 Organizational Culture is the totality of beliefs

, customs, traditions and values shared by the

members of the organization.

 Corporate culture can be looked at as a system.

 It is important to consider culture while managing

change in the organization.

 Culture can be both, as input and as output.

 Innovation and Risk Taking
 Attention to Detail
 Outcome Orientation
 People Orientation
 Team Orientation
 Aggressiveness
 Stability
 Authoritarian culture
 Participative culture
 Mechanistic culture
 Organic culture
 Sub-cultures and Dominant culture
 Academy culture
 Baseball Team culture
 Club culture
 Fortress culture
 Talent-attractor
 Talent-retainer
 Engages people
 Creates energy and momentum
 Changes the view of “work”
 Creates greater synergy
 Makes everyone more successful
 Product of action, i.e., input.
 Element of future action, i.e., output.
 Culture is the product of socio-technical systems.
 Management
strategies, structures, procedures, etc. influence
culture.
 Culture can be self-perpetuating and highly
resistant to change.
Adapted from Williams et al, 1989
The Organization

External strategy
Environment
Structure, systems, technology
• Legislation
• Politics
• Technology
• Education
• Society Work tasks, goals and
procedures
• Market place
• Competitors
• Consumers
• Economy Work
Manager
group
behavior
behavior

Culture: common Characteristic

beliefs, values patterns of
and attitudes behavior
 National cultural values are learned early, held deeply and
change slowly over the course of generations.
 Organizational culture, on the other hand, is comprised of
broad guidelines which are rooted in organizational
practices.
 A nation‟s culture is similar to that of an organization as it
is comprised of the symbols, values, rituals, and traditions
of the people living in a particular region.
 Cultures usually differ in relationships between the
individual and society, ways of dealing with
conflict, relationships to authority, and conceptions of
class and gender. All of these things are comparable to
organizational culture, just on a grander scale.
 The ultimate source of an organization‟s culture is
its founders.
 Culture creation occurs in three ways:
◦ Employees hire and keep employees with same
thinking
◦ They indoctrinate and socialize the employees
with the organization‟s thinking
◦ The founder‟s behavior acts as a role model for
the employees
 With the organizational success, the founder‟s
personality is embedded in the organizational
culture.
 Top management

Philosophy of
Organization
organization‟s Selection criteria
culture
founders

Socialization

How Organization Cultures Form

Robbins, 1989
 Three forces play a particularly important part
in sustaining a culture:
• Selection practices
• Actions of top management
• Socialization methods
 Explicit goal – identifying and hiring individuals
having knowledge, skills and abilities to perform
the jobs successfully.

 Individuals having values consistent with those of

the organization are selected as per the decision
maker‟s judgements.

 Selection becomes a „two-way street‟ as it provides

information about the organization to the
applicants.
 The actions of top management establishes the
norms for the organization as to:

• Whether risk taking is desirable

• How much freedom managers should give to
their subordinates
• What actions will pay off in terms of pay
rises, promotions and other rewards, etc.
 New employees are not familiar with the
organizational culture and are potentially likely to
disturb the existing culture.

 The process through which the employees are

proselytized about the customs and traditions of
the organization is known as socialization.

 It is the process of adaptation by which new

employees are to understand the basic values and
norms for becoming „accepted‟ members of the
organization.
 Socialization is a process made up of three stages:
 Pre-arrival - All the learning occurring before a
new member joins.
 Encounter - The new employee sees what the
organization is really like and confronts the
possibility that expectations and reality may
diverge.
 Metamorphosis - The relatively long-lasting
changes take place. The new employee masters the
skills required for the job, successfully performs
the new roles, and makes the adjustments to the
work group‟s values and norms.
 Socialization Process Outcomes

Productivity

Pre-arrival Encounter Metamorphosis Commitment

Turnover

Socialization Model
 Stories – Depicting the past events of the
organization. Some organizations actually try to
manage this element of culture learning.

 Rituals – Repetitive sequential activities reinforcing

the values of the organization.

 Material Symbols – Conveying social

equality, desired organizational behavior, etc. by
the top management.

 Language – Acceptance and preservation of culture.

 Culture adapts to diverse circumstances.
 Managers need to understand the nature and role
of culture.
 Managers must understand the importance of
culture for organizational change.
 Corporate culture also impacts the day-to-day
decision-making of the organization.