The document explores the concept of organizational culture, highlighting its role in shaping values, beliefs, and behaviors within an organization. It discusses various cultural dimensions such as innovation, people orientation, and stability, as well as the processes of socialization that help integrate newcomers. Additionally, it addresses the potential dysfunctional aspects of strong cultures, especially during organizational changes, and offers suggestions for managing and evolving organizational culture.

1. Organizational Culture

2. Questions for Consideration
 What is organizational culture?
 When is organizational culture functional?
Dysfunctional?
 How do employees learn about the culture of
their organization?

3.  “Culture is the soul of the organization — the beliefs
and values, and how they are manifested. I think of
the structure as the skeleton, and as the flesh and
blood. And culture is the soul that holds the thing
together and gives it life force.”

4.  The pattern of shared values, beliefs and assumptions
considered to be the appropriate way to think and act
within an organization.
 Culture is shared
 Culture helps members solve problems
 Culture is taught to newcomers
 Culture strongly influences behaviour

5. Artifacts of Material Symbols
Organizational Language
Culture Rituals
Stories
Organizational Beliefs
Culture Values
Assumptions

6.  Innovation and risk-taking
 The degree to which employees are encouraged to be innovative and take
risks.
 Attention to detail
 The degree to which employees are expected to exhibit precision, analysis,
and attention to detail.
 Outcome orientation
 The degree to which management focuses on results or outcomes rather
than on technique and process.
 People orientation
 The degree to which management decisions take into consideration the
effect of outcomes on people within the organization.

7.  Team orientation
 The degree to which work activities are organized around teams
rather than individuals.
 Aggressiveness
 The degree to which people are aggressive and competitive rather
than easygoing.
 Stability
 The degree to which organizational activities emphasize
maintaining the status quo in contrast to growth.

8.  Stories
 Rituals
 Material Symbols
 Language

9.  Organizational culture represents a common
perception held by the organization members.
 Core values or dominant (primary) values are
accepted throughout the organization.
 Dominant culture
 Expresses the core values that are shared by a majority of the
organization’s members.
 Subcultures
 Tend to develop in large organizations to reflect common
problems, situations, or experiences.

10. Top
Philosophy management
of Selection Organization's
organization's criteria culture
founders
Socialization

11.  Selection
 Identify and hire individuals who will fit in with the
culture
 Top Management
 Senior executives establish and communicate the norms
of the organization
 Socialization
 Organizations need to teach the culture to new
employees

12. Socialization Process Outcomes
Productivity
Prearrival Encounter Metamorphosis Commitment
Turnover

13.  Formal vs. Informal
 Individual vs. Collective
 Fixed vs. Variable
 Serial vs. Random
 Investiture vs. Divestiture

14. High Networked Communal
Sociability
Low Fragmented Mercenary
Low High
Solidarity

15.  Social glue that helps hold an organization together
 Provides appropriate standards for what employees
should say or do
 Boundary-defining
 Conveys a sense of identity for organization members

16.  Facilitates commitment to something larger than one’s
individual self-interest
 Enhances social system stability
 Serves as a “sense-making” and control mechanism
 Guides and shapes the attitudes and behaviour of
employees

17.  Culture can have dysfunctional aspects in some
instances
 Culture as a Barrier to Change
 When organization is undergoing change, culture may impede
change
 Culture as a Barrier to Diversity
 Strong cultures put considerable pressure on employees to
conform
 Culture as a Barrier to Mergers and Acquisitions
 Merging the cultures of two organizations can be difficult, if not
impossible

18.  Have top-management people become positive
role models, setting the tone through their
behaviour.
 Create new stories, symbols, and rituals to replace
those currently in vogue.
 Select, promote, and support employees who
espouse the new values that are sought.
 Redesign socialization processes to align with the
new values.

19.  Change the reward system to encourage
acceptance of a new set of values.
 Replace unwritten norms with formal rules and
regulations that are tightly enforced.
 Shake up current subcultures through transfers,
job rotation, and/or terminations.
 Work to get peer group consensus through
utilization of employee participation and creation
of a climate with a high level of trust.

20.  Employees form an overall subjective perception of the
organization based on such factors as degree of risk
tolerance, team emphasis, and support of people.
 This overall perception becomes, in effect, the organization’s
culture or personality.
 These favourable or unfavourable perceptions then affect employee
performance and satisfaction, with the impact being greater for
stronger cultures.
 Just as people’s personalities tend to be stable over time, so
too do strong cultures.
 This makes strong cultures difficult for managers to change.

21.  One of the more important managerial implications of
organizational culture relates to selection decisions.
 Hiring individuals whose values don't align with those of the
organization is not good.
 An employee's performance depends to a considerable
degree on knowing what he should or should not do.

22.  Why Culture Doesn’t  When Culture Can
Change Change
 Culture develops over
 There is a dramatic crisis
many years, and becomes
part of how the  There is a turnover in
organization thinks and leadership
feels  The organization is young
 Selection and promotion and small
policies guarantee survival  There is a weak culture
of culture
 Top management chooses
managers likely to
maintain culture