CULTURE & ORGANISATIONS

CULTURE
Set of values, guiding beliefs, understandings,
and ways of thinking that is shared by
members of an organisation and is taught to
new members as correct.
 UNWRITTEN, FEELING
 CULTIVATE
 CLOSE OPEN-ENDED CONTEXT
 Routines
 MUNDANE AS WELL AS DISTINCT
CULTURE AS MEANINGFUL
ACTION: SILVERMAN
 ORGNS. AS STRUCTURES OF ACTION
 Explanations of human action must take
account of the meanings which those
concerned assign to their acts.
 DRAMA
 SOME DECIDE THE LEGITIMATE
 Larger Context has a Significant Role
 Source of meaning
 Consensus is Crucial
LEVELS OF ORGN. CULTURE
 OBSERVABLE
 Symbols: setting, dress
 Rites and Ceremonies
 Stories
 Language: slogans
 UNDERLYING
 Values, Beliefs and Assumptions
 Attitudes and Feelings
FUNCTIONS OF CULTURE
 HOMOGENISING
 Subtle Glue
 LEAVE THINGS FOR THE OPERATIONAL
UNITS
 SERVICE SECTOR
INSTITUTIONALSING AND
PERPETUATING CULTURE
 LEADERSHIP
 SOCIALISATION
 HR POLICIES
 ORGANIC STRUCTURES
TOYOTA
 Problems will inevitably arise that
cannot be anticipated
 Complex subtle interactions among people,
process, products, places
 Problems would become evident close
to their occurrence and quickly
addressed
 Focus on teamwork
SOCIALISATION OF SMITH AT
TOYOTA
 Smith had managed 2000 people in an
overseas plant of the big three.
 Orientation – more like 3-month
apprenticeship
 Help a group of 19 improve their productivity,
 Changes like relocating a m/c switch
 Japan: target for problem solving and
experimenting
DYSFUNCTIONS
 INWARD LOOKING
 INFLEXIBLE
 OPPRESSIVE
ENGINEERING CULTURE by
Gideon Kunda
 Ethnographic study of Tech’s culture
 Symbolic rewards
 Normative control
 Culture replaces structure at Tech, orgn.
charts are hard to make
 Embed control inside members
 “the new man wants your soul”
CUTURE PROVIDES
IDEOLOGY
 ‘I LOVE TECH’
 Managerial authority as ideology
 Catch phrases, abstract principles,
expectations
 Social attributes of co. and member role
 200 newsletters
 “this shit is everywhere”
RITUALS
 Rule governed activity of a symbolic
nature
 Mechanism of normative control
 Face to face interaction
 Meetings, discussions, training camps,
seminars
 “you have to do a lot of bull shitting in
groups”
CULTURE’S CONSEQUENCES
 Agents of control are everywhere
 Symbolic power – subtle control
 Mgmt. sets the stage, provides the
rhetoric, and reserves the right to the
final word in these interpretive
struggles
 Polarisation of central and marginal
members
CONSEQUENCES CONTD.
 Higher status at the cost of loss of autonomy
and increasing normative control
 Induce people to become at first they merely
sought to appear
 “Deep acting”
 “Corpn. does not necessarily capture the soul,
but systematically undermines its foundation”
 Tyranny of the mind and heart versus tyranny
of the body
REFERENCES
 Jones, Chapter 5
 Schein, 1996 Culture… ASQ, 41, 229-40
 Peters & Waterman, In search of
excellence.
 Trice & Beyer, 1984 Studying orgn.
culture. AMR, 9, 653-669.
 Ouchi, W 1980 Mkts., bureaucracies
and clans. ASQ, 25, 129-41.