Culture Change and linkages to HRM

By: Mutema Chella

MBA 5712-HRM
May 2010
 Approach of Presentation

 Introduction
 Definitions of cultural change (Organizations)
 Organizational and Corporate culture
 Key issues in cultural change (Organizations)
 Importance to Business success
 Linkages of Cultural Change to HRM

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 Introduction

 Contemporary organizations operate in more

complex, competitive and volatile environment

 To attain and retain a competitive advantage

they must be quick to respond

 Have to leverage changes through formal and

informal aspects of an organization
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 Culture

 Classical view –Takes diagnoses as key stages

in a rational change (Patterson & Wilkins,
1985)
 Where do we need to go strategically as an organization
 Where are we now as a culture?
 What are the gaps between where we are and where we
should be?
 What is the plan of action to close the gap?

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 Culture

 This approach is based on Kurt Lewin’s Defn.

– Assumes that change is something which happens
between levels of quasi-stationery equilibrium-a
thing that can be observed, analyzed and replaced
with a better thing

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 Culture

 More modern and complex view:

– Culture becomes a process rather than a state
(Prigonine & Stenger, 1984)
– Emergent result of conversations and negotiations
(Seel, 2001)

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 Organizational & Corporate culture

 Organizational
– Shared assumptions, values and norms that shape
the socialization activities, language, symbols, rites
and ceremonies in organizations (Jackson &
Schuler, 2003)
– Hidden and Observable elements
– (norms, values, assumptions) &(practices,
narratives, language symbols, socialization)

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 Organizational & Corporate culture

 Corporate
– Wider & deeper concepts, something that an
organization ‘is’ rather than what it ‘has’ (Buchanan
& Huczynsk, 2007)
– The ‘character’ of the organization

Unlike organizational culture corporate culture can be

imported into the organization

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 Importance to Business Success
– The leadership, strategy, and structure of an
organization evolve throughout the life of the
organization and gives rise to organizational culture

– A strong culture provides clear guidelines for how

people in organization should behave, when
matched with organization’s objectives and
concerns of multiple stakeholders, a strong culture
can enhance organizational performance and
individual performance and satisfaction
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 Key issues
 Strategic Vision
– Should be clear to be effective

 Top Management Commitment

– Should lead the change and support the change

 Model culture Change

– Top management behavior should symbolize kind of values
(new values)

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 Key issues (Cont’d)
 Organizational support
– Modification of organizational structures and process to
support change

 Socialize
– Especially for new comers during Merger and Acquisition
support the change

 Ethical and Legal issues

– Culture change can lead to tensions between organizational
and individual interests, so these would have to be addressed

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 Culture change and HRM linkages

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 Culture change and HRM linkages
 Linkages
– People management strategies should compliment
and contribute to the improvement of the productive
capacity of the business in the short and long term
and should be developed in advance of actual
introduction of formal change in the organization

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 Culture change & HRM linkages
(Cont’d)
 Research on integration following mergers and
acquisitions show that HR implication of strategic
change should not be treated as after thought, should
be part of the business planning

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 Culture change & HRM linkages
(Cont’d)
 HR strategist such as David Ulrich believe that a key
part of HR’s role is to be a custodian of the company’s
culture and driver of cultural change

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 Thank you for attention

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