Summarization

Of
Organizational Culture and
Knowledge Management

15 Organizational Culture and Knowledge Management

Learning Objectives

1. Describe three aspects of organizational culture: how it is determined, its dimensions, and
how it is learned.

2. Explain some of the major consequences and implications of organizational culture.

3. Describe the 4I framework of a learning organization and components of the learning

organization.

4. Pinpoint strategies and techniques for knowledge management.

5. Specify methods for sharing information within an organization.

A. THREE ASPECTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE: HOW IT IS DETERMINED, ITS

DIMENSIONS, AND HOW IT IS LEARNED

Organizational Culture

It is a collection of values, practices and beliefs that influence worker behavior. Having the right
organizational culture can bring a strategic advantage to a company. Culture is considered to
be among the primary levers at the disposal of organization leaders to maintain organizational
viability and effectiveness.

Organizational Climate

It is similar to organizational culture, it is about the measurable properties of the perceived

work environment that influence the motivation and performance of workers.

Three Aspects of Organizational Culture

1. How it is determined

Determinants of Organizational Culture - There’s so many forces shape a firm’s culture.

One force that is often observed is its origin of founder/s that their values, administrative
practices, and personality reflects the company. Also, the leader’s vision can have a heavy
impact on culture.

2. Its Dimensions

Dimensions of Organizational Culture - The dimensions, or elements, of culture help

explain the nature of the subtle forces that influence employee actions. (i.e. A culture that
values risk taking encourages employees to try new ways of doing things. The employees
will do so without concern that they will be punished for failed ideas).
12 Influential Dimensions of Culture
1. Values - The foundation of organizational culture is values. A company’s belief is
expressed through values, and values guide behavior on a daily basis. Values also
contribute directly to the ethical atmosphere within a firm. An ethical workplace
starts at the top of the organization. Leaders become the role model of other
employees. A positive value that contributes to a healthy organizational culture is a
high regard for human welfare, exhibited in programs and policies that enhance
employee health and well-being.
2. Organizational stories with underlying meanings and myths - Stories are circulated in
many organizations to reinforce principles that top management thinks are
important. Myths are dramatic narratives or imagined events about the firm’s
history. (A myth is more exaggerated than an organizational story.) Myths
contribute to corporate legends, help unify groups, and can build competitive
advantage.
3. Degree of stability and rapidity of decision making - A fast-paced, dynamic firm has a
different culture from that of a slow-paced, stable one. Top-level managers send
out signals by their own energetic or lethargic stance regarding how much they
welcome innovation. The degree of stability also influences the strength of a culture
and whether or not a culture can take root. In a relatively stable organization,
decisions tend to be made deliberately, whereas in a less stable organization,
decisions are made more rapidly, often on the fly.
4. Resource allocations and rewards - The ways in which money and other resources are
allocated have a critical influence on culture. The investment of resources sends a
message about what the firm values. Teamwork is a strong value at the company,
so bonuses are based on team performance, not individual performance.
5. Rites and rituals - Part of a firm’s culture is made up of its traditions, or its rites and
rituals. Few companies think they have rites and rituals, yet a wise observer can
identify them. (i.e. regular staff meetings, company picnics, retirement banquets
(even for fired executives), and receptions for visiting dignitaries).
6. A sense of ownership - An ownership culture includes increased loyalty, improved
work effort, and the alignment of worker interests with those of the company. An
ownership culture can be reflected in everyday actions, such as conserving
electricity, making gradual improvements, and not tolerating sloppy work by
coworkers. An ownership culture can backfire, however, if employee wealth stays
flat or decreases as a result of stock ownership or worse if the company goes under.
7. Belief in a higher purpose - Employees derive deep satisfaction from feeling what
they do is good and right. A belief in a higher purpose is easy to understand if one
works for a pharmaceutical company. Employees of some financial services firms
 also believe that they are occupying a useful role in society. For example, at Edward
Jones, the financial services giant, helping achieve financial security is part of the
mission. Many firms are making a values shift to embody a sense of higher purpose
in order to appeal to Millennial as workers and, by extension, as customers also.
8. Innovativeness and organizational ambidexterity - A cultural dimension of
significance in most fields is the innovative spirit of the workforce. An environment
that encourages innovation contributes to individual creativity. Organizational
ambidexterity is a flexible approach to innovation that is part of the culture. The
term refers to the ability of an organization to efficiently take advantage of existing
market opportunities while at the same time creating and innovating to meet the
challenges of future markets. The ambidextrous organization helps build
excitement into the culture as the firm prospers in the present and has even better
prospects for the future.
9. Organizational justice - A highly meaningful aspect of organizational culture for
employees is what they perceive to be a climate of justice or fairness throughout
the organization. Justice refers to how fairly employees are treated by
organizational authorities.
A climate of justice has three components: a. organizational decisions
(distributive justice), b. decision-making procedures (procedural justice), and c. the
quality of interpersonal treatment as part of these procedures (interpersonal
justice).
10. Orientation toward serving employees - The presence of enough servant leaders in an
organization helps foster a dimension of culture characterized by the desire to serve
others. A person whose leader wants to serve him or her will often want to serve
others. The cultural dimension of orientation toward service refers to behavioral
norms and shared expectations of giving high priority to helping others.
11. Orientation toward serving customers - Virtually every business organization, non-
profit organization, or government agency believes that providing good service to
customers or clients is important. When a climate of good service toward customers
is combined with an ethical climate, business performance tends to be strong.
12. Joy and happiness s- An important dimension of organizational culture from the
standpoint of employees is the extent of joy and happiness that pervades the
organization. Joy and happiness are a component of the emotional culture.
Subculture also influences behavior, subculture is a pocket in which the organizational
culture differs from the dominant culture, as well as other pockets of subculture.
3. How it is learned

How workers learned the culture - There are two ways on how employees learn the
organizational culture of a certain company. First, by socialization, it is a process of
 communicating to understand the values, norms, and customs essential for you to easily
adapt in the organization. Second, through the teachings of leaders (implied in resource
allocations and rewards), employees usually learn the culture to some extent by observing
what leaders pay attention to, measure, and control. (i.e. a coworker of yours is praised
publicly for doing community service. You are likely to conclude that an important part of
the culture is to help people outside the company).

B. MAJOR CONSEQUENCES AND IMPLICATIONS OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

The organizational culture of a firm could have an extensive impact on its effectiveness. The
employees and the organization itself should be taken into account upon implementing the
organizational culture.
1. Competitive advantage and organizational effectiveness
A firm that has the right organizational culture could benefit from this in several ways.
They could gain competitive advantage like smooth functioning of their operations and as
a result, they could have an increased profit.

2. Productivity, quality, and engagement

Strong culture often encourages workers to be productive, engaged, and have the best
quality of work. It values the people working in the firm. Consequently, employees become
satisfied and motivated to perform their job. Satisfied and motivated workers are the ones
that produce the best quality of the job that contributes to the overall performance of the
firm.
3. Creativity and innovation
An organizational culture that encourages creative behavior is a prime contributor to
innovation. Some of its features include making a ground wherein workers can be
passionate, setting high expectations, and allowing talented employees to transfer to
different departments within the firm without difficulty.

4. Compatibility of mergers and acquisitions

Two firms merging together that has compatible cultures increases the probability of
their success. Cultural clash between two firms happen when their cultures differ from each
other. One firm may be okay of allowing their employees to wear casual outfits while the
other firm prefers that their employees wear formal attire during working hours. This
implies that even inthe simplest aspect, acquisitions and mergers fail for the reason of not
having the same cultures.

5. Person–organization fit
 An individual could perform effectively and become successful when his or her
personality fits with the job that he or she is performing in an organization. Similarly, a firm
will become more successful when its employees have the personality that fits with its
culture. When the preference of a person and the organization are in consonance, this
would probably allow both parties to become successful.

6. Pointing to the direction of leadership activity

The organizational culture that should be instilled in the firm is the one that is
conducive to both the leadership style and objectives of the firm over the long run. The
organizational culture that is aligned with the direction of the broader organization helps in
attaining the objectives of the firm.

7. Emotional and physical safety of workers

Some organizational culture tolerates incivility, rudeness, and sexual harassment,
consequently, employees decide to resign from the firm that they are working for. An
organizational culture that discourages any inhumane act increases the probability of
employees feeling emotionally and physically safe.

8. Organizational health
The organizational culture that promotes a healthy organization could further increase
the performance of the firm. Organizational health includes creative problem solving and
leadership style that best fit for the employees and the direction of the organization itself.

C. THE 4I FRAMEWORK OF A LEARNING ORGANIZATION

The 4I framework serves as a guide that provides instructions and descriptions of the
process of using systematic information in a firm. Other perspective about this framework
implies that organization learning as a product of the innovations made in the organization
envelops or affects the whole firm and not just specific individuals. An important note to
remember is that organization must sustain the demands of the external world or it might lead
to its oblivion.
According to Mary M. Crossan, Henry W. Lane, and Roderick E. White, organizational
learning is composed of four processes: intuiting, interpreting, integrating, and
institutionalizing. The aforementioned processes are considered the glue that binds the
individual, group, and organizational levels together. Organizational learning and behavior
takes place in three learning levels (individual, group, and organization).
Individual level. In this level, intuiting and interpreting occurs. Intuiting refers to
intuition or the unconscious or pattern and possibilities rooted from the personal stream of
experience. Interpreting is describing something and providing specific information to oneself
or others through the use of words and actions. Manager at a company might build the
intuition that the products of the company are not attractive or appealing at all to the
consumers. He then might say, “Our products might be lacking in some aspects resulting to
few demands from the target consumers.”
Group level integration. Integration takes place at the group level. This is the
production of method for shared understanding between people and the taking of coordinated
action. In order to establish a common understanding of the issue and collective action, we
must understand the critical dialogue about a certain problem.
Organizational level. In organizational level, the institutionalization takes place. This is
the method of guaranteeing the occurrence of regular acts. Initially, the group level integration
would be ad hoc and informal. But if the concerted action is recurrent and significant, then it
becomes institutionalized. To ensure that certain activities occur, task must be identified and
organizational processes are placed.

D. STRATEGIES AND TECHNIQUES FOR KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Leaning about your organization can give you much of benefits including having to manage
knowledge more effectively. Knowledge management (KM) is a systematic approach to
documenting, applying, and transferring the know-how and experience of employees. This
approach is mainly about how to effectively use employees’ useful information and
experiences that is then shared within an organization in a form of printed documents, soft-
copies, or by simply letting the other workers be informed about such knowledge in order for
them to know what to do when faced in same situation.

With that being said, Intellectual capital, a capital asset consisting of intellectual
material, serves as the main resource needed in knowledge management mainly because it is
an intangible asset, such as employee’s expertise, that an organization have. Through
Knowledge Management, goals such as innovation, non duplication of effort, and competitive
advantage can be achieved.

Knowledge-Management Strategies and Techniques

In order to bring about best results when managing knowledge, the importance of the
following strategies and techniques should be considered:
 Hire the Right Persons

People who knows how to share knowledge with others, by learning from them at the same
time teaching them, is regarded to be the one who are responsible in making effective use of
KM.People with the right stuff for KM are most likely to be those who have demonstrated
intelligence, accumulated knowledge, and displayed intellectual curiosity in the past.
  Create Knowledge

Before you can start managing knowledge, it is important to create one first. In doing so,
some starategies can be done such as scanning the environment for information that might
apply to one’s situation, an example of this is how Executive scanning is often done to search for
information that could affect the future of the firm. Another is to share leadership
responsibilities with your members which is great way to create knowledge since your members
become cooperative in discussing and sharing knowledge with others.

 Close the Gap between Knowing and Doing

The idea of this is that one must perform the act being known. Since it is easier to gather
information than executing it, the challenge for a company is to build culture of action.
Managing knowledge is not enough you need also to invest action through itbecause doing
something requires the hard work of making something happen.For example you as a team
leader you need to use evidence-based management and convert knowledge into action that
can be measured in terms of outcomes for both student and adult learning.

E. METHODS FOR SHARING INFORMATION WITHIN AN ORGANIZATION

Sharing relevant information among group is the major goal of learning organization and
knowledge management. Relevant, useful information enables people to create shared
understandings and make informed decisions that support organizational goals. Sharing can
occur in four different organizational directions which were downward, lateral, upward, and
diagonal.

Six focused methods for sharing information:

1. In-house Yellow Pages.
The basic idea of this method was to compile a directory of the skills, talents, and special
knowledge of employees throughout the firm. For this method to be useful it goes far beyond
basic information and job experience.
2. Intranet communication systems.
Intranets and online forums are common in many entities and were used to easily spread
information. An intranet is a private enterprise network, designed to support an organization’s
employees to communicate, collaborate and perform their roles. Intranets are used for
accessing information, connecting people, employee lifecycle management, knowledge
management, completing tasks or workflows, internal communications, measuring and
improving employee engagement, and supporting strategic business objectives.
3. Encouraging knowledge sharing in employee networks.
A person having an extensive network whether on the computer or face-to-face has
greater access to knowledge sharing. The knowledge that other people have can be shared
throughout their network, and they can be useful especially when they are work-related
information. For example, a production manager might say to her network, “My friend once
mentioned that in her country in Bangladesh the cost of the labor can only be $228 per year,
we can have our production done there.” The main finding of the study about 700 employees
in engineering, information technology, and management consultancy is that knowledge
sharing happens best when you have a central position in a network, motivation, and the
ability to use and share knowledge.
4. Personal explanations of success factors.
One of the advanced methods of knowledge sharing is through explaining success
factors among the organization members. These narratives are referred to as “teachable point
of view” by Noel Tichy. It is an explanation of a person’s knowledge and beliefs in having a
successful business. This document focuses on critical success factors like: What would it take
to knock out the competition? According to Tichy, hundreds of companies are using this
method.
5. Fostering dialogue among organization members.
Company leaders must promote the importance of information sharing through
discussing the intellectual capital and the development of core competencies within its
company. Company leaders should also encourage the workers throughout the firm to engage
in by sharing their suggestions, knowledge, and success stories about problem solving. This
type of information sharing could either take place in person or through exchanging of emails.
6. Sharing physical facilities and informal learning.
An important method of having sharing information fostered is to develop shared
physical facilities. This could either take place in company’s snack lounge or information
resource center. Informal learning or information sharing takes place inside the shared physical
facilities.