Organizational Culture and Change

Organizational culture

• the shared social knowledge within an organization regarding the rules, norms, and values that shape the attitudes and behaviours of its employees

Observable artifacts

• are the things in an organization’s culture that employees can easily see or talk about. 

readily apparent and observable → like the skin of an onion

6 major types of artifacts: 

• Symbols can be found throughout an organization, from its corporate logo, to the images it puts on its website, to the uniforms its employees wear. 

• Physical structures (space) can also say a lot. Is the workplace open and free?

• Language reflects the jargon, slang, and slogans used within the walls of an organization. 

• Stories consist of anecdotes or legends that are passed down from cohort to cohort within an organization.  

• Rituals are the repeated, planned routines that occur 

• Ceremonies are formal events, generally performed in front of an audience. 

Espoused values

• are the beliefs, philosophies, and norms that a company explicitly states 

  • ex. a mission statement

Basic underlying assumptions

• are beliefs and philosophies that are SO ingrained that employees simply act on them rather than question the validity of their behaviour in a given situation.

Solidarity

 is the degree to which group members think and act alike

Sociability

represents how friendly employees are to one another

classifications of organizational culture

• Fragmented culture (low on both): employees are distant and disconnected from one another. 

• Mercenary culture (high solidarity, low sociability): employees think alike but aren’t friendly to one another 

• Networked culture (low solidarity, high sociability): Employees are friendly to one another, but everyone thinks differently and does their own thing

• Communal culture (high on both): everyone is friendly, and thinks alike  

subcultures

•  unite a smaller subset of the organization’s employees

• are more likely to exist in large organizations than in small one

Attraction–Selection–Attrition (ASA)

organizations will select candidates on the basis of whether their personalities fit the culture

Socialization

•  is the primary process by which employees learn the social knowledge that enables them to understand and adapt to the organization’s culture

 3 stages of socialization

• The anticipatory stage refers to a potential employee envisioning what it must be like to work for a given company.

• The encounter stage entails discovering what it’s acc like working at the company

• Understanding and adaptation: newcomers internalize norms and expected behaviours. 

3 stages of organizational change

• Unfreezing = when the organization comes to some realization that the status quo is unacceptable.

• Change initiative (ex: bringing in a new leader, introducing a new reward system, or implementing a new training program)

• Refreeze = the newly developed attitudes and behaviours need to be followed thru 

Resistance: the deliberate act of opposing or withstanding change.

Types of change interventions

• Selection is the process of choosing new employees from a pool of applicants on the basis of job-related criteria.

  • If you think about it… changing the composition of people should bring about a new culture

• Training (getting employees up to speed with operations)

• Performance management is the deliberate process of measuring and motivating job behaviours

• Change in Leadership

• Merging Companies

3 ways to kickstart the socialization process of newcomers

• Realistic job previews (RJPs) paints a picture of what it will be like working for the organization 

• Orientation session

• Mentoring