HRM: Organisation Culture and Intervention

Organisation Culture & Intervention: Process, structure and re-structuring.

Chris Jarvis

HRM: Organisation Culture and Intervention

Questions

How are characteristics of organisational culture variously described? Merits and limitations of descriptions? tensions Themes and culture. in debates about organisation Hard structure & technical systems vs. soft humanistic concerns
Chris Jarvis

HRM: Organisation Culture and Intervention

Questions

What is "organisational development" (OD?) be defined and how do What models canorganisational change? these shape understanding of What issues face a "change agent" - someone acting as an OD consultant/player? of What "pearlsOD wisdom" would you offer someone initiating an programme - taking their first steps?

Chris Jarvis

HRM: Organisation Culture and Intervention

Change, improve, perform better, re-orientate, lead, trim your sails, be different, differentiate products/services and costs

Hard systems
Policies Procedures Systems Performances Technologies Efficiencies

Soft systems
Values Interactions Commitments Motivations Loyalties Perceptions Leadership & teams Communication
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HRM: Organisation Culture and Intervention

Interventions to change soft culture

R.H. Kilmann 1985, in Harvey and Brown, 1992

The organisation itself has an invisible quality - a certain style, a character, a way of doing things that may be more powerful than the dictates of any one person or any formal system. To understand the soul of the organisation requires that we travel below the charts, rule books, machines, and buildings into the underground world of the corporate culture

Chris Jarvis

HRM: Organisation Culture and Intervention

What is a corporate culture?

a system of shared values and beliefs which interact with an organisations people, structure and systems to produce behavioural norms - the way we do things around here.
e.g Sackmann, 1989: Walck, 1989

Whose norms? Shared or based on dominant power source and/or ideology?

Chris Jarvis

HRM: Organisation Culture and Intervention

Other points on culture

Profit vs. not-for-profit organisations (NPOs) sub-cultures in the organisation which differ or conflict Is management style & corporate culture a key "success" factor influencing
survival? modes of membership and commitment? communication and leadership behaviour? problem-analysis and decision-making

for the entire system?

Chris Jarvis

HRM: Organisation Culture and Intervention

The influence of corporate culture

legitimisation of purpose and control members sense givespriorities toafocus onof what to do, how to behave and what gap helps members bridge the gets between formal directives and how the work actually done enables supervision and control thru. mind-set "engineering" model of Compare with precision work-technology, methods and organisation structures,
controls

Chris Jarvis

HRM: Organisation Culture and Intervention

Mintzberg: Five Glues

Mutual adjustment Direct supervision Standardisation of

Systems and procedures Skills Results

Acceptance of legitimate authority (power) is assumed. Neo-Weberian bureaucracy.

Chris Jarvis

HRM: Organisation Culture and Intervention

Observations

No one culture works best for all organisations Management styles and norms, values and beliefs of organisation members combine to form the corporate culture. Deal and Kennedy (1983 ) A shared history between members builds a distinct corporate identity or character.

What is the problem with this statement?

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HRM: Organisation Culture and Intervention Culture enclave - organisational power plays

Organisational development signifies change, and for change to occur in an organisation, power must be
exercised. Burke, 1982

Power .the ability to get ones way in a social situation.

intentional influence the capacity to effect (or affect) organisational outcomes French and Bell 1995

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corporate, managerial hegemony? Fact or fantasy?

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HRM: Organisation Culture and Intervention

Mintzberg, in French and Bell, 1995

..organisational behaviour is a power game in which various players seek to control the organisations decisions and actions. Pre-requisite sources or bases of power expenditure of energy political skill

Control of 1. a resource 2. technical skill (1-3 must be critical to the organisation) 3. a body of knowledge 4. Legal prerogatives - exclusive rights/privileges to impose choices 5. Access to those who have power based on 1-4.

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HRM: Organisation Culture and Intervention

Bases of social power

French and Bell 1959

Morgan 1997 - Images of Orgn

Reward Power Coercive Power Legitimate Power Referent Power & Charismatic Power Expert Power

Resource-based Bureaucracy-based Decision Control Know-How The Contingent Hero Managing Boundaries Technological Dependence Alliances and Networks Countervailers Symbolism Gender Groupthink
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http://sol.brunel.ac.uk/~jarvis/bola/power/power.html
Chris Jarvis

HRM: Organisation Culture and Intervention

Organisational politics

Sub-set of power? Informal power? Illegitimate in nature? Conflicts of interests Conflict or competition for scarce resources Pay-off matrix - how goods & services are to be distributed between different parties Stakeholder (claimants, lobbyists) analysis - grievances, power, ability to resist change, winners-losers,

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HRM: Organisation Culture and Intervention

OD - dominant paradigm of OD

Normative Learning, adaptation, empiricist, rationalist Weak accommodation and avoidance? OD - used as a pawn
or

not Power-coercive (de-personalise power & politics)

"Transcends the negatives of power & politics" ??

French & Bell. "OD programs are unlikely to be successful in

organisations with high negative faces of politics & power".
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HRM: Organisation Culture and Intervention

How can OD interventionists gain and wield power?

OD change agents need to know about bargaining, negotiation, power shifts & politics, strategies of influences & the characteristics of power holders Hard, technical expert Intuitive, soft, influential behavioural expert.

Competence Political access & sensitivity Sponsorship Stature & credibility Resource management Group support
Beer (1980)

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HRM: Organisation Culture and Intervention

Evaluating Structures & Processes

Techniques of: Hard & soft systems analysis meta-system analysis re-engineer key business processes (e.g. BPR) Planning processes (power plays) Historical evolutionary models (Quinn & strategy) Pro-active structuring (Mintzberg) Hybrid organisations - mechanistic with organismic Virtualisation Changing units of currency (knowledge) Analysis of networking

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HRM: Organisation Culture and Intervention

Exercise

Consider your organisation Draw a mind map of considerations to be made when restructuring a significant part of the organisation? What are the particular factors - from your observation point - that influence your analysis?

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HRM: Organisation Culture and Intervention

Mintzberg 1970: The structuring of organisations evangelise

strategic apex
centralise

ideology middle line

Techno structure Support staff

thin, distribute, devolve?

collaborate standardise
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operating core

professionalise
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HRM: Organisation Culture and Intervention

Business process re-engineering

Imperatives, limitations and failures of BPR

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HRM: Organisation Culture and Intervention

BPR Manifesto

Definition
Re-engineering is the fundamental re-thinking and radical re-design of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service and speed. BPR Re-engineering the Corporation: A manifesto for business revolution
Michael Hammer & James Champey 1993

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HRM: Organisation Culture and Intervention

Backgrounds

Hammer - former MIT computer science professor turned management consultant

organisational Problems facing companies not based on of value chain) structures but process structures (echoes are legacy structures developed Process structureshence patched incrementally and Re-engineering vs. CQI/kaizen, TQM Involves re-design & implementation - start with a clean sheet How?

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HRM: Organisation Culture and Intervention

The business system

Business processes

Jobs and structures

Values and Beliefs

Management and measurement systems

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HRM: Organisation Culture and Intervention

The Impact of Technology Disruptive technology Decision support tools ??? Data communication & portable PCs

Old rule
Managers make all decisions Field staff need offices points to receive, store, retrieve & transmit information

New rule
Decision making is part of everyones job Field staff can send & receive information wherever they are.

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HRM: Organisation Culture and Intervention

Examining BPR - Commentaries

BPR - difficult to mobilise, energise and sustain in very large, technically complex organisations

Hugh Wilmott (UMIST) Christmas? The re-engineering of Will the turkeys vote for
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human resources. Enid Mumford (MBS) BPR versus socio-technical design - employee perceptions/Morgans holographic organisation Wood et al (Salford and MMU) BPR as re-tinkering - need to imagine new processes & strategies Mintzberg excesses of BPR practices (BBC Radio 4)

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HRM: Organisation Culture and Intervention

Practice examination question

1. Why do organisation development interventions frequently fail to live up to expectations? 2. Evaluate the merits and difficulties associated with cultural intervention strategies.

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