Week 8: Culture and Socialization

What is organizational culture?

The shared beliefs, values and assumptions that exist in an organization

• It tends to be fairly stable over time

Realistic Job Preview (RJP)

Mechanism used by organizations to present both the desirable (positive) and undesirable (negative) aspects of a job 

• The good, the bad and the ugly

What are the 4 main things RJP does

1. Increases the likelihood of fit

2. Weed out the undecided

3. Complete and accurate picture of the job  

4. More likely to be committed to the job 

Increases the likelihood of fit (RJP)

I'm going to be more likely to stay and take the job  

Weed out the undecided (RJP)

• Weed out the people who don't want to stay 

• All the people who are undecided about the job will choose to leave 

More likely to be committed to the job (RJP)

Stay more connected to it

Psychological Contract (STAR)

Unwritten (not always verbalized and not written down) expectations about the employee and employer 

Psychological Contract - Employee has expectations about employer  

• Talk to 

• Ask questions 

• Provide support 

• Keep their promises 

Psychological contract - Employer about employee 

• Show up to work on time 

• Wear the right things

Psychological contract breach 

Consists of:

1. Expectations are unmet / broken 

2. Feelings from contract breach

Psychological contract breach - Unmet expectations

• For example, the employer promised me that I could have vacation weeks, and when I tried to book them off, the employer denied it  

• Cognitive dissonance  

Psychological contract breach - Feelings from contract breach

• Job dissatisfaction 

• Demotivated 

• Doing the bare minimum  

What is socialization?

An employee begins to adapt to the value, norms and beliefs of the organization and its members (culture)

• Learning how to fit in

Proximal outcomes (short-term)

• More task focused 

• Learning what to do on the job 

  • Haven't figured out if you like the job or not 

• More self-efficacy 

Examples of proximal outcomes

For example first week of school 

• Proximal: You're nervous, you don't know where the class is, you want to stay on top of things. 

Distal outcomes (long-term)

• Job satisfaction 

• Increased in OCB 

  • Go above and beyond; stay behind and work overtime. 

• Stress decreases 

Example of distal outcomes

For example first week of school 

• Distally = you know where all your classes are, professors show up late 

What is culture?

• Values and beliefs 

• Psychosocially 

• What you're internally

What is sub-culture?

Smaller cultures that develop within a larger organizational culture, which are based on differences in training, occupation or departmental goals

• For example:

  • DeGroote subculture is very different compared to the engineering subculture 

What is Climate?

“members” shared perceptions of the contingencies between behaviours that occur in the work environment and their consequences

• Day to day

• What am I doing now, and what's going to happen? 

Uncertainty Reduction Theory

Newcomers are motivated to reduce their uncertainty so that the work environment becomes more predictable and understandable.

Strategic Importance of Socialization

Compliance --> Identification --> Internalization  

• Increasing how powerful someone's commitment becomes

Compliance

• Conforming to social norms just not to get punished 

• Following what everyone else is doing 

  • Don't want to look out of place 

Identification

You want to fit in with your co-workers so you start acting/talking differently 

Internalizaiton

• You've become part of the group,  

• They've become part of you, you fit in now 

Orientation

• Program that informs new employees about their job and company

• Short-term and more formal 

• What benefits and salary are you getting? 

• Health and safety

Stages of Socalization

1. Anticipatory (Pre-arrival)

2. Encounter

3. Role Management (Settling in)

Anticipatory (Pre-arrival)

• Employees begin with certain expectations about the organization and the job

• Not always accurate or useful

• RJP 

  • May be unrealistic - if unmet, results in dissatisfaction, turnover etc

Example of Anticipatory (Pre-arrival)

I'm looking at this job on indeed and LinkedIn 

Encounter

• You've actually started the job 

• Start to notice the Inconsistency between our expectations and reality 

  • Start to develop cognitive dissonance that occurs 

• You get to see who you're going to be working with  

Encounter - Benefits of a good orientation program

• Shows and clarifies organizational values to employees

• Reduces employee anxiety and turnover

• Improves job performance

Why should companies bother to invest in orientation? 

• Shows organizational values to a company 

• If you want someone to tell you orders all the time, (classical) 

  • Google probably isn't the organization for you 

• Reduces start up costs  

  • You've only invested 1 week into the company before you decided that you want to leave 

Role Management (Settling in)

• Begin to identify with the organization. 

  • For example, once you like McMaster, you'll attend a lot of events, HOCO, and wear the merch. 

• Transition from an outsider —> Insider

Socialization Tactics

• Collective vs Individual

• Formal vs informal (on the job)

• Sequential vs random

• Fixed vs variable (timeframe)

• Serial (experienced, role model) vs disjunctive

• Investiture (affirm identity) vs. divestiture (strip self-confidence)

Collective

• When a group of collectives go through the same experience, 

• Bullpen

  • Combine people in accounting, law and other departments together 

• Have lunch together, have pub night together. 

Individual

• Apprenticeship 

• Just you 

• Depends on the level and category of the job 

Formal

• A company 

• Tailored and customized 

  • Ie just accountants from DeGroote  

  • DeGroote students got a good course in data analytics, but the Ivey students didn't, they will group the DeGroote students together 

Informal

• Menu that everybody gets, no matter what level you are 

• Nobody is segregated. 

Sequential

• Organization tactics are based on a sequence of steps leading to a target role 

• Scaffolding  

  • Trying to build people in order 

Random

• No order 

  • Teal you need to visit 7 districts, but the order does not matter  

• No scaffolding 

• KSA kit has to has these but has no order 

Fixed

Time 

• You need to be done by July 1st 

Variable

• They don’t give you any time 

• Most companies DONT do this (that’s unreasonable) 

Serial (experienced, role models)

• Role models (there's grooming) 

• Succession planning 

Disjunctive

• No footsteps for you to follow in 

• Only happens in; 

  • Green field site 

    • Brand new company 

    • Like green grass

  • Someone you could follow, but you're not going to 

    • Paradigm shift 

    • We don't want to lead like him, we want a new shift 

    • Don’t want u to pick up on habits 

Investiture

• Root word --> invest  

• Socialization process whereby you build upon the KSA's on the new recruits 

Divestiture

• Seen in the military and cult-like organizations 

• Socialization process where we strip away basic characteristics and rebuild you like a solider 

Institutionalized socialization

• Has a combination of: 

  • Collective 

  • Form 

  • Sequential 

  • Fixed 

  • Serial 

  • Divesture 

• Very related to School 1 (classical traditional thinking)

• Hofstede – High power distance 

Individual socalization

• Has a combination of: 

  • Individual

  • Informal

  • Random

  • Variable

  • Disjunctive

  • Investiture 

• Very similar to school 3 and 4 

• Low uncertainty avoidance 

• Low power distance 

Mentoring

An experienced or more senior person in the organization who gives a junior person special attention, such as giving advice and creating opportunities to assist him or her during the early stages of their career

Does a mentor always have to be IN the company? 

NO!

All mentors always provide 2 functions

1. Career function

2. Psychosocial function

Career function

• Coaching, giving feedback 

• Career-enhancing benefits (nudges to improve my career strategies) 

• Coaching on strengths and weaknesses.

• Act as a sponsor. 

• Exposure and visibility 

• Introducing you to critical Stakeholders and providing developmental opportunities 

Psychosocial function

Guidance on building your self-esteem, emotional intelligence, stress, time management, self-efficacy, and cultural intelligence  

• General KSA's 

How else do we see mentoring in the workplace? 

• Formal mentoring programs 

  • Greensuits (FYOP program) 

• Developmental networks 

  • Volunteer mentors to provide you with a year of coaching 

• Women and mentoring  

  • DeGroote women in business  

• Race, ethnicity and mentoring 

  • MIX McMaster 

3 ways to diagnose a culture

1. Symbols

2. Rituals

3. Stories

Diagnosing a culture: Symbols

• Graphics 

• Web design 

• Marketing and advertising 

Diagnosing a culture: Rituals

• Regular sales awards and rites of passage to join these kinds of teams 

• Accomplishment ceremonies 

• Recognizing employees 

• ie Company cheers can tell you something about the company culture 

Diagnosing a culture: Stories

• Folklore of organizations  

  • stories about past organizational events

Strong culture

An organizational culture with intense and pervasive beliefs, values and assumptions

What do all strong cultures have?

• Intensity 

  • Passionate negative 

  • Passionate, strong 

  • Passionate excited 

• Pervasiveness  

  • Across all students 

 

• Consensus 

  • There is consensus on what they talk about 

  • (Weak culture) 

    • fragmented 

Characteristics of weak cultures

• Fragmented 

• Disjointed 

• Siloed 

• Not talking  

• Not on the same page

 
TEAL QUESTION: What are the 5 visible elements of all strong cultured organizations? 

• Widely shared philosophy  

  • Who are we? 

  • What we stand for 

• A view that people are a critical resource  

  • We cannot move forward without our people. 

• Charismatic heroes and leaders 

  • Mintzberg's role 

  • Always a key person/player 

• Rituals and ceremonies 

  • Achievement award ceremonies 

  • Walmart cheer and subculture of Walmart US  

• People can articulate the expectations of the organization  

TEAL QUESTION: What human resource management systems ensure continuity of a strong organizational culture? 

• Recruitment and selection  

  • How you hire people 

• Training and development 

  • How I train my people 

• Compensation systems   

  • For example:  

    • Gain sharing 

    • Profit sharing 

    • Skill based pay 

Socialization Steps in Strong Cultures

• Selection

• Hazing

• Training

• Reward and Promotion

• Exposure to Core Culture

• Organizational Folklore

• Role models

Socialization Steps in Strong Cultures: Selection

• Careful recruiting and selection 

• Pepsi Co example 

  • Very careful to find the matched employees 

  • They hold up to 9 interviews to find the right match for the company  

Socialization Steps in Strong Cultures: Hazing

• Humility-inducing experiences 

• Break you down. 

• You've gone through a horrible experience, so now you're committed to staying 

• Some organizations’ entry point is meant to be humility-inducing so that you don’t want to leave 

• Very similar to escalation of commitment 

• Will make you feel a sense of belonging even if it's distorted 

Socialization Steps in Strong Cultures: Training

• Training in the trenches 

• Want you to play right away 

Socialization Steps in Strong Cultures: Reward and Promotion

Carefully designed compensation schemes 

Socialization Steps in Strong Cultures: Exposure to Core culture

• Above the water line or below the water line 

• Written or spoken 

• Behavioural or verbal 

• Will constantly hammer values 

  • "You know what we stand for, right?" 

• Consistent messaging that this is who we are 

Socialization Steps in Strong Cultures: Organizational Folklore

• Stories 

• Gets people to become closer based on the stories 

• The Disney chair example 

Socialization Steps in Strong Cultures: Role Models

• Heros  

• Mentors 

• Charismatic leaders 

• Mintzberg's spokespeople 

• Key players that are always seen and there 

Proactive Socialization

The employee plays an active role in his/her own socialization using the following:

• Feedback seeking

• Information seeking

• General socialization

• Relationship building

• Boss-relationship building

• Networking

• Job change negotiation

Feedback seeking

Nudged and encouraged to ask your boss (or any level of a 360) how you did in a presentation or how your eye contact was, 

• Ask questions comfortably

• Encouraged to ask for informal feedback 

Information seeking

How your job fits in with the rest of the team/department 

General socialization

Company that nudges you to go work events so you can fit in

Relationship building

• Building relationships with others on a 360 basis

  • Communicating up, down and across (horizonal)

Boss-relationship building

• Even if you don’t like them, get to know them.

  • Traits, behaviours, likes and dislikes, unusual behaviours, etc

Networking

• 360 out  

• Get to know your people outside the organizations 

  • Stakeholders 

  • players 

Job change negotiation

• Nudge to make a change to your responsibilities and duties on the job

• Let us know what we can do to make your job better

• School 3