CH 13

Organizational
Behavior, 8e
Schermerhorn, Hunt, and
Osborn
Prepared by
Michael K. McCuddy
Valparaiso University
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

COPYRIGHT
Copyright 2003 © John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Reproduction or translation of this work beyond that permitted in Section
117 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act without the express written
permission of the copyright owner is unlawful. Request for further
information should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley
& Sons, Inc. The purchaser may make back-up copies for his/her own use
only and not for distribution or resale. The Publisher assumes no
responsibility for errors, omissions, or damages, caused by the use of these
programs or from the use of the information contained herein.
Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 2

Chapter 13
High Performance
Organizational Cultures
 Study questions.
– What is organizational culture?
– What are the observable aspects of
organizational culture?
– How do values and assumptions influence
– How can organizational culture be “managed,”
“nurtured,” and “guided”?
Chapter 13
High Performance
Organizational Cultures
 Study questions — cont.
– How can the process of organization
development enhance organizational culture?

What is organizational culture?
 Organizational culture.
– The system of shared actions, values, and
beliefs that develops within an organization
and guides the behavior of its members.
– Called corporate culture in the business
setting.
– No two organizational cultures are identical.

 Organizational culture addresses two

important survival issues.
– External adaptation.
• What precisely needs to be accomplished, and how
can it be done?
– Internal integration.
• How do members resolve the daily problems
associated with living and working together?

 External adaptation.
– Involves reaching goals and dealing with outsiders.
– Issues to be considered:
• Tasks to be accomplished.
• Methods to be used to achieve goals.
• Methods of coping with success and failure.
• Developing acceptable ways of telling outsiders how good
they really are.
• Knowing when to admit defeat.

 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?

 Internal integration.
– Involves the creation of a collective identity
and with finding ways of matching methods of
working and living together.
– Issues to be considered:
• Deciding who is a member and who is not.
• Developing an understanding of acceptable and
unacceptable behavior.
• Separating friends from enemies.

 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?

 Dominant culture, subcultures, and

countercultures.
– Subcultures.
• Groups of individuals with a unique pattern of
values and philosophy that is consistent with the
organization’s dominant values and philosophy.
• Strong subcultures are often found in high
performance teams.

 Dominant culture, subcultures, and

countercultures — cont.
– Countercultures.
• Groups of individuals with a pattern of values and
philosophy that reject the surrounding culture.
• Mergers and acquisitions may produce
countercultures in an organization.

 Importing subcultures.
– Large organizations import potentially important
subcultures when hiring people.
– Globalization and expansion through mergers and
acquisitions produce challenges with importing
subcultures and dealing with culture clash.
– The relevance of subcultures to the entire organization
can affect operations and the ability to change.

 Valuing cultural diversity — the

multicultural organization.
– A firm that values diversity but systematically
works to block the transfer of societally based
subcultures into the fabric of the organization.
– Taylor Cox provides a five step program for
developing a multicultural organization.
• May not apply to organizations located in countries
with relatively homogeneous populations.

 Taylor Cox’s 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.
 Problems in implementing Cox’s program.

– Separating the organization from the larger
culture in which it must operate.
– Eliminating some societally-based groupings
that are relevant for achieving the
organization’s goals.

 Levels of organizational culture.

– Level 1: Observable culture.
• The way things are done in the organization.
– Level 2: Shared values.
• All members have been exposed to the value and
recognize their importance.
– Level 3: Common assumptions.
• The taken-for-granted truths that members share as
a result of their joint experience.

What are the observable aspects
of organizational culture?
 Stories, rites, rituals, and symbols.
– Organizations are rich with stories about the
organization’s culture and operations.
– Sagas.
• Heroic accounts of organizational
accomplishments.
– Rites.
• Standardized and recurring activities that are used
at special times to influence organizational
members.
 Stories, rites, rituals, and symbols — cont.
– Rituals.
• Systems of rites.
– Cultural symbols.
• Any object, act, or event that serves to transmit
cultural meaning.

 Culture often specifies rules and roles.

– Rules.
• The various types of actions that are appropriate.
– Roles.
• Where individual members stand in the social
system.

 The evolution of shared meaning from

observable culture.
– Outside observers may not see the same
cultural aspects as organizational members do.
– This is because outside observers do not have
the same shared set of meanings and
perceptions.
How do values and assumptions
influence organizational culture?
 Shared common values lie at the heart of
culture.
 Shared values help:
– Turn routine activities into valuable, important
actions.
– Tie the company to the important values of
society.
– Provide a distinctive source of competitive
advantage.
 Some successful organizations have strong

cultures.
– A strong culture reflects a broadly and deeply
shared value system.
– A strong culture can reinforce a singular view
or the organization and its environment.
• Needed dramatic change may be prevented.

 Organizational myths.
– Unproven and often unstated beliefs that are
accepted uncritically.
– Each firm needs managerial myths.
• Myths enable managers to redefine impossible
problems.
• Myths can facilitate experimentation and
creativity.
• Myths allow managers to govern.
 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.
– Managers need to be sensitive to national
cultural differences and their impact on
organizational culture.

How can organizational culture be
“managed,” “nurtured,” and “guided”?
 Management philosophy.
– Reflects the management subculture.
– Links key goal-related strategic issues with
key collaboration issues and comes up with a
series of general ways by which the firm will
manage its affairs.

 A well-developed management
philosophy:
– Establishes generally understood boundaries
on 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.

 Strategies for managing — or building,
reinforcing, and changing —
organizational culture.
– Directly modifying observable culture, shared
values, and common assumptions.
– Using organization development techniques to
modify specific elements of the culture.

 Continuous cultural development.
– Organization development (OD) is the
application of behavioral science knowledge
in a long-range effort to improve an
organization’s ability to cope with change in
its external environment and to increase its
internal problem-solving capabilities.

How can the process of
organization development enhance
 Organizational development.
– Provides well-proven methods for developing
and changing external adaptation and internal
integration.
– Helps organization members become more
active and confident in maintaining the culture
and pursuing effectiveness.
 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.
 Organization development goals.
– Outcome goals.
• Mainly deal with issues of external adaptation.
• Achieving improvements in task performance by
improving external adaptation capabilities.
– Process goals.
• Mainly deal with issues of internal integration.
• Achieving improvements in communication,
interaction, and decision making among
organization’s members.
 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.

 Action research.
– The process of systematically collecting data
on an organization, feeding it back to the
members for action planning, and evaluating
the results by collecting and reflecting on
more data after the planned actions have been
taken.

 Action research diagnostics.
– Diagnosis can use the systems approach for
assessing inputs, throughputs, and outputs at
three levels.
• Organizational.
• Group.
• Individual.

 Systemwide 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.

 Systemwide OD interventions — cont.
– Structural redesign.
• Realigning the organization’s structure or major
subsystems.
– Collateral organization.
• Using representative organizational members in
periodic small group problem-solving sessions.

 Group and intergroup OD interventions.
– Team building.
• Activities to improve the functioning of a group.
– Process consultation.
• Activities to improve the functioning of key team
processes.
– Intergroup team building.
• Activities to improve the functioning or two or
more groups.

 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.

CH 13

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

CH 13

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Organizational

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 2

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 4

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 5

 Organizational culture addresses two

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 6

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 7

 External adaptation involves answering important goal-

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 8

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 9

 Internal integration involves answering important

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 10

 Dominant culture, subcultures, and

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 11

 Dominant culture, subcultures, and

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 12

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 13

 Valuing cultural diversity — the

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 14

 Taylor Cox’s five step program.

 Problems in implementing Cox’s program.

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 16

 Levels of organizational culture.

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 17

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 19

 Culture often specifies rules and roles.

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 20

 The evolution of shared meaning from

 Some successful organizations have strong

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 23

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 25

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 26

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 27

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 28

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 29

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 33

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 34

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 35

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 36

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 37

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 38

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 13 39

You might also like