ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE &

DIVERSITY

T.S. KUMAR
Kluster Pengajian Pembangunan Pengurusan & Inovasi
INTAN Jalan Elmu
 LEARNING OBJECTIVES
• Define organizational culture and describe its common
characteristics.
• Compare the functional and dysfunctional effects of
organizational culture on people and the organization.
• Explain the factors that create and sustain an organization’s
culture.
• Show how culture is transmitted to employees.
• Demonstrate how an ethical culture and a positive culture can
be created.
 And what does
that mean for
Cross Cultural
Do cultural Does diversity have a
Leadership?
difference impact positive, negative or
business neutral impact on What are the
Is there a
performance? organizational conditions that
relationship between
performance? lead to success or
Is the culture
strategy,
What does the failure?
of my organizational
word culture organization culture and
mean to you? right? diversity?

ONE OF THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES FACING

HR AND TALENT LEADERS TODAY IS THE
RAPID PACE AT WHICH THE WORKFORCE IS
CHANGING ACROSS THE GLOBE
Who am I?
IDENTITY
What am I?
Identity is like culture, there are many aspects to it, some hidden some visible.
One way of looking at this could be to imagine yourself as an onion (even if
you don't like to eat them). Each layer corresponds to a different part of your
identity.
HOW MANY LAYER’S DO YOU HAVE?
What are the most important things
which make up your identity? Write
them next to the numbers 1-5, with
number 1 being the most important to
you.
 Elements of Culture
 Culture: the unique pattern of shared assumptions, values, and
norms that shape the socialization, symbols, language, narratives,
and practices of a group of people
 Shared assumptions: the underlying thoughts and feelings that
members of a culture take for granted and believe to be true

 Value: a basic belief about something that has considerable

importance and meaning to individuals and is stable over time
 Elements of Culture
 Norms : rules that govern the behaviors of group members
 Socialization : a process by which new members are brought into a culture
 Symbol : anything visible that can be used to represent an abstract shared
value or something having special meaning
 Language : a shared system of vocal sounds, written signs, and/or gestures
used to convey special meanings among members of a culture
 Narratives : the unique stories, sagas, legends, and myths in a culture
 Practices :
 Taboos culturally forbidden behaviors
 Ceremonies elaborate and formal activities designed to generate strong
feelings
Organizational Culture Model (Edgar Schein)
Edgar Schein divided organizational culture into three
different levels:
Artefacts mark the surface of the organization. They are the visible elements in the
organization such as logos, architecture, structure, processes and corporate clothing.
These are not only visible to the employees but also visible and recognizable for
external parties.

This concerns standards, values and rules of conduct. How does the organization
express strategies, objectives and philosophies and how are these made public?
Problems could arise when the ideas of managers are not in line with the basic
assumptions of the organization.

The basic underlying assumptions are deeply embedded in the organizational culture
and are experienced as self-evident and unconscious behaviour. Assumptions are
hard to recognize from within.
 Values - The core stands for the values of a certain culture:
• slow to change
• influenced by the history
• subconsciously play a role in a modern society

Nelson

Greeting Discourse
Honest
Napolean

Religious Practices

Legendary
Characters

Gerard (Geert) Hendrik Hofstede, created the model of the “Cultural Onion”

Each one of us, through our up-bringing, education, work and experiences in life, are layered beings.
 Definition Of Culture:
Edgar Schein has defined Culture as:
A pattern of shared basic assumptions that [a] group learned as it
solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration,
that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore,
[desirable] to be taught to new members as the correct way to
perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems.

Culture is a complex mixture of assumptions, behaviors, stories, myths,

metaphors and other ideas that fit together to define what it means to work in
a particular organisation.
 On the surface are overt, or open, aspects:
Formally expressed org. goals, technology,
structure, policies & procedures, and
financial resources

Beneath the surface lie the covert, or hidden, aspects:

- The informal aspects of org. life: include shared
perceptions, attitudes, and feelings as well as a shared
set of values about human nature, the nature of
human relationships, and what the org. can and will
remember.
 Organizational Culture
 The set of important understandings, such as norms, values, attitudes, and beliefs,
shared by organizational members.
 A system of shared meaning held by members that distinguishes the organization from
other organizations
 Composed of seven key characteristics :
1. Innovation and Risk Taking
2. Attention to Detail
3. Outcome Orientation
4. People Orientation
5. Team Orientation
6. Aggressiveness
7. Stability
Organisational culture could be defined as a set of values that
are share in the organisation, which reflects on the company’s
activities.

There are five components to organizational culture that involves

its practices, vision, value, people, place and its history.

Each organisational culture is unique and different from any other

company’s, therefore any decision made my a company about
workplace diversity is based on the company’s beliefs and norms,
and must therefore reflect on that company.
(Coleman 2013)
 Culture is a Descriptive term……

Culture Job Satisfaction

• Organizational culture is • Measures affective responses to

concerned with how employees the work environment: concerned
perceive an organization’s culture, with how employees feel about
not whether or not they like it the organization

• Descriptive • Evaluative
Do Organizations Have Uniform Cultures?
• The dominant culture expresses the core values that are shared by a
majority of the organization’s members
• Subcultures tend to develop in large organizations to reflect common
problems, situations, or experiences of members
• Subcultures mirror the dominant culture but may add to or modify the
core values
• In a strong culture, the organization’s core values are both intensely
held and widely shared
 Strong cultures will:
 Have great influence on the behavior of its members
 Increase cohesiveness
 Result in lower employee turnover
Organizational Sub-Culture
 Exists when assumptions, values, and norms are shared by some - but not all -
organizational members

 Departments and divisions within the organization have their own subcultures
 Occupational subcultures
 Geographically based subcultures
 Subcultures created by managers
 Positive cultures are created by managers who
 recognize personal milestones, such as birthdays and employment
anniversaries
 hold public celebrations for professional achievements
 sponsor picnics and parties and
 listen to their employees and recognize the efforts they put into work
Organizational Sub-Culture
Diverse workforce demographics create subcultures

 Ethnicity
 Age
 Gender and other demographics
Culture Versus Formalization

• Both seek predictability, orderliness, and consistency

• Culture controls by increasing behavioral consistency

• Formalization controls through policies and written

documentation

• Strong cultures can be a substitute for formalization

Culture’s Five Basic Functions

• Defines Boundaries
• Conveys a Sense of Identity
• Generates Commitment Beyond Oneself
• Enhances Social Stability
• Sense-making and Control Mechanism
Culture as a Liability
• Barrier to Change
 Culture is slow to change – even in a dynamic
environment

• Barrier to Diversity
 Culture seeks to minimize diversity Can embed
prevalent bias and prejudice

• Barrier to Acquisitions and Mergers

 Most mergers fail due to cultural incompatibility
 Creating Culture Keeping a Culture Alive
• Ultimate source of an • Selection – seek out those who
organization’s culture is its fit in
founders
• Top Management – establish
• Founders create culture in three norms of behavior by their
ways: actions
 By hiring and keeping those who
think and feel the same way they do
 Indoctrinating and socializing those
employees to their way of thinking
• Socialization
– help new
and feeling employees adapt to the existing
 Acting as a role model and culture
encouraging employees to identify
with them
 A Socialization Model
• Pre-arrival –initial Pre-arrival
knowledge about the
organization and own
unique ideas Socialization
Encounter Process
• Encounter – exposed to the
organization
Metamorphosis
• Metamorphosis – member
changed to fit within the
organization Productivity Commitment Turnover

Outcomes
 Dimensions of Socialization Programs
Intense Programs
• Formal – new workers
separated for training
• Collective – group basis
• Fixed – planned activities
• Serial – role models used
• Divestiture – strip away
characteristics to build up new
ones
Moderate Programs
• Informal – new workers
immediately put to work
• Individual – one-on-one
• Variable – no timetables
• Random – on your own
• Investiture – accepts and
confirms existing characteristics
 How Organization Culture Forms

Top
Philosophy Of Management
Selection Organizational
Organization’s Culture
Criteria
Founders
Socialization

Success in employee socialization depends on management’s

selection of socialization method and the closeness of new
employees’ values to those of the organization
 How Employees Learn Culture

Culture is transmitted to employees through:

 Stories – provide explanations
 Rituals – reinforce key values
 Material Symbols – convey importance
 Language – identify and segregate members
 Organizational Culture
Creating an Ethical Creating a Positive
Organizational Culture Organizational Culture
A strong culture with high risk A positive culture is one that
tolerance, low-to-moderate emphasizes the following:
aggressiveness, and focuses on
means as well as outcomes is most •Building on Employee Strengths
likely to shape high ethical
standards •Rewarding More Than Punishing
 Managers must be visible role models
 Communicate ethical expectations •Emphasizing Vitality and Growth of the
 Provide ethical training Employee
 Visibly reward ethical acts and punish
unethical ones
 Provide protective mechanisms
Clan Culture
Basic Types of Organizational Cultures
• Behaviors of employees are shaped by tradition, loyalty, personal commitment, extensive socialization, and self-
management Entrepreneurial Culture
• Formal rules and procedures minimized • External focus and flexibility
• High sense of member obligation and identity to the organization create an environment that
• Long and thorough socialization process encourages risk taking,
• Mentors and role models dynamism, and creativity
• Strong peer pressure
Flexible • Commitment to experimentation,
• Internal focus
Entrepreneurial innovation, and being on the
leading edge
Clan Culture
Formal Control

• Creates change and quickly reacts

Orientation

Culture to change
• Individual initiative, flexibility,
and freedom seen as fostering
growth
• Encouraged and rewarded

Bureaucratic
Market Culture
Culture
Stable
Internal External
Focus of Attention
Market Culture
Bureaucratic Culture • Values and norms reflect the importance of achieving measurable and demanding goals,
• Behavior of employees is governed by formal rules and standard operating especially those that are financial and market based (e.g., sales growth, profitability and
procedures, and coordination is achieved through hierarchical reporting market share)
relationships • Hard driving competitiveness dominates
• Focuses on predictability, efficiency, and stability • Profits orientation and quantifiable performance goals prevail
• Tasks, responsibilities, and authority clearly spelled out • Minimal informal social pressure on members
• Internal Focus • Superior interactions with subordinates focus on performance-reward (economic)
agreement and resource allocations
Organizational Tools for Changing Culture
Keep in mind…..
• Organizational culture is concerned with how employees
perceive the culture, not whether or not they like it

• Ethical and positive organizational cultures can be created

– methods differ

• National culture influences organizational culture

What Is Diversity?
The Mix
Diversity is differences in
racial and ethnic,
socioeconomic, geographic,
and academic/professional
backgrounds. People with
different opinions,
backgrounds (degrees and
social experience), religious
beliefs, political beliefs,
sexual orientations, heritage,
and life experience.
Diversity Wheel
 Elements Of Diversity
• Age • Income
• Gender • Education
• Ethnicity • Marital Status
• Race • Religious Beliefs
• Physical Ability • Geographic Location
• Sexual Orientation • Parental Status
• Physical Characteristics • Personality Type

Workforce Diversity
Hiring people with different human qualities or who belong to various
cultural groups.
 What Is Inclusion?
Inclusion involves bringing together and harnessing diverse
forces and resources in a way that is beneficial. Inclusion puts the
concept and practice of diversity into action by creating an
environment of involvement, respect, and connection—where the
richness of ideas, backgrounds, and perspectives are harnessed to
create business value and overall success.

Inclusion:

“Making the Mix

Work”
 What is the difference between diversity and inclusion?

DIVERSITY INCLUSION
Diversity is simply a representation of many Inclusion is the deliberate act of welcoming
different types of people diversity and creating an environment where
(gender, race, ability, religion, etc.) all different kinds of people can thrive and
succeed.
Diversity often focuses on the differences, Inclusion is the act of "making the mix
and is referred to as "the mix.“ work."
Diversity is what you have. Inclusion is what you do.
 Simply having a diverse group, team, workforce, classroom, etc., is not enough.
 *Everyone should feel safe and encouraged to fully participate and share and be on
equal footing as everyone else.
Source: Tiffany Jana
CEO at TMI Consulting Inc.
 Why Does Diversity Matter?
1. Diversity expands worldliness. The organization might be the first time you
have had the opportunity to have real interaction with people from diverse
groups.
2. Diversity enhances social development. Interacting with people from a variety
of groups widens your social circle by expanding the pool of people with
whom you can associate and develop relationships.
3. Diversity prepares for future career success. Successful performance in
today's diverse workforce requires sensitivity to human differences and the
ability to relate to people from different cultural backgrounds.
4. Diversity prepares for work in a global society. No matter what profession you
enter, you'll find yourself working with employers, employees, coworkers,
customers and clients from diverse backgrounds—worldwide.
 Why Does Diversity Matter?
5. Interactions with people different from ourselves increase our knowledge
base. Research consistently shows that we learn more from people who are
different from us than we do from people who are similar to us.
6. Diversity promotes creative thinking. Diversity expands your capacity for
viewing issues or problems from multiple perspectives, angles, and vantage
points.
7. Diversity enhances self-awareness. Learning from people whose
backgrounds and experiences differ from your own sharpens your self-
knowledge and self-insight by allowing you to compare and contrast your life
experiences with others whose life experiences differ sharply from your own.
8. Diversity enriches the multiple perspectives developed by a liberal arts
education.
How Can You Embrace Your Diversity as a
PTD Officer?

5 Minute Group Discussion

 How To Embrace Your Diversity?
1. Everyone’s Narrative - Consider your own life, and everything that has shaped your
beliefs. Realize that each of the 7 billion people on this planet has their own narrative. Not
one is the same.
2. Where are you coming from? - When you find yourself thinking poorly of someone, stop
and consider what influences have created your negative views of that individual.
3. Befriend all people – If you know that you tend to avoid befriending certain types of
people, go out of your way to find friends of all kinds.
4. Empathy – When you encounter anyone, try to imagine, understand, and sympathize with
that person’s story, with everything that has made them who they are.
5. Actively accept – meditate upon embracing other people, with all of the diversity that
comes with them. Don’t allow yourself to define a person based upon one stereotype
about one aspect of their complex identity.
6. Show compassion - Perform random acts of kindness for all types of people. It can be as
simple as a friendly smile or holding open a door.
 Managing Cultural Diversity & Inclusion
 Cultural diversity encompasses the full mix of the cultures and
subcultures to which members of the workforce belong.

 The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) defines

diversity as “the collective mixture of differences and similarities
that include, for example, individual and organizational
characteristics, values, beliefs, experiences, backgrounds,
preferences, and behaviors.”
 Managing Cultural Diversity & Inclusion

 They break down diversity even further into two categories –

visible diversity traits and invisible diversity traits.

 Organization goals for managing cultural diversity include

 Legal compliance
 Creating a positive culture for employees
 Create greater economic value for the organization
Managing Cultural Diversity & Inclusion: Process Of Change
 Diagnosis : Before managers begin to design new approaches to managing
diversity, they must understand how current practices affect the amount
and nature of diversity

 Vision : Leaders must formulate and articulate a clear vision to persuade

others to join them

 Involvement : For the plan to be effective, those who are affected must
buy into it

 Timing : Planned organization change usually follows an evolutionary - not

revolutionary – path
Managing Cultural Diversity & Inclusion: Diversity Training

 Awareness training : designed to provide accurate

information about the many subcultures present in the
organization

 Harassment training : aimed at ensuring that employees

understand the meaning of harassment and the actions the
company will take when someone complains of being
harassed
 Managing Cultural Diversity & Inclusion
 Create Family-Friendly Work Places
 Survey employees
 Offer options to meet employees needs
 Consider child-care initiatives
 Consider elder-care initiatives

 Hold Managers Accountable

 Managing Cultural Diversity & Inclusion :
Challenges
 Managing the reactions of the members of the dominate culture, who may
feel that they have lost some of the power they previously had

 Synthesizing the diversity of opinions from individuals and using them as

the basis for reaching meaningful agreement on issues

 Avoiding real and perceived tokenism and quota systems

 EQUATION OF THE DIVERSITY
Representing
our
Respecting
Individuals + Value
Differences + Consumers
& the
=DIVERSITY
Markets
where we do
business
What we can learn from lab rats that don’t show If a rat sees another rat drowning, for example, it will forgo a
empathy for other rats. chunk of chocolate to save its imperiled friend. Its actions are
guided by its empathy.

Scientists at the University of Chicago further explored the nature

of empathy in rats. They found that a white rat raised among only
white rats will do nothing to save a black rat from a trap. Rats, like
humans, can be biased in how they act on, or don’t act on, their
empathy.

In a variant of the experiment, a white rat raised among only black

rats would save a black rat from a trap — but would fail to save
other white rats.

And a white rat raised among black and white rats rescued rats of
both colors. The researchers found that it is not the rat’s color that
determines which type of rat it will show empathy for, but the social
context in which it was raised.

In short, rats do not show empathy because of an innate

recognition of similarity in physical appearance. Likewise, when
human empathy can be partial, it is because the experiences of
people from some groups are hidden from our view, which limits
our empathy toward them.
It’s vital to recognize that prejudice is not baked-in: It is the
result of our ignorance. A failure to learn about people (or
rats) of different kinds can mean that we fail to recognize their
pain as genuine pain. Empathy can be switched off.

Empathy by itself is not enough. It becomes an accurate guide

for moral action only when combined with knowledge of
people of all different backgrounds — knowledge that can be
attained only if you are willing to actively listen to people
whose voices have been silenced.