Organizational culture and socialization

Organizational culture

set of shares, taken-for-granted implicit assumptions that a group holds and that determines how it perceives, thinks about, and reacts to its various environments

four characteristics of culture:

Organizational culutre:

1) shared concept

2) learned over time

3) influences behaviors at work

4) impacts outcomes at multiple levels (individual, group, and organizational levels

3 Levels of organizational culture

1) Artifacts: things you can see and touch (what you see, hear, and feel)

2) Espoused and Enacted values: what is understood to be valued. Explicitly states. Actually exhibited in employee behavior

3) basic underlying assumptions: underlying core beliefs (its just the way we do things!, highly resistant to change)

Organizational socialization

process which indivuduals learn values, norms, skills, attitudes, and required behaviors which permit him/her to participate as a member of an organization (turns outsiders into fully functioning insiders)

Phases of socialization:

1) Anticipatory socialization: before individual joins

2)Encounter: employees come to learn what the organization is really like (onboarding programs, turnover is highest here)

3)Change and Acquisition: Requires employees to master important tasks and roles and adjust to their work groups values and norms

4 functions of culture

1) establish organziational identity,

2) act as sense-making device: why the employee does what it does

3) encourage collective commitment,

4) ensure social system stability, fostes employee loyalty