Organizational culture

• Organizational ethos
 underlying spirit or character of an
entity or group; made up of its beliefs,
customs, and practices
 Organizational climate
Perceived attributes of an organization and its
subsystems, reflected in the way it deals with
its members, associated groups, and issues
Organizational culture
Cumulative beliefs, values, and
assumptions underlying transactions,
reflected in artefacts, rituals etc.
 Organizational ethos
• Openness: receiving and giving spontaneously
• Confrontation: facing, rather than shying away from,
problems
• Trust: maintaining confidentiality of information, integrity in
dealings
• Authenticity: congruence between claims and actions.
• Proactivity: taking initiative, pre-planning, taking
preventive action
• Autonomy: using and giving freedom to plan and act in
one’s sphere
• Collaboration: giving and asking for help to and from
others
• Experimentation: using and encouraging innovative
approaches to solve problems
 Organizational climate
• Motivation
– Achievement, influence, control, extension,
dependency, affiliation
• Dimensions & processes
– Orientation, interpersonal relationships,
supervision, problem management, management of
mistakes, conflict management, communication,
decision-making, trust, management of rewards,
risk-taking, innovation and change.
 Motives Characteristic
organization
Achievement Industrial organization

Influence (expert power) Educational institutions,

scientific organizations
Control Bureaucracy

Dependency Traditional or one-man

organizations
Extension Community service
organizations
Affiliation Clubs
 Functions of Organizational Culture (OC)
• Provides shared patterns of perceptions,
communicating to organizational members about how
they are expected to think and behave

• Provides shared patterns of feelings, i.e.an emotional

sense of involvement and commitment to
organizational values and moral codes- of things
worth working for or believing in- so organizational
members know what they are expected to value.

• Defines and maintains boundaries, allowing

identification of members and non-members.

• Functions as an implicit organizational control

system, prescribing and prohibiting certain behaviors.

Cultural influences on organizational behavior operate

more implicitly than explicitly.
Organizational Cultures differ along the following
dimensions:
• Individual initiative: degree of responsibility, freedom, and independence that
individuals have.
• Risk tolerance: degree to which employees are encouraged to be aggressive,
innovative, risk-seeking.
• Direction: degree to which organization creates clear objectives and performance
expectations
• Integration: degree to which organizational units are encouraged to operate in a
cooperative manner
• Management support: degree to which managers provide clear communication,
assistance, and support o subordinates.
• Control: number of rules and regulations, amount of direct supervision used to control
employee behavior
• Identity: degree to which members identify with organization as a whole rather than
with their particular work group
• Integration: degree to which organizational units are encouraged to operate in a
cooperative manner
• Reward system: degree to which reward allocations are based on employee
performance criteria in contrast to seniority, favoritism, etc.
• Conflict tolerance: degree to which employees are encouraged to air conflicts and
criticisms openly
• Communication patterns: degree to which organizational communications are
restricted to formal hierarchy of authority.
• 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 that
members face. These can form vertically
or horizontally. It would include the core
values of the dominant culture plus
additional values unique to members of
the particular department.
 Strength of Culture
• A strong culture is characterized by :
– The organization’s core values being
• intensely held
• Clearly ordered
• Wide acceptance among all members
• Strong member commitment to them
• A strong culture increases behavioral consistency. It conveys
to members what behaviors they should engage in.
• A strong culture can be a powerful means of implicit control
and can act as a substitute for formalization.
– High formalization creates predictability, orderliness and
consistency. A strong culture achieves the same end without any
need for written documentation.
• A strong culture can be more potent than formal controls since it
controls the mind and soul as well as the body.
Creating, sustaining and transmitting culture
• Source: founders’ vision / mission / attitudes
– OC results from interaction between
1. Founders’ biases and assumptions
2. What the initial employees employed by the founders learn thru’ their
experiences
• Keeping a culture alive:
1. Organization’s selection practices
 For proper ‘fit’
2. Actions of top management
 Sends signals to the employees
3. Organization’s socialization methods

• How employees learn culture:

– Through common expressions of culture
 Common expressions of organizational culture
1. Physical artifacts: layout, décor, availability of facilities, office stationary,
‘symbols’
2. Language, jargons and metaphors: unique jargons,terminologies,
phrases, acronyms.
3. Stories, myths and legends
4. Ceremonies and celebrations
5. Routines, rites and rituals: staff meetings, training programs, appraisal
forms, superiors’ annual visits, picnics.
6. Behavioral norms: towards seniors, colleagues, in meetings, during
breaks.
 These norms transmitted to new members through socialization
7. Shared beliefs and values: ethical / moral codes or
ideologies..consciously held, mental pictures of the nature of
organizational reality, what is considered right or wrong etc.
8. Basic assumptions: unconscious values, beliefs held by organization’s
members.
 Managing (changing) organizational culture
• The case for
– Adapting to changing conditions / demands
• The case against
– Difficult for employees to unlearn years of shared values and
beliefs
• Situational factors under which OC can be changed
– A dramatic crisis
– Leadership turnover
– Life-cycle stage
– Age of organization
– Size of organization
– Strength of current culture
– Absence of subcultures
 Changing organizational culture (contd.)
• Cultural analysis
– Cultural audit of present culture, comparison
against desired culture, gap evaluation.

• Specific suggestions
– State of business and competitors, outlook for
future
– Future vision envisaged for the organization,
– Progress of the organization towards that
vision