Organizational

Behavior and
Culture
Prepared by
REYMART T. ADA
MAED Major in
Educational Management
CULTURE defined
as the human-made part of the
environment (Herkovits 1955),
including both objective and
subjective elements (Triandis
1972);
as a set of reinforcements (Skinner
1981);
as the collective programming of
the mind (Hofstede 1991)

CULTURE defined
as a shared meaning system
(Shweder & LeVine 1984);
as patterned ways of thinking
(Kluckhohn 1954); and
as unstated standard operating
procedures or ways of doing
things (Triandis 1994).
Although definitions of
culture vary
many emphasize that culture
is shared, is adaptive or has
been adaptive at some point
in the past, and is
transmitted across time and
generations (Triandis 1994).
Study Questions
What is organizational culture?
How do you understand an
organizational culture?
How can the organizational
culture be managed?
How can you use organizational
development to improve the firm?
Study Question 1: What is
organizational culture?
Organizational culture.
It is a set of assumptions, beliefs, values,
and norms that are shared by the
members.
Called corporate culture in the business
setting.
No two organizational cultures are
identical.

Study Question 1: What is
organizational culture?
External adaptation.
Involves reaching goals and dealing with
outsiders regarding tasks to be accomplished,
methods used to achieve the goals, and
methods of coping with success and failure.
Important aspects of external adaptation.
Separating eternal forces based on importance.
Developing ways to measure accomplishments.
Creating explanations for not meeting goals.
Study Question 1: What is
organizational culture?
External adaptation involves answering
important goal-related questions regarding
coping with reality.
What is the real mission?
How do we contribute?
What are our goals?
How do we reach our goals?
What external forces are important?
How do we measure results?
What do we do if specific targets are not met?
How do we tell others how good we are?
When do we quit?
Study Question 1: What is
organizational culture?
Internal integration.
Deals with the creation of a collective identity
and with finding ways of matching methods of
working and living together.
Important aspects of working together.
Deciding who is a member and who is not.
Developing an understanding of acceptable and
unacceptable behavior.
Separating friends from enemies.
Study Question 1: What is
organizational culture?
Internal integration involves answering important
questions associated with living together.
What is our unique identity?
How do we view the world?
Who is a member?
How do we allocate power, status, and authority?
How do we communicate?
What is the basis for friendship?
Study Question 1: What is
organizational culture?
Subculture.
A group of individuals with a unique pattern
of values and philosophy that are not
inconsistent with the organizations dominant
values and philosophy.
Counterculture.
A group of individuals with a pattern of values
and philosophy that outwardly reject the
surrounding culture.
Study Question 1: What is
organizational culture?
Problems associated with subcultural
divisions within the larger culture.
Subordinate groups are likely to form into a
counterculture pursuing self-interests.
The firm may encounter extreme difficulty in
coping with broader cultural changes.
Embracing natural divisions from the larger
culture may lead to difficulty in international
operations.
Study Question 1: What is
organizational culture?
Taylor Coxs five step program.
Step 1: The organization should develop
pluralism.
Step 2: The organization should fully integrate
its structure.
Step 3: The organization must integrate the
informal networks.
Step 4: The organization should break the
linkage between naturally occurring group
identity and organizational identity.
Step 5: The organization must actively work to
eliminate identity-based interpersonal conflict.
Study Question 2: How do you
understand an organizational culture?
Study Question 2: How do you
understand an organizational culture?
Sagas.
Heroic accounts of organizational accomplishments.
Rites.
Standardized and recurring activities that are used at
special times to influence organizational members.
Rituals.
Systems of rites.
Cultural symbols.
Any object, act, or event that serves to transmit
cultural meaning.

Study Question 2: How do you
understand an organizational culture?
Culture often specifies rules and roles.
Rules.
The various types of actions that are appropriate.
Roles.
Where individual members stand in the social
system.

Study Question 2: How do you
understand an organizational culture?
Shared values.
Help turn routine activities into valuable and
important actions.
Tie the organization to the important values of
society.
May provide a very distinctive source of
competitive advantage.
Study Question 2: How do you
understand an organizational culture?
Characteristics of strong corporate
cultures.
A widely shared real understanding of what
the firm stands for, often embodied in slogans.
A concern for individuals over rules, policies,
procedures, and adherence to job duties.
A recognition of heroes whose actions
illustrate the companys shared philosophy
and concerns.
Study Question 2: How do you
understand an organizational culture?
Characteristics of strong corporate
cultures (cont.).
A belief in ritual and ceremony as important to
members and to building a common identity.
A well-understood sense of the informal rules
and expectations so that employees and
managers know what is expected of them.
A belief that what employees and managers do
is important and that it is essential to share
information and ideas.
Study Question 2: How do you
understand an organizational culture?
Organizational myths.
Unproven and often unstated beliefs that are
accepted uncritically.
Myths enable managers to redefine impossible
problems.
Myths can facilitate experimentation and
creativity.
Myths allow managers to govern.
Study Question 2: How do you
understand an organizational culture?
National culture influences.
Widely held common assumptions may be
traced to the larger culture of the host society.
National cultural values may become
embedded in expectations of organization
members.
Study Question 3: How can the
organizational culture be managed?
Strategies for managing corporate culture.
Managers help modify observable culture,
shared values, and common assumptions
directly.
Use of organizational development techniques
to modify specific elements of the culture.
Study Question 3: How can the
organizational culture be managed?
Why a well-developed management
philosophy is important.
Establishes generally understood boundaries
on all members of the firm.
Provides a consistent way for approaching
new and novel situations.
Helps hold individuals together by showing
them a known path to success.
Study Question 3: How can the
organizational culture be managed?
Strategies for building, reinforcing, and changing
organizational culture.
Directly modifying the visible aspects of culture.
Changing the lessons to be drawn from common
stories.
Setting the tone for a culture and for cultural change.
Fostering a culture that addresses questions of external
adaptation and internal integration.
Study Question 3: How can the
organizational culture be managed?
Mistakes that managers can make in building,
reinforcing, and changing culture.
Trying to change peoples values from the top
down:
While keeping the ways in which the organization
operates the same.
Without recognizing the importance of individuals.
Attempting to revitalize an organization by
dictating major changes and ignoring shared
values.
Organizational Behavior: Chapter 19 27
Study Question 4: How can you use
organizational development to improve the
firm?
Organizational development (OD).
The application of behavioral science
knowledge in a long-range effort to improve
an organizations ability to cope with change
in its external environment and to increase its
internal problem-solving capabilities.
Study Question 4: How can you use
organization development to improve the firm?
Organizational development.
Designed to work on both issues of external
adaptation and internal integration.
Used to improve organizational performance.
Seeks to achieve change so the organizations
members maintain the culture and longer-run
organizational effectiveness.
Study Question 4: How can you use
organization development to improve the firm?
Underlying assumptions of OD.
Individual level.
Respect for people and their capabilities.
Group level.
Belief that groups can be good for both people and
organizations.
Organizational level.
Respect for the complexity of an organization as a
system of interdependent parts.
Study Question 4: How can you use
organization development to improve the firm?
Organizational development goals.
Outcome goals.
Mainly deal with issues of external adaptation.
Process goals.
Mainly deal with issues of internal integration.
Study Question 4: How can you use
organization development to improve the firm?
In pursuing outcome and process goals, OD helps
by:
Creating an open problem solving climate.
Supplementing formal authority with knowledge and
competence.
Moving decision making where relevant information
is available.
Building trust and maximizing collaboration.
Increasing the sense of organizational ownership.
Allowing people to exercise self-direction and self-
control.
Study Question 4: How can you use
organization development to improve the firm?
Action research.
The process of systematically collecting data
on an organization, feeding it back to the
members for action planning, and evaluating
results by collecting and reflecting on more
data after the planned actions have been taken.
Study Question 4: How can you use
organization development to improve the firm?
Organizational Behavior: Chapter 19
Study Question 4: How can you use
organizational development to improve the firm?
Study Question 4: How can you use
organizational development to
improve the firm?
Organizationwide OD interventions.
Survey feedback.
Collection and feedback of data to organization
members for action planning purposes.
Confrontation meetings.
Activities for quickly determining how an
organization can be improved and taking initial
actions for betterment.
Study Question 4: How can you use
organizational development to improve the
firm?
Organizationwide OD interventions
(cont.).
Structural redesign.
Realigning the organizations structure or major
subsystems.
Collateral organization.
Using representative organizational members in
periodic small group problem-solving sessions.
Study Question 4: How can you use
organization development to improve the firm?
Group and intergroup OD interventions.
Team building.
Activities to improve the functioning of a group.
Process consultation.
Activities to improve the functioning of key group
processes.
Intergroup team building.
Activities to improve the functioning or two or
more groups.
Study Question 4: How can you use
organization development to improve the firm?
Individual OD interventions.
Role negotiation.
Clarifying expectations in working relationships.
Job redesign.
Creating long-term congruence between individual
goals and organizational career opportunities.
Career planning.
Structured opportunities for individuals to work
with managers or staff experts on career issues.
Our culture has accepted two huge
lies. The first is that if you
disagree with someones lifestyle,
you must fear or hate them. The
second is that to love someone
means you agree with everything
they believe or do. Both are
nonsense. You dont have to
compromise convictions to be
compassionate.
- Rick Warren
REFERENCES
Herskovits MJ. 1955. Cultural Anthropology. New York: Knopf
Hofstede G. 1991. Cultures and Organizations. London: McGraw-
Hill
Hofstede G. 2001. Cultures Consequences: Comparing Values,
Behaviors, Institutions, and Organizations Across Nations. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage. 2nd ed.
Kluckhohn C. 1954. Culture and behavior. In Handbook of Social
Psychology, ed. G. Lindzey, vol.
2, pp. 93176. Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley
Skinner BF. 1981. Selection by consequences. Science 213:5014
Shweder R, LeVine R. 1984. Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self,
and Emotion. London: Cambridge Univ. Press
Triandis HC. 1972. The Analysis of Subjective Culture. New
York:Wiley
Triandis HC. 1994. Culture and Social Behavior. New York:
McGraw-Hill
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