Unit 6.

Organizational Culture
 After finishing this unit, students will be able to do the
following:

Learning ▪ Identify different elements of organizational culture

▪ Identify strategies to change and strengthen
objectives organizational culture
▪ Analyze organizational culture of a hotel in a case study
 ▪ Work in groups of 5. Fill in the blank with the correct
terminology.

Warm-up ▪ Link Quizizz:

https://quizizz.com/admin/quiz/62616dc2dad2ef001e1
c2b16
 ▪ Organizational culture consists of the values and
assumptions shared within an organization.
Organizational culture directs everyone in the
organization toward the “right way” of doing things.
I. Introduction to
▪ The figure below illustrates how these shared values and
Organizational Culture assumptions relate to each other and are associated with
artifacts, which we discuss later in this chapter.
Mini-lecture
Organizational Culture,
Assumptions, Values,
and Artifacts
 ▪ Values are stable, evaluative beliefs that guide our
preferences for outcomes or courses of action in a variety
of situations.
▪ Shared values are values that people within the
organization or work unit have in common and place near
1. Shared values the top of their hierarch y of values.
▪ Espoused values represent the values people say they
use and, in many cases, think they use even if they don’t.
▪ Enacted values, on the other hand, represent the values
people actually rely on to guide their decisions and actions.
 ▪ Assumptions are unconscious perceptions or beliefs that
have worked so well in the past that they are considered
the correct way to think and act toward problems and
opportunities.
2. Shared assumptions ▪ Along with being the deepest part of organizational
culture, shared assumptions are the most difficult to
change.
 ▪ Organizations differ in their cultural content—that is, the
relative ordering of values and assumptions.
▪ Some writers and consultants have attempted to classify
organizational cultures into several categories.
▪ One of these models claims that there are seven corporate
3. Content of cultures in the world: attention to detail, outcome
Organizational Culture orientation, people orientation, team orientation,
aggressiveness, stability, and innovation and risk taking.
▪ Another organizational culture model identifies eight
cultures organized around a circle, indicating that some
cultures are opposite to each other .
 ▪ When discussing organizational culture, we are actually
referring to the dominant culture: the values and
assumptions shared most widely by people throughout
the organization.
▪ However, organizations also have subcultures located
throughout their various divisions, geographic regions,
4. Organizational subculture
and occupational groups. Some subcultures enhance the
dominant culture by espousing parallel assumptions,
values, and beliefs.
▪ Other subcultures are called countercultures because
they directly oppose the organization’s core values.
 ▪ Organizational culture needs to be deciphered through
II. Deciphering an artifacts. Artifacts are the observable symbols and signs
of an organization’s culture, such as the way visitors are
Organization’s Culture
greeted, the physical layout, and how employees are
rewarded.
 ▪ Stories are important artifacts because they personalize
the culture and generate emotions that help people
remember lessons within these stories.
▪ Stories have the greatest effect at communicating
1. Organizational corporate culture when they describe real people, are
stories and legends assumed to be true, and are remembered by employees
throughout the organization.

▪ Stories are also prescriptive—they advise people what to

do or not to do.
 ▪ Rituals are the programmed routines of daily
organizational life that dramatize an organization’s
culture.

2. Rituals and ▪ Ceremonies are planned activities conducted specifically

for the benefit of an audience, such as publicly rewarding
ceremonies (or punishing) employees or celebrating the launch of a
new product or newly won contract.
 ▪ The language of the workplace speaks volumes about the
company’s culture. How employees address coworkers,
describe customers, express anger, and greet
3. Organizational language stakeholders are all verbal symbols of cultural values.
 ▪ The size, shape, location, and age of buildings might
suggest the company’s emphasis on teamwork,
environmental friendliness, flexibility, or any other set of
values.
▪ Desks, chairs, office space, and wall hangings (or lack of
4. Physical structure them) are just a few of the items that might convey
and decor cultural meaning.

▪ Each of these artifacts alone might not say much, but

enough of them together make the company’s culture
easier to decipher.
 ▪ Work in groups of 5.
Discussion ▪ Identify the artifacts in case study.
 ▪ At Regent Hotel, there are weekly and monthly meetings
ensure staff are informed of important events, decisions,
and changes. Staff can also express their ideas and
participate in the decision-making process. -> rituals
▪ At Regent Hotel, staff who exceed expectations in some
Read the case study aspect of guest service are rewarded with formal
about Regent Hotel and recognition of their outstanding performance in front of
their peers. These policies are extremely motivating and
find artifacts that they serve to remind staff to not only respect
represent this hotel’s organizational culture but also actively demonstrate
organizational culutre commitment to the expoused features of the
organizational culture at Regent Hotel. -> ceremonies
▪ To reinfoce the ideal of a satisfied guest at Regent Hotel,
managers often share experience of how to impress
famous guests and share the hotel’s innovations. -> stories
 ▪ Corporate culture strength refers to how widely and
deeply employees hold the company’s dominant values
and assumptions.
▪ A strong corporate culture potentially increases the
company’s success by serving three important functions:
▪ Control system: As a control system, culture is pervasive
III. Importance of and operates unconsciously.
Organizational Culture ▪ Social glue: Organizational culture is the “social glue” that
bonds people together and makes them feel part of the
organizational experience.
▪ Sense making: Organizational culture helps employees
understand what goes on and why things happen in the
company.
 ▪ A strong culture increases or ganizational performance
only when the cultural content is appropriate for the
organization’s environment.
1. Organizational culture
▪ Culture content refers to the relative ordering of values
strength and fit and assumptions.
Organizational Culture
and Performance
 ▪ An adaptive culture exists when employees focus on the
changing needs of customers and other stakeholders and
support initiatives to keep pace with these changes.
▪ Elements of an adaptive cultures:
▪ Adaptive cultures have an external focus.
2. Adaptive cultures ▪ Employees in adaptive cultures pay attention to both
organizational processes and organizational goals.
▪ Employees in adaptive cultures have a strong sense of
ownership.
▪ Adaptive cultures are proactive and quick.
 ▪ An organization’s culture influences more than just the
bottom line; it can also potentially influence its ethical
conduct. This makes sense because good behavior is
3. Organizational culture driven by ethical values. An organization can guide the
and business ethics conduct of its employees by embedding ethical values in
its dominant culture.
 IV. How to ▪ Can managers change an organization’s culture? Yes, but
it isn’t easy, it rarely occurs quickly, and often the culture
Change and Strengthen
ends up changing managers.
Organizational Culture
 Strategies to change and strengthen organizational culture

1. Actions of
founders and
leaders
 ▪ Artifacts represent more than just the visible indicators of
a company’s culture. They are also mechanisms that
keep the culture in place. Thus by altering these
2. Aligning artifacts artifacts—or creating new ones—managers can
potentially adjust organizational culture.
 ▪ Reward systems are artifacts that often have a powerful
influence on steering an organization’s culture.
▪ From the managers’ point of view, a reward system is
aimed to shape the behaviours of employees towards
3. Introducing their jobs and a company in general.
culturally consistent ▪ Rewards are given to those employees who meet or more
rewards often exceed expectations of the management, thus,
being a tool of motivation, attraction and retention of
qualified workforce.
 ▪ Along with selecting people with compatible values,
companies maintain strong cultures through the process
of organizational socialization: the process by which
4. Selecting and
individuals learn the values, expected behaviors, and
socializing employees social knowledge necessary to assume their roles in the
organization.
 ▪ Work in groups of 5.
Discussion ▪ Answer the following question.
 ▪ Actions of founders and leaders
▪ Selecting and socializing employees
Name 4 strategies to
▪ Culturally consistent rewards
change and strengthen
organizational culture? ▪ Aligning artifacts
 ▪ Along with changing and strengthening an organization’s
culture, managers need to keep a watchful eye on culture
throughout the process of mergers and acquisitions.

V. Managing ▪ Organizational leaders can minimize such cultural

Organizational Culture collisions and fulfill their duty of due diligence by
conducting a bicultural audit. A bicultural audit
through Mergers
diagnoses cultural relations between companies and
determines the extent to which cultural clashes will likely
occur.
 ▪ Assimilation. Assimilation occurs when employees at the
acquired company willingly embrace the cultural values of
the acquiring or ganization.
▪ Deculturation. Employees usually resist organizational
change, particularly when they are asked to throw away
organizational values that were similar to their personal
values. Instead acquiring companies often apply a
1. Strategies to Merge deculturation strategy by imposing their culture and
Different business practices on the acquired organization.
Organizational Culture ▪ Integration. A third strategy is to combine the cultures
into a new composite culture that preserves the best
features of the pre vious cultures.
▪ Separation. A separation strategy occurs when the
merging companies agree to remain distinct entities with
minimal exchange of culture or organizational practices.
 Strategies
for merging different
organizational cultures