The Organizational Culture Perspective

(J. Steven Ott)

Organizational culture is like air. It cannot be touched, felt or seen.

Organizational Culture Perspective

The Essence and Functions of

Organizational Culture

Signs that connote meanings greater than themselves and express much more than their intrinsic content. (Example: word, phrase, policy, logo, flag, building, office, seating arrangement, etc.)

11. Symbols

2. Artifacts

Material and nonmaterial objects and patterns that intentionally or unintentionally communicate information about the organization’s technology, beliefs, values, assumptions and ways of doing things. (Example: annual reports, internal memos, brochures, jargon, acronyms, metaphors, stories, jokes, myths, heroes, ceremonies and celebrations)

Lee Iacocca

Routinized activities which cause members to continue to do things, such as rites, rituals, and behavioral norms, which through repetition communicate information about the organization’s technology, beliefs, values, assumptions and ways of doing things. (Example: management practices as holding staff meetings, training, conducting performance reviews, etc.)

3. Patterns of Behavior

Beliefs are consciously held, cognitive (mental) views about truth and reality. Values are conscious, affective (emotion-laden) desires or wants. (Example: Ethical and moral codes, ideologies)

4. Beliefs and Values

Quality

Commitment

HardWork

Comprehensive, potent, but out-of-conscious system of beliefs, perceptions and values. (Example: view of customers, competitors, openness to technology)

5. Basic Underlying Assumptions

Lee IacoccaA Transformational Leader

Organizational Culture: Concepts, Definitions and a Typology

Culture is a Concept not a Thing

It is created in peoples’ minds – it must be conjured up, defined and refined. There is no final authoritative source or experiment to settle

disagreements about it is and what comprises it.

Culture is not something an Organization has….

Culture is something an Organization is.

Culture as a Puzzle

Organizational Culture is not just another piece of the puzzle, it is the puzzle. (Pacanowsky & O’Donnell-Trijillo, 1983)

It is also a DYNAMIC process – a social construction that is undergoing continual reconstruction.

Culture is not just Structural Elements

Level 1AArtifacts

Level 1 BPatterns of

Behavior

Level 2: Values

Level 3: Basic Assumptions

Schein’s three level model provides the most useful TYPOLOGY published to date for classifying elements of Organizational Culture into usable groupings. Separating Level 1 into Level 1A (artifacts) and Level 1B (patterns of behavior) appears to make it even more useful.

A Typology

Social force that controls patterns of organizational behavior by shaping members’ cognitions and perceptions of meanings and realities, providing affective energy for mobilization, and identifying who belongs and who does not.

A Functional Definition for Culture..

Culture provides shared patterns of cognitive interpretations or perceptions, so team members know how they are expected to act and think.

Culture provides shared patterns of affect, an emotional sense of involvement and commitment to organizational values and moral codes, so team members know what they are expected to value and how they are expected to think.

Culture defines and maintains boundaries, allowing identification of members and non-members.

Culture functions as an organizational control system, prescribing and prohibiting certain behaviors.

Origins, Development, and Perpetuation of

Organizational Culture

Broader Societal Culture

Nature of the

Business or

Business Environme

nt

The Impacts

of Founder(s

)

Origins or Sources of Organizational Culture

Every organizational culture is the unique result of a composite blending of these three sources. They are not independent of each other.

Organizational Cultures tend to be quite STABLE, they do not remain STATIC

Organizational Cultures have DEEP ROOTS

.. and they develop over long periods of

time through complex individual

and group mechanisms.

How Culture Tends to Perpetuate Itself

Vijay Sathe’s Six Step Model

CULTURE

4. BEHAVIOR

5. JUSTIFICATION OF BEHAVIOR

6. CULTURALCOMMUNICATIONS

1. Pre-selection and hiring of new members

2. Socialization of Members

3. Removal of Members who

Deviate