CULTURAL STRATEGY

HOW SOCIAL ENTERPRISES CROSS

THE CULTURAL CHASM
ROLE OF HRM

Organization
Culture
 SURVIVING IN A
MULTI-CULTURAL WORLD
 Culture and Change
Culture and Change.gif
 Management Practices That Work (Nohria,
et al., HBR, 2003)

• Primary
Strategy, Execution, Culture, Structure
• Secondary
Talent, Leadership, Innovation, Mergers and
Partnerships
 Dominant Orientation of Culture

• Market and financial-oriented: defined in terms of

customers needs and financial performance
• Materials- or product-oriented: defined in terms of the
material it works with or the product it makes
• Technology-oriented: defined in terms of the technology
that it uses
• People-oriented: defined in terms of how employees are
hired and treated
 “Best” Values
• They have a “grab-you-by-the heart” quality
• They often precede and drive strategy
• They are put into place by living them
• They enable people at every level to become leaders
• They are consistent with the everyday values to which most
people aspire
• They get managed as proactively as strategies, plans, and
budgets.
Robert Waterman, What America Does Right
 Foundations of A
Productivity-Focused Culture
• Survivor mentality
• Productivity through people
• Respect for people
• Creating reality from expectations
• Challenging targets with resource commitment
• Managing change
• Developing capabilities
 Foundations of A Productivity-
Focused Culture (Continued)
• Committed to constant change, innovation, and
value-added operations - continuous
improvement: productivity improvement is a
direction, not a destination
• Committed to be a “world-class organization” - to
be better than the best
• Being prepared to keep moving on
Strategies to Create A Culture for Productivity
Improvement

• Inspire all employees to achieve high

performance
• Empower employees to make decisions and seek
improvements
• Reward employees based on individual and group
performance
• Create a challenging but satisfying work
environment
• Follow a clear set of values
 Managerial Culture Reinforcement
Actions
• The behaviors managers measure and control
• Managers’ reactions to crises
• Modeling and coaching of expected behaviors
• Criteria for allocation of rewards
• Criteria for selection, promotion, and termination
of employees
 Actions to Change Culture
1. Change people’s behaviors through reward,
training, policies, etc.
2. Justify the new behaviors using new culture
artifacts: stories, symbols, rituals, heroes.
3. Communicate the new artifacts widely and
consistently
4. Hire new employees who match the new culture
5. Remove employees whose behaviors deviate
from the new culture values
 Organizational Transformation Process
John Kotter: Leading Change
1. Establishing a sense of urgency
2. Creating the guiding coalition
3. Developing a vision and strategy
4. Communicating the change visions
5. Empowering employees for broad-based action
6. Generating short-term wins
7. Consolidating gains and producing more change
8. Anchoring new approaches in the culture
 The Heart of Change

Implementing
and
Engaging and enabling sustaining
the whole organization change

Creating a
climate for change

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Increase Build the Get the Communicat Enable Create Don’t Let Make it
Urgency Guiding Right e for Buy-in Action Short-term Up Stick
Team Vision Wins

*Kotter, John P. and Cohen, Dan S. The Heart of Change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press
 3
2

1 Get the
Build the Right Vision
Guiding Team
• Paint a clear
Increase picture of the
Urgency • Find the right
future state
people
• Highlight • Appeal to long-
• Clarify program
performance gaps term interests of
goals and critical
all stakeholders
• Obtain customer and success factors
shareholder • Eliminate out of
• Define
testimonies scope
measurements for
possibilities for
• Set stretch goals key milestones and
the organization
• Bombard with future progress
• Point to specific
opportunities and • Integrate with other
areas that need to
rewards teams and
change
initiatives
 6
5
4
Create Short-
Enable Term Wins
Action • Plan for visible
Communicate
performance
for Buy-In • Remove barriers
improvements
that make it
• Solve small
• Cascade messages difficult for people
to act problems dear to
• Link all messages to the heart of people
the vision • Define & train
to boost morale
• Use metaphors & stakeholders for
new skills • Seek consistent
analogies to results (every few
describe strategic • Change systems
months)
direction that contradict new
vision • Communicate wins
• Align leadership visibly
actions to • Confront individual
communications resistance
 8

Make It Stick

Don’t Let Up • Achieve tangible

results quickly
• Tackle additional and • Tie results to new
bigger changes behaviors
• Create the • Support sustained
supporting performance of
organizational systems,
infrastructure infrastructures, and
• Transition resources informal processes
• Sustain leadership • Initiate turnover of
involvement program roles
 Mapping the Impact of Culture on International
Management

Culture provides two functions that affect global management:

 Provides a software for the group’s interactions or a sort of oil
that greases the machines of the society – shared cultural
systems

 Provides a source of identity for people within the culture –

surfaces when people describe “who they are” – becomes
important when it is threatened

 Therefore, Culture provides a boundary

 4-Cross-cultural Arenas in International
Management
ONE-WAY
ARENA 1: EXPATRIATE
INDIVIDUAL Individual manager going to
LEVEL another country to manage a
business unit or perform a
specialist job
ARENA 3: EXPORT SYSTEM
ORGANIZATIONAL Take human resources,
LEVEL information systems, or other
practice strategy from one
country into another
MULTI-WAY
ARENA 2: MULTICULTURAL
TEAM
Group from many countries,
often cross-functional,
managing across units or a
multi-country project
ARENA 4: GLOBAL SYSTEM
Develop human resources
systems, organizational
structures or strategies, to be
implemented in many
countries
 Cultural Orientations Framework
ORIENTATION
Relation to the Harmony: Our purpose and natural
role is to maintain a balance among
Environment the elements of the environment,
including ourselves (Japan)
Relations among Collectivism: Our main responsibility
is to and for a larger extended group
People of people (Latin America)
Mode of Activity: Being: Our natural and preferred
mode of activity is to do everything in
Impact on its own time (Latin America)
organizations
Nature of Bad: Our nature is essentially bad;
good behavior takes effort
Humans
Time Monochronic: Time is linear, can be
divided into equal units
(Industrialized cultures)
Past: Business and day-to-day
decisions should be based on
tradition and precedent
Space Public: Space is open to everyone
VARIATIONS
Mastery: Our purpose and
natural role is to control nature
and the environment around us
(the USA)
Individualism: Our main
responsibility is to and for
ourselves and immediate family
(Australia)
Doing: Our natural and
preferred mode of activity is to
be continually engaged in
accomplishing tangible tasks
(Canada, the USA)
Mixed or Blank State: Our
nature is mixed or determined
entirely by our environment
Present: Business and day-to-
day decisions should be based
on immediate needs and
factors
Subjugation: Our purpose and
natural role is to understand
and submit ourselves to a plan
determined by larger natural or
supernatural forces (Islam)
Hierarchy: It is normal and good
that power and responsibility
are unequally distributed
throughout society (India)
Thinking: Our natural and
preferred mode of activity is to
consider all things carefully and
rationally before taking action
(Germany, France)
Good: Our nature is essentially
good; bad behavior is an
anomaly
Polychronic: Time is non-linear
or parallel (Time is plentiful &
flexible)
Future: Business and day-to-day
decisions should be based on
long-term future needs and
factors (Time is scarce)
Private: Space is owned by
specific individuals or groups
 Culture Development
Strategic Champion Employee Advocate Change Champion

• Contributes to the • Plays an integral role in • Contributes to the

development of and the organizational success via organization by constantly
accomplishment of the his knowledge about and assessing the
organization-wide advocacy of people. effectiveness of the HR
business plan and function and sponsors
objectives change in other
departments.

Clarifies desired organization culture

 Culture and Marketing

• Characteristics of various ethnic groups can have

significant effects on marketing approaches

• Impact of ethnicity and acculturation on

consumer behavior

• Self-gifts and ethnicity

• Ideas for marketing in the “underlying culture”

The Culture link to Business Objectives
Determines Employee Determines how Work
Behavior Gets Done

Culture

Helps Deliver Strategy

“Organization culture is the shared assumptions, beliefs, values, and norms of

the organization which drive shared patterns of behaviors.”
It can be ‘DEFINED’ and ‘CHANGED’
The Culture link to Business Objectives

Articulate ‘Desired’
Map ‘As-is’ Culture
Culture

Identify Gaps

Define Roadmap to
bridge the gap
 Corporate Culture Dilemmas
• Regarding the structure and processes of the organization:
centralization versus decentralization, and acceptance of
diversity in strategy and practices
• Reward systems: individual versus team achievements
• Attitude towards the partner: dominate versus cooperative
approach
• People management: focus on people development versus
focus on performance and pay issues
• Leadership: low-key style versus visionary leadership
• Decision making & communication: egalitarian, consensus-
oriented, open style versus hierarchical, status-oriented,
directive decision making
• Concept of customer service: levels of customer intimacy
• Attitude to change: evolutionary versus revolutionary
 The NINE golden dilemmas
• Global consistency vs local flexibility/customization
• Team orientation vs individual creativity
• Competing vs cooperating
• Efficiency of business processes vs developing HR
• Grand visions vs keeping the business going
• Participating employees vs respect for authority
• New client development vs push of technology (the
ultimate niche market/developing unknown clients?0
• Planning orientation vs freedom to develop
(stability/dynamic change?)
• Long-term value for stakeholders vs value for
shareholders?