnson product ) were found in stores some
years ago, company employees independently
pulled the product from shelves across the U.S.
before management had even issued a statement
about the tampering.
• Enron : Aggressive culture with its unrelenting
pressure on executives to rapidly expand
earnings, encouraged ethical lapses.

34. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE – CREATING
AN ETHICAL ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
• As managers, what can you do??
• 1. Be a visible role model : Senior managers taking the ethical high road
send a positive message to all employees.
• 2. Communicate ethical expectations : Create and disseminate an
organisational code of ethics.
• 3. Provide ethical training : Seminars, workshops.
• 4. Visibly reward ethical acts and punish unethical ones : Include in
managers’ performance appraisals a point by point evaluation of how
their decisions measure up against the organisation’s code of ethics.
Review the means taken to achieve goals as well as the ends themselves.
• 5. Provide protective mechanisms : Provide formal mechanisms so
employees can discuss dilemmas and report unethical behaviour without
fear of reprimand.

35. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE – CREATING A
POSITIVE ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
• Creating a positive Organisational culture :
• 1. Building on employee strengths.
• 2. Rewarding more than punishing.
• 3. Emphasizing vitality and growth

36. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE – CREATING A
POSITIVE ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
• 1. Building on employee strengths :
• Eg.: The Mehta group housed 2 cement
companies – Gujarat Sidhee and Saurashtra
cement-in western India in the late 1990s. Sidhee
had been declared sick and was under the Board
of Industrial and Financial reconstruction (BIFR),
and Saurashtra cement was a loss making firm.
The company adopted HRM strategies and
redeployed people according to their
competencies and strengths.

37. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE – CREATING A
POSITIVE ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
• 2. Rewarding more than punishing :
• Most organisations are sufficiently focussed on
extrinsic rewards such as pay and promotions. But they
often forget about the power of smaller and cheaper
rewards such as praise.
• Catch employees doing something right.
• Articulate praise.
• Many managers withhold praise because they are
afraid employees will coast or because they think
praise is not valued, both of which are not true. Failure
to rise is like blood pressure…
• …a silent killer.

38. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE – CREATING A
POSITIVE ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
• 3. Emphasising Vitality and Growth :
• What is the difference between a job and a
career??
• Individual employee’s growth.
• Trying to create a Win-Win situation.

39. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE – SPIRITUALITY
AND ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
• SPIRITUALITY AND ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE.
• Workplace spirituality : The recognition that people
have an inner life that nourishes and is nourished by
meaningful work that takes place in the context of the
community.
• This is not about…
• …God or Theology.
• Eg.: 1. Starbucks paying Third World suppliers an
above-market price for their coffee.
• 2. Aravind Eye care encourages employees to spend
more time in the meditation room.

40. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE – CREATING A
POSITIVE ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
• Reasons for the growing interest in spirituality:
• 1. As a counterbalance to the pressures and stress of a
turbulent pace of life – Single parent families, geographic
mobility, the temporary nature of jobs, new technologies
that create distance between people, the lack of
community feeling.
• 2. Formalised religion has not worked for many people and
they continue to look for anchors to replace lack of faith.
• 3. People question the meaning of work.
• 4. The desire to integrate personal life values with one’s
professional life.
• 5. Material pursuits are not making people happy.

41. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE – CREATING A
POSITIVE ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
• Characteristics of a spiritual organisation :
• 1. Strong sense of purpose: Profits may be important, but they are not
the primary values of the organisation. People want to be inspired by a
purpose they believe is important and worthwhile.
• 2. Trust and respect : Mutual trust, honesty and openness. Managers are
not afraid to admit mistakes. Eg : The President of an auto parts
distribution firm says “We do not tell lies here and everyone knows it.
We are specific and honest about quality even if we know they might not
be able to detect any problem.”
• 3. Humanistic work practices : Flexible work schedules, employee
empowerment, job security.
• 4. Toleration of employee expression : Employee expressions are not
stifled. They allow people to be themselves - to express their moods and
feelings without guilt or fear of reprimand. Eg: Employees at South-West
airlines are encouraged to express their sense of humour on the job, to
act spontaneously, and to make their work fun.

42. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE – HOME
WORK
• Home work:
• 1. Global implications
• 2. Summary and implications for managers.

43. • References :
• ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR - STEPHEN
ROBBINS – 14TH EDITION

44. THANK
YOU