Organisational Culture….

System of shared meaning and beliefs held by

organizational members that determines to a large
degree how they act and respond to situations.
It represents a common perception held by an
organization’s members.
“The way we do things around here”.
A constraint for the manager.
How
Ideas?
Cultural Dimensions….
Team orientation?
Stability?
Innovation & Risk taking?
Attention to Detail?
Outcome Orientation?
People Orientation?
Aggressiveness?
Exercise….
Identify and analyze IQRA’s cultural environment
Assign a mark out of 10 to each dimension.
Identify dominant factor.
Strong or Weak culture.
• Factors determining strength :
– Size of organisation.
– How long it has been established.
– Turnover among employees.
– Original cultural intensity.
Learning Culture….
Stories.
Narrative that exemplifies the culture.
Symbols.
Repetitive sequences of activities that reinforce values.
Material symbols.
Tangible symbols of culture.
Language.
Jargon, code, terms used in a culture.
Culture and Environment
Organisations....
 Organisations as systems....
 Input > process > output.
 These systems operate in and are influenced by their
environment.
 Various factors that affect the decisions of managers?
 Ideas about nature of factors?
Organisational Environment.
 External environment:
 Refers to forces and institutions outside the organization
that can potentially affect the organization's performance.
 Environment is made up of two components,
1) The specific environment.
2) The general environment.
External environment.
 Specific environment consists of:
 Customers
 Suppliers
 Competitors
 Pressure Groups
 That is, constituents of the environment that have a direct
and immediate impact on managements decisions.
 Examples of how these constituents may affect
managerial decisions?
 The general environment consists of:
 The broader socio-political, technological, economic,
financial, demographic and legal factors that have a diffuse
impact on the corporation and how it is being run.
 Economic conditions: Interest rates, inflation, changes in
disposable income, stock market fluctuations, and the stage of
the general business cycle are all factors to consider.
 Political/Legal: They reduce managerial discretion by limiting
the choices available to managers.
 Socio-cultural Conditions: Managers must adapt their
practices to the changing expectations of the society in
which they operate. As societal values, customs, and tastes
change, so managers must also change.
 Demographic Conditions: encompass trends in the
physical characteristics of a population such as gender, age,
level of education, geographic location, income, family
compo­sition, and so forth.
Technological: The most rapid changes during the past
quarter-century have occurred in technology. We live in a
time of continuous technological change.
Effects....
 Exercise....
 How do these environments affect an organisation?
 Technological environment?
 Socio political environment?
 Legal environment?
 Economic environment?
 Ethical environment?
 Ecological environment?
 Pluralistic societies? How are things different?
Environmental uncertainty.
 When looking at uncertainty in the environment there are
two dimensions that need to be examined:
 Degree of change
 Dynamic or static environment?
 Degree of complexity
 Complexor simple environment?
 Components in the environment?

– What do we mean by components?

How does the concept of environmental uncertainty
influence managers?
Each of the four cells represents different combinations of
degree of complexity and degree of change.
Cell 1 (an environment that is stable and simple)
represents the lowest level of environmental uncertainty.
Cell 4 (an environment that is dynamic and complex) is the
highest. Not surprisingly, manager’s influence on
organizational outcomes is greatest in cell 1 and least in
cell 4.
 Because uncertainty is a threat to an organization's
effectiveness, managers try to minimize it.
 Given a choice managers would prefer to operate in
environments such as those in cell 1.
 They very rarely have full control over that choice.
 In addition, most industries today are facing more
dynamic change, making their environments more
uncertain....