Building relationships in the workplace

An organization’s culture is made up of all of the life experiences each employee brings to the organization.A great deal of literature has been generated over the past decade about the

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT 4

INTRODUCTION 6

CULTURE INPUTS 6

Expectations for member behavior 6

Espoused values and group norms 7

Formal Philosophy 7

Goals 7

CULTURE OUTPUTS 8

Observed behavior 8

Metaphors or symbols 8

Climate 8

CULTURE PROCESS 9

Basic Assumptions 9

DEFINING ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE 10

SUBSYSTEMS & SUBCULTURES 13

O RGANIZATIONAL C ULTURE AS A S YNTHESIS OF S UBCULTURES 14

D IFFERENTIATION 14

Functional Differentiation 14

Geographical Differentiation 15

Differentiation by Product, Market, or Technology 15

Differentiation by Hierarchical Level 15

Mergers and Acquisitions 15

Joint Ventures, Strategic Alliances, and Other Multiorganizational Enterprises 15

Structural Opposition Groups 16

T HE S YMBIOSIS BETWEEN THE O RGANIZATION ’ S OVERALL C ULTURE AND ITS S UBCULTURE .17

C ULTURAL F ORMS AS L INKING M ECHANISMS 18

CULTURE STRUCTURAL STABILITY 19

I NTEGRATION .19

Common Language .19

Groups Boundaries .20

Distribution of Power and Status 20

Norms of intimacy, friendship and love 20

Developing Rules .20

Allocating Reward and Punishment .20

Ideology and Religion .20

CULTURAL DIVERSITY 21

TYPE OF CULTURE 23

T HE T OUGH -G UY M ACHO C ULTURE 23

T HE W ORK H ARD /P LAY H ARD C ULTURE 23

T HE B ET C OMPANY C ULTURE .23

T HE P ROCESS C ULTURE .23

A CADEMY C ULTURE 24

B ASEBALL T EAM C ULTURE 24

C LUB C ULTURE .24

F ORTRESS C ULTURE .24

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P OWER C ULTURE .25

R OLE C ULTURE .25

T ASK C ULTURE .25

P ERSON C ULTURE .25

CULTURE VARIATION 26

C ATEGORIZATION 26

C OGNITIVE F RAMES .27

P ATTERNS OF A CTIONS .27

CULTURAL ENGINEERING 28

CULTURE-EMBEDDING MECHANISMS 30

P RIMARY E MBEDDING M ECHANISMS .30

Control and Info Systems .30

Reactions to crises .31

Resource Allocation 31

Teaching and Coaching 31

Reward and Incentive systems .31

Recruitment & Selection .32

S ECONDARY R EINFORCEMENT M ECHANISM 33

Organization Design and Structure 33

Organizational Systems and Procedures .33

Rites and Rituals .34

Design of Physical Space .34

Stories .34

Formal Statements .34

RECRUITMENT 35

R EALISTIC JOB PREVIEW .36

E MPLOYER BRANDING .36

R ECRUITMENT E FFECTIVENESS 37

C ORPORATE C ULTURE : T HE F OURTH D IMENSION OF R ECRUITING .40

Competencies .40

Recruiting .40

Selection .41

STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT 42

DYNAMICS OF CULTURE CHANGE 44

T HE PROCESS OF CULTURE CHANGE 44

ASSESSING INDIVIDUAL PERSONALITY .46

P ERSONALITY .47

Social Styles .47

Interpersonal Relations Orientation (FIRO) 47

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) 48

Big Five .49

IPIP-NEO Personality Test .49

Extroversion .49

Agreeableness 50

Conscientiousness 50

Neuroticism 50

Openness to Experience 50

M OTIVES .51

P ARTICIPATION AND I NVOLVEMENT .52

ASSESSING ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE 53

I NVENTORIES .53

VisionM Culture Monitor .53

Integrated Cultural Framework (ICF) 53

T HE CULTURAL MATCH FACTOR .55

BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS IN THE WORKPLACE 56

Network of Conversations .56

Levels of Conversation 57

Conversation Management .58

C HARACTERS IN C ORPORATE C ULTURE .59

The Hero 59

The Outlaw 60

The Storyteller 60

The Gossip 60

The Confessor 60

The Whisperer 60

The Toxic Handler 61

G OSSIP 62

C OACHING 63

C ONVERSATIONS AS A T OOL FOR I NFLUENCING O RGANIZATIONAL C ULTURE .64

PSYCHOLOGICALLY HEALTHY WORKPLACES .65

STRESS .65

The design of tasks .66

Management style .67

Interpersonal Relationships .67

Work Roles 67

Career Concerns 67

Environmental Conditions .67

Stress, Health, and Productivity .67

MOBBING .69

Definition .69

The Mobbing Syndrome 70

Power 71

Personality Types 72

Gender 73

Workplace culture 74

P SYCHOLOGICALLY H EALTHY W ORKPLACE A WARDS (PHWA) 75

Employee Involvement .75

Work-Life Balance .76

Employee Growth and Development .76

Health and Safety .76

Employee Recognition 76

CONCLUSIONS 77

REFERENCES 79

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ABSTRACT

People in every workplace talk about organizational culture, that mysterious word that characterizes

a work environment One of the key questions and assessments, when employers interview a prospective employee, explores whether the candidate is a good “cultural fit.” Culture is difficult to define, but you generally know when you have found an employee who appears to fit your culture Culture is the environment that surrounds you at work all of the time and a powerful element that shapes your work enjoyment, your work relationships, and your work processes But, culture is something that you cannot actually see, except through its physical manifestations in your work place In many ways, culture is like personality In a person, the personality is made up of the values, beliefs, underlying assumptions, interests, experiences, upbringing, and habits that create a person’s behaviour Culture is made up of the values, beliefs, underlying assumptions, attitudes, rules and behaviours shared by a group of people An organization’s culture is made up of all of the life experiences each employee brings to the organization.A great deal of literature has been

generated over the past decade about the concept of organizational culture, particularly in regard to learning how to change it Organizational change often fails because of lack of understanding about the strong role culture plays in organizations That's one of the reasons that many strategic planners now place as much emphasis on identifying strategic values as they do on mission and vision

This book addresses the relationship between individual personality, relationships built in the workplace, and organizational culture Specifically, it explores the attempts individuals make to change the culture of their organizations to fit their own personality preferences and the efforts companies can make to facilitate psychologically healthy relationships in the workplace

Contemporary definitions of culture, culture-embedding mechanisms, mechanisms for categorizing individual personality types, efforts of individuals to change their organization's culture, dynamics of change and strategic management are presented as well as an analyses of the relationship between individual personality, relationship dynamics in the workplace, social network and organizational culture The proposition here explored is that there are theoretical and empirical reasons to believe that individuals attempt to (and sometimes manage to) shape the culture of their organizations to fit their personal preferences Motives for individuals to shape organizational culture through building relationships in the workplace will be explored as well as the reasons people are attracted to join, or motivated to leave organizations Contemporary attempts to define personality and culture with special emphasis on linkages between these two concepts will also be

briefly presented The nature and extent of these linkages will identify opportunities for individuals

to shape organizational cultures

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INTRODUCTION

Basically, organizational culture is the personality of the organization Culture is comprised of the assumptions, values, norms and tangible signs (artifacts) of organization members and their behaviors Culture is multidimensional, multifaceted and reflects group's efforts to cope and learn It can be looked at as a system with inputs, that include stories, heroes and so on, and outputs (or effects) like organizational behaviours, technologies, strategies, image, products, services, appearance The process is based on assumptions, values and norms and rules

Somehow culture defines us: what we pay attention to, what things mean to us, what we react to emotionally, what actions we take and when The b enefits of considering organizational

culture include providing insight of organizational change management, extending knowledge and monitoring capabilities, facilitating new energy in an otherwise ‘static’ environment, facilitating the integration of new members, enhancing employees understanding of organizational values, assessing organizational adaptability, and managing diversity Consequently, the concept of culture becomes particularly important when attempting to manage organization-wide change Practitioners are coming to realize that, despite the best-laid plans, organizational change must include not only changing structures and processes, but also changing the corporate culture as well

CULTURE INPUTS

According to the literature, the key dimension of culture and its evaluative essential elements involve social expectations and standards, the values and beliefs that people hold central and that bind organizational groups

Expectations for member behavior

Because organizations are social organism and not mechanism, the whole is present in the part so symbolic events become microcosm of the whole Culture is rooted deep in unconscious sources but it is represented in superficial practices and behavior codes Culture is holistic and refers to the essence, the reality of the organization How people deal with each other and what behaviors are expected

Espoused values and group norms

The beliefs that lie at the heart of the corporative culture are usually published and publicly announced values

Initially started by founder and leaders, only those values that prevail influence the group, and first become shared values, then share assumptions The organization’s heroes are the people who embody these values In organizations all group learning reflects the original values, and the social validation of those values happens with shared learning

Formal Philosophy

The Mission and the Strategy of the Organization are its formal philosophy Culture exists when members share both the identity and the mission Each new group must therefore develop shared concepts to survive When the mission is reached then culture has developed Consequently, culture is unifying and binds the organization together

CULTURE OUTPUTS

Culture is also a set of more material elements or artifacts These are the signs and symbols that the organization is recognized by They are also the events, behaviors and people that embody culture Culture is socially constructed and reflects meanings that are constituted in interaction and that form commonly accepted definitions of the situation

Observed behavior

Language, customs, traditions, behavior patterns, rituals, "shop talk" (that is, typical language used in and about the group) represent routines of interaction that have strong symbolic

of the group A symbol stands for something more than itself but it is invested with meaning by people and express form of understanding that derives from past collective experiences The sociological view is that organizations exist in the mind of the members and stories about the culture show how it act as a sense-making device

Climate

The feelings evoked by the way members interact with each other, with outsiders, and with their environment, including the physical space they occupy make up the climate of group in interaction

CULTURE PROCESS

The medium of culture is social interaction, the web of communications that constitute a community Having a shared language is particularly important for expressing and signifying a distinctive organizational culture, but the informal communication system is important as well

The Culture of an Organization begins with the impact of founders as leaders but springs from three different sources: beliefs, values, and assumptions of founders; learning experiences of group members; new beliefs, values, and assumptions brought by new members The impact of

founder is the most important because organizations do not form spontaneously or accidentally The

process of culture formation is ,in fact, the process of creating a small group A single person (the founder) has an idea, he brings in one or more people and creates core group: they share the vision and believe in the risk This founding group act in concert, then others are brought in and the organization’s history begins

Basic Assumptions

Basic Assumptions evolve as solutions to problems repeated over and over again Hypothesis becomes reality and learning something new requires resurrection, reexamination, and frame breaking According to McGregor if people are treated consistently in terms of certain basic assumptions, they come eventually to behave according to those assumptions in order to make their world stable and predictable Different cultures make different assumptions about themselves and others based on own values Consequently, each new member comes into the organization with his

or her own assumptions

DEFINING ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

In the past 25 years, the concept of organizational culture has gained wide acceptance as a way to understand human systems From an "open-systems" perspective, each aspect of organizational culture can be seen as an important environmental condition affecting the system and its subsystems The examination of organizational culture is, therefore, also a valuable analytical tool for understanding relationships dynamics

This way of looking at organizations borrows heavily from anthropology and sociology and uses many of the same terms to define the building blocks of culture Edgar Schein (1993), one of the most prominent theorists of organizational culture, gave the following very general definition:

A pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its

problems of external adaptation and internal integration, which has worked well

enough to be considered valid and therefore, to be taught to new members as the

correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems (Schein, pp

373-374)

As groups evolve over time, they face two basic challenges: integrating individuals into an effective whole, and adapting effectively to the external environment in order to survive As groups find solutions to these problems over time, they engage in a kind of collective learning that creates the set of shared assumptions and beliefs called "culture."

Gareth Morgan (1997) describes culture as "an active living phenomenon through which people jointly creates and recreates the worlds in which they live." For Morgan, the three basic questions for cultural analysts are: what are the shared frames of reference that make organization possible?

This sampling of definitions represents the two major camps that exist in the study of organizational culture and its "application strategies." The first camp views culture as implicit in social life Culture is what naturally emerges as individuals transform themselves into social groups

as tribes, communities, and ultimately, nations The second camp represents the view that culture is

an explicit social product arising from social interaction either as an intentional or unintentional consequence of behavior In other words, culture is comprised of distinct observable forms (e.g., language, use of symbols, ceremonies, customs, methods of problem solving, use of tools or technology, and design of work settings) that groups of people create through social interaction and use to confront the broader social environment (Wuthnow & Witten, 1988) This second view of culture is most relevant to the analysis and evaluation of organizational culture and to cultural change strategies that leaders can employ to improve organizational performance

O'Donovan (2006) has also created two new typologies of culture to meet the needs of business leaders who are looking to create a service culture, a culture of ethics or a culture of learning and innovation The first typology employs a systems perspective, to demonstrate how the dual forces of tradition and innovation coexist to create necessary friction This model provides a useful frame of reference for those seeking to create a service culture or a culture of learning and

innovation The second typology employs a moral perspective, to demonstrate the role of principles and values in organizational culture From this typology three distinct cultures emerge a culture of ethics, a black and white culture and a shades of gray culture One of the strongest and widely recognized criticisms of theories that attempt to categorize organizational culture is the one put forward by Linda Smirchich (1987) She uses the metaphor of a plant root to represent culture, describing that it drives organizations rather than vice versa Organizations are the product of organizational culture, we are unaware of how it shapes behavior and interaction and so we cannot categorize it and define what it is

Culture is clearly not something that an organization does but an organization is Drawing

upon anthropological studies of different cultures, this perspective emphasized the role that culture

played in shaping social reality Culture, in this view, consists not only of narratives and rituals but also of practices the routine, taken-for-granted activities that comprise the bulk of everyday life

Culture, in this sense, is the "enactment of a shared reality" (Morgan, 1997, p 141) Corporate culture seen this way is not limited to the "mission statements," "corporate credos," and other slogans issued in attempts at cultural engineering; it also includes the daily practices of

organizational life According to Edgar Schein, cultural analysis is especially valuable for dealing

with aspects of organizations that seem irrational, frustrating, and intractable He writes, "The bottom line for leaders is that if they do not become conscious of the cultures in which they are embedded, those cultures will manage them." (Schein, p 375) Using open-systems concepts, we

know that members of a group culture may also belong to subcultures within an organization Since

organizations do have a shared history, there will normally be at least a few values or assumptions common to the system as a whole But sometimes, the subcultures have had different experiences over time, and their group learning has produced very different sets of basic assumptions

SUBSYSTEMS & SUBCULTURES

When a work culture is strong, most people in the group agree on the culture When a work culture is weak, people do not agree Sometimes a weak organizational culture can be the result of many subcultures, or the shared values, assumptions, and behaviours of a subset of the organization Each department or work cell may have its own culture Within departments, the staff and managers may each have their own culture A work culture is often interpreted differently by diverse employees as other events in people’s lives affect how they act and interact at work too Although

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an organization has a common culture, each person may see that culture from a different perspective Additionally, employees’ individual work experiences, departments, and teams may view the culture differently

Organization members interpret the behaviour and language of others through their own

cultural biases Each member’s (or subsystem’s) set of beliefs, values, and assumptions becomes

their unquestioned "reality"; they then perceive behaviour inconsistent with their own biases as irrational, or even malevolent The organizational culture model suggests reinterpreting such conflict as a product of different sets of experiences Instead of looking at conflict as "right" versus

"wrong," this approach suggests that subsystems examine the assumptions underlying their behaviour, honour the experiences and learning that led to those assumptions, and then investigate

whether those assumptions still work well in the present In contrast with "single-loop" learning, or the process of solving problems based on an existing set of assumptions, double-loop learning, a

term coined by Chris Argyris (1993) of National Training Laboratories in Washington D.C., also involves becoming aware of a group’s underlying assumption set and continually inquiring whether

it is still useful for the task at hand Because culture is so deeply rooted in an organization’s history and collective experience, working to change it requires a major investment of time and resources Help from a change agent outside the system is often advisable Without such help, it is difficult for insiders to view their "reality" as something they’ve constructed, and to see meaning in things they normally take for granted

Organizational Culture as a Synthesis of Subcultures

Sociologists Gary Fine and Sherryl Kleinman (1979) discuss how distinct societies are composites of interacting subcultures rather than a single overarching culture Organizations consist

of subgroups that have specific characteristics and a sense of identification Within organizations, people can easily classify themselves and others into various social categories or groups based on identification with their primary work group, occupational or professional skills, union membership,

or age cohort (Ouchi 1980, and Ashforth and Mael 1989) Subgroups in organizations can and do create subcultures that comprise specific networks of meaning; yet, at the same time, they remain associated with the ideologies and values of the organization's leadership A closer examination of

each subculture may reveal greater cultural differentiation among occupational specialities,

specific units within the service, and between line and staff personnel Yet all of these subcultures

adhere to the core ideologies, values and norms of the organization

Differentiation

The major Bases of Differentiation identified by researchers: Functional (occupational),

Geographical (decentralization), Differentiation (by product, market, or technology), Differentiation

by hierarchical level Mergers and acquisitions, Joint ventures , strategic alliances, organizational units and Structural opposition groups

multi-Functional Differentiation

Subcultures are a product of culture by the function: production hires people in manufacturing, finance hires accountants Each function is a blend of founder and occupational function According to Douglas "thought words" functions have own nomenclature that makes interaction tough sometimes With the growth of the organization, subcultures become stable and well articulated so teaching culture to new members becomes harder and creates problems often based on communications gaps

Geographical Differentiation

Subcultures are created by breaking members of the organization into several geographical units This choice is logic for the organization, as it needs to get near customers and their needs are different, to take advantage of local labor costs, to save cost on being near raw material, to use local market Unfortunately geographic subcultures adopt local culture and as they mature they may take over functions breaking down the communications between host and unit

Differentiation by Product, Market, or Technology

In this case technology creates a change as the organization matures, in the product, the customers and the market

Differentiation by Hierarchical Level

In large organization becomes hard to coordinate large numbers of people One of the solutions adopted is to create more layers in bureaucracy but each isolated teams may develop his own subculture and making decisions becomes more complex This type of differentiation is defined by the task to be done, consequently top-management cultures are similar in structure

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Mergers and Acquisitions

Culture and subculture are crucial in the case of organizational mergers and acquisitions Although in merger there is a blending, while in acquisition the smaller becomes subculture, both

present a problem of no shared history This creates a cultural mismatch, and cultural risks which

are rarely understood and checked because organization are rarely aware of their own culture and the other’s culture

Joint Ventures, Strategic Alliances, and Other Multi organizational Enterprises

In this cases culture issues can cause failure as the ignorance of another culture may results

in crisis and each party may feel inappropriate to bring their feelings out in the open

Structural Opposition Groups

Opposition subgroups develop as opposing to other groups Some groups are deliberately counter cultural, like unions, but other form from racial, gender, an other informal groups

Numerous studies of organizational culture have highlighted that the formation and maintenance of culture requires interpersonal interaction within subgroups According to Louis, Posner, and Powell (1983), interaction is important for the acculturation of newcomers Research conducted by John VanMaanan and Steven Barley (1984) showed that the content of this interaction

is behavioural and cognitive in nature During initial interactions with newcomers, the established community transmits to new members those shared occupational practices (including norms and roles), values, vocabularies and identities, all examples of the explicit social products that are indicative of culture in organizations These findings were reinforced by Sonja Sackmann's (1992) research on subcultures in a medium sized conglomerate in the United States She found that subcultures formed on the basis of functional domains; principally in their biased knowledge of events in the organization, in their biased explanations of cause and effect relationships, and in their patterns of behaviour The conglomerate's production division she studied consisted of three subcultures: electronics production, shop floor production, and product inspection Sackmann (1992) reported:

Each subgroup was influenced by the nature of its particular work This "local" orientation also differentiated each group from the others All three groupings clearly distinguished between "we" and "them" This distinction was supported by my observations of them They

dressed differently, and they worked in distinctly different workspaces that were furnished differently They took separate breaks during the day, and the tone in which they interacted varied it its degree of roughness The electronics group talked about "job security," "a small company," and "health and dental insurance." The shop floor production group talked about "more work," "upgrade of assembly," and "being in control of the job." [Discussion] themes in the shop floor production group were oriented toward people, growth in the division/company, and strategy The inspection group mentioned an "expanded inspection department," "improvements in quality control," the "quality control system," or

"partnership." Some [other discussion] themes in the group were growth of the division/company and orientation toward people

Organizations do not, however, always have homogeneous subcultures The explicit social products produced by subcultures within organizations can be widely diverse and even result in counter- cultures Counter cultures can be dysfunctional and ultimately extinguished when they advocate a complete rejection of the dominant culture's ideology, values, and norms

The Symbiosis between the Organization’s overall Culture and its Subculture

Explaining this relationship between organizational culture and its subculture requires an understanding that cultures provide members with a reliable means to interpret a highly ambiguous environment It is the leader's responsibility to specify the features of the environment that are relevant to the organization and then provide the supporting assumptions and rationale for its operating strategies

According to Sackmann (1992), leaders should recognize that their cultural messages should specifically address cultural ambiguities associated with subculture practices within the organization, and limit their attempts to eliminate distinctions that are important to subculture's

identities In other words, leaders have a better chance of creating or transforming an organizational culture if they accept and foster productive organizational subcultures and consistently

communicate how employees must perform in order for the organization to achieve its objectives

Cultural change then relies on leaders' communication techniques that cross subcultural boundaries and carry messages about ideologies, values and norms that can be internalised by all employees Memos and vision statements cannot achieve all of these objectives Leaders, however,

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have a variety of sophisticated cultural communication techniques at their disposal to link subcultures to overarching cultural objectives of their organizations

Cultural Forms as Linking Mechanisms

Cultural forms function as the linking mechanism by which networks of understanding develop among employees (Trice, 1988) Cultural forms act as a medium for communicating ideologies, values, and norms and enable leaders to transmit messages about desirable culture to influence thinking and ways of behaving Cultural forms also address the emotional aspects of organizations that are commonly referred to as cohesion or camaraderie Janice Beyer and Harrison Trice (1984) say that: “cultural forms not only aid sense making through the meanings they convey; they also aid the sense making process through the emotional reassurances they provide that help people persist

in their coping efforts Forms provide a concrete anchoring point, even if the meaning they carry are vague and only imperfectly transmitted Also many cultural forms involve the expression of

emotion and, by this venting of emotions, help people to cope with stress” (p ) Cultural forms

that have longevity by their nature such as rites and ceremonies reaffirm the organization's core ideologies, values and norms

CULTURE STRUCTURAL STABILITY

Building an effective organization is a matter of meshing by encouraging evolution of common goals, common language, and common procedures with sensitivity to subcultures and attention to

integration both internally and externally Organizational culture implies structural stability and patterning and integration as groups must deal with survival, growth, and adaptation to the

environment through an internal and external integration that permits functioning and adapting

Integration

Literature states that every group must learn to be a group and that group must reach consensus for organizational culture to growth and change In fact, cultural dynamics are ultimately

a reflection of group dynamics, which can develop subgroups and are influenced by leadership This

statement must be considered with a degree of relativity: to society everything is a subgroup but in a company there is a macrocosm and all else under is a microcosm The major issues of internal integration concern: 1) a common language, 2) group boundaries for inclusion or exclusion, 3) distribution of power and status, 4) norms of intimacy, friendship, and love, 5) rewards and punishments, 6) ideology and religion

Common Language

Effective interpersonal communication among group members and successful communication with managers and employees external to the team are critical components of group functioning To function as group must have a common language Often conflict arises when two parties assume about the other without communicating Although the creators of the organizational culture also define the common language, a common understanding begins with categories of action, gesture, and speech

Groups Boundaries

Similarly, leaders may set the rules of inclusion and exclusion, but the group must reach a consensus of who is in an who is out and test the boundaries Organizations can have three dimensions: lateral movement (from one task to the next), vertical movement (from one rank to the next), and inclusionary (from outsider to insider) As the organization ages it becomes more complex, and individuals may belong to many levels and departments

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Distribution of Power and Status

In groups influence, power and authority can be allocated, earned or assigned

Norms of intimacy, friendship and love

Trust forms the foundation for effective communication, employee retention, and employee motivation and contribution of discretionary energy, the extra effort that people voluntarily invest in work When trust is present, everything else is easier At work demonstrating respect and treating people with dignity are simple, yet powerful actions

Developing Rules

Each group must decide how to deal with authority and with peer and use the model in new situations

Allocating Reward and Punishment

A system of sanctions for obeying and disobeying rules must be in place

Ideology and Religion

Can explaining the unexplainable when facing issues not under control

CULTURAL DIVERSITY

Ewert, Rice and Lauderdale (1995) indicate that cultural diversity affects organizations in several ways including the recruitment and retention of staff, management styles and decision- making processes, and relationships within organizations Organizations become more inclusive by altering aspects of their culture within each of these categories Culturally diverse staff often is isolated in otherwise homogeneous organizations Limited informal interaction with co-workers can lead to exclusion from key committees and decision-making groups potentially resulting in reduced productivity and effectiveness Such isolation can lead to employee dissatisfaction and higher turnover among staff from under-represented groups Staff from varied cultures reflects different learning styles and bring different preferred working styles to their jobs Sometimes managers consider such differences wrong or problematic, it seems the person exhibiting them just doesn't fit

in Recognizing, valuing and supporting these and other differences can maximize the productivity

of everyone in the workplace The concepts of “diversity” differ from "pluralism" Diversity is differences among people with respect to age, class, ethnicity, physical and mental ability, race, sexual orientation, spiritual practice, and other human attributes Pluralism is an organizational culture that incorporates mutual respect, acceptance, teamwork, and productivity among people who are diverse in the dimensions of human differences listed above as diversity While valuing differences and developing awareness are important, they are insufficient for creating the organizational changes that will truly support diversity and establish an organizational culture of pluralism Addressing diversity and pluralism issues requires a change in organizational culture and this might mean creating new rituals, creating rules, creating language The process of recruiting, selecting and supporting a more diverse staff is also required to create a new culture more inclusive

The staffing process includes three stages: (a) position development, (b) recruitment, and (c)

selection and support Each stage offers opportunities to change organizational culture During position development, staff and volunteers review the position vacancy considering current and future program priorities, identify essential job functions, and examine alternative staffing options The second stage, recruitment, includes developing and implementing an inclusive recruitment strategy that brings a diverse perspective and are supportive of diversity The final stage, selection and support, involves reviewing applications for the position, conducting interviews, making the offer, and designing an individualized orientation and development plan for the new employee

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TYPE OF CULTURE

There are different types of culture just like there are different types of personality Deal and Kennedy (2001) defined organizational culture as “the way things get done around here” and measured organizations in respect of: Feedback and Risk Quick feedback means an instant response This could be in monetary terms, but not only Risk represents the degree of uncertainty in the organizational activities Using these parameters, they were able to suggest four classifications of organizational culture:

The Tough-Guy Macho Culture

Feedback is quick and the rewards are high This often applies to fast moving financial activities such as brokerage, but could also apply to a police force, or athletes competing in team sports This can be a very stressful culture in which to operate

The Work Hard/Play Hard Culture

It’s characterized by few risks being taken, all with rapid feedback This is typical in large organizations, which strive for high quality customer service It is often characterized

by team meetings, jargon and buzzwords

The Bet Company Culture

Is where big stakes decisions are taken, but it may be years before the results are known Typically, these might involve development or exploration projects, which take years to come to fruition, such as oil prospecting or military aviation

The Process Culture

It occurs in organizations where there is little or no feedback People become bogged down with how things are done not with what is to be achieved This is often associated with bureaucracies While it is easy to criticize these cultures for being overly

cautious or bogged down, they do produce consistent results, which is ideal in public services

Similarly, researchers Barsade, Ward, Turner and Sonnenfeld (2000) identified the following four types of cultures: academy, baseball team, club, and fortress

Academy Culture

Employees are highly skilled and tend to stay in the organization, while working their way up the ranks The organization provides a stable environment in which employees can development and exercise their skills Examples are universities, hospitals and large corporations

Baseball Team Culture

Employees are "free agents" who have highly prized skills They are in high demand and can rather easily get jobs elsewhere This type of culture exists in fast-paced, high-risk organizations, such as investment banking and advertising

Club Culture

The most important requirement for employees in this culture is to fit into the group Usually employees start at the bottom and stay with the organization The organization promotes from within and highly values seniority Examples are the military or some law firms

Fortress Culture

Employees don't know if they'll be laid off or not These organizations often undergo massive reorganization There are many opportunities for those with timely, specialized skills Examples are savings and loans, or large car companies

Finally, Charles Handy(1985) popularized a method of looking at culture that some scholars have used to link organizational structure to Organizational Culture He describes four type of Culture:

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Power Culture

In a Power Culture, power is concentrates among a few Control radiates from the center like a web Power Cultures have few rules and little bureaucracy and swift decisions can ensue

Role Culture

In a Role Culture, people have clearly delegated authorities within a highly defined structure Typically, these organizations form hierarchical bureaucracies Power derives from a person's position and little scope exists for expert power

Task Culture

By contrast, in a Task Culture, teams are formed to solve particular problems Power derives from expertise as long as a team requires expertise These cultures often feature the multiple reporting lines of a matrix structure

Person Culture

A Person Culture exists where all individuals believe themselves superior to the organization Survival can become difficult for such organizations, since the concept of an organization suggests that a group of like-minded individuals pursue the organizational goals Some professional partnerships can operate as person cultures, because each partner brings a particular expertise and clientele to the firm

CULTURE VARIATION

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the notion of "organizational culture" gained some prominence among academics and management consultant-types as a means of both

explaining and controlling some aspects of organizational life As an explanation of

organizational behaviour and the behaviour of individuals within organizations, culture

enabled organizational theorists to explain the persistence of organizational practices and the stability of organizational routines in a way that rational models of organizations could not A concept of culture could also be used to explain change in organizations over time, as well as resistance to change Essentially, an organization's culture consists of a set of widely shared ideas and narratives and their associated social practices This culture shaped the way that organizational members behaved, and so it seemed reasonable to induce desired change in an organization by attempting to modify that set of widely shared ideas and narratives In other words, by shaping the stories organizational members told themselves about themselves and the organization, control could be exerted over the behaviour of those members

Initially, organizational research focused on cross-cultural comparisons like the difference between American and Japanese organizations In this view, "culture" referred to

the national culture in which an organization was embedded - the "contextualized

discourse" perspective of Conrad and Poole (1998) In a historical context where American

managers saw Japanese firms as highly competitive and successful rivals, such comparisons held a great deal of interest Triandis and Albert (1987) discuss the following major dimensions of cultural variation investigated in such cross-cultural comparisons:

Categorization

Different cultures utilized different cognitive schemata to organize and make

sense of an individual's environment, to classify people, actions, and objects, in

categories that vary in terms of breadth, level of abstraction, level of complexity,

and amount of interrelation

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Cognitive Frames

Different cultures place different amounts of emphasis on: people, ideas, or

action; values such as time-orientation, individualism vs collectivism and so forth;

process- versus goal-orientation; and patterns of information processing (associative

versus abstractive communication)

Patterns of Actions

Different cultures have different norms in terms of: the use of touch and gesture; physical distance and personal space; eye contact; body orientation as well as kinds of behaviour and the pace of life

"strong" cultures possessed a comparative advantage over those with "weak" or "absent" cultures To a certain extent, this perspective seems like an extension of the human relations perspective However, human relations viewed "job satisfaction" as central to productivity,

whereas a cultural perspective saw behavior as emerging from the articulation or

elaboration of elements of the corporate culture Members of organizations, rather than

being rational actors attempting to maximize utility, are participants in the cultural life of an organization who use the cultural forms provided to them by the organization in order to make sense of their activities and enact their belonging to the organization

This led to the notion that some form of cultural engineering could be performed in order

to influence the cohesion and unity of an organization Providing a "strong culture" was seen as a strategy that could be used as a means of exercising control and extending the influence of managers throughout the organization The strategy could be executed via the use of symbols and ceremonies that emphasized desired ideologies and eschewed undesired ones

Conrad and Poole (1998) emphasize that culture has two domains: the (1) narrative

domain, the metaphors and stories used to explain the organization to its members and to

provide exemplars of required and encouraged behaviour, and the (2) ritual domain, present

in the various communal activities in which members take part, and which serve to mark various status transitions within the organization

Framing these domains in terms of their contribution to a strategy of unobtrusive control,

Conrad and Poole point out that in addition to influencing individuals' cognitive behaviour

(their attitudes and beliefs), one effect of "cultural engineering" is the management of

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emotions what Hochschild (1983) calls "emotional labour." By demanding a type of

"deep acting" on the part of workers, especially those involved in service interactions,

organizations require employees to feel a particular way as part of their job The roles that

workers are thus required to enact serve as scripts that regulate emotional expression as well as the performance of job-related duties Hochschild (1983) also suggested that emotional labour has typically been a feature of stereotypically "female jobs."

CULTURE-EMBEDDING MECHANISMS

If under classical management the leader is primarily an administrator and under the human relations approach mainly a coach, then under the organizational culture perspective the leader is essentially a visionary

The leader's vision of what the organization should be, and the steps taken to enact that vision, create and sustain the cultural practices that are the organization The role of the leader becomes one of communicating a particular view of reality that shapes how his or her followers interpret their current situation, devise goals and the strategies with which to reach them, and regard their central or overriding purpose The leader's primary

qualification is his or her charisma, a hard-to-define quality that has something to do with

the leader's ability to inspire others to place their trust in and give their loyalty to him or her How can leaders become cultural change agents and create culture? How they get others to share their assumptions? Schein (1992) proposed two types of mechanisms used

by the leaders and founders to integrate their assumptions in the organizational culture and convey culture content to newcomers The Mechanisms used to embed in ongoing manner are called Primary The Secondary are more subtle, more ambiguous, more difficult to control, yet they can be powerful reinforcements of primary

Primary Embedding Mechanisms

Primary Embedding Mechanism, also called "climate" of the organization, include the following:

Control and Info Systems

Something as simple as what is emphasized or measured, over time, can have an effect on an organization's culture What leaders systematically pays attention to, measure and control, communicates major beliefs What the leaders notice, the comments they

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made, the casual questions and remarks, become powerful embedding mechanisms if the leaders are aware of it and are consistent Such consistency is more important than the intensity of the attention, and should focus on the kinds of questions that leaders ask, how they set the agendas for meetings, their emotional reactions, and what they do not react to

Reactions to crises

The way leaders react to crises says a lot about the organization's values, norms and culture Crises, by their nature, bring out the organization's underlying core values They heighten anxiety, which motivates new learning As crisis is what is perceived to be a crisis, and what is defined as crisis by leaders Crises are especially important in culture creation The creation of new norms, values, working procedures, reveals disconnects between actions and words, and actions always speak louder than words Additionally, a crisis also generates a great deal of emotional involvement on the part of those associated with the organization, particularly if the crisis threatens the organization's survival This increases the potential for either reinforcing the existing culture, or leading to a change in the culture Such a crisis can provide an opportunity for a leader to influence the organization's culture

in either a positive or a negative way

Resource Allocation

Observed Criteria for Resource Allocation like how budgets are created and what is acceptable as financial risk reveals leader's assumptions

Teaching and Coaching

The personal example of a strategic leader can send a powerful message to the members of an organization, particularly if it is ethical and consistent Reinforcing it with teaching and coaching will help others to internalise the desired values Through deliberate Role Modelling, Leaders own visible behaviour and informal messages became of great value for communicating assumptions and values to others within an organization One of the primary responsibilities of strategic leaders is to create and maintain the organizational characteristics that reward and encourage collective effort Perhaps the most fundamental of these is organizational culture Organizational cultures are created, maintained, or

transformed by people, but is also created and maintained by the organization's leadership

Reward and Incentive systems

The consequences of behavior, what behavior is rewarded and what is punished significantly influence culture If the organization reacts to new ideas by ridiculing the ideas and those who propose them, it won't take long before people believe that new ideas are not welcomed or desired Members learn from their own experience with promotions, performance appraisals, and discussions with the boss what behavior is rewarded or punished Observed criteria for allocation of rewards and status, the actual practice, not what is written or said, is a powerful message Culture is learned: if something is to be learned there must be a reward system setup to insure it People learn to perform certain behaviors through either the rewards or negative consequences that follow their behavior When a behavior is rewarded, it is repeated and the association eventually becomes part of the culture A simple thank you from an executive for work performed in a particular manner, molds the culture Culture is also learned through interaction Employees learn culture by interacting with other employees Most behaviors and rewards in organizations involve other employees Sub-cultures can also form through rewards when employees value rewards that are not associated with the behaviors desired by managers for the overall company and they get social rewards from coworkers or have their most important needs met in their departments or project teams

Recruitment & Selection

The outcome of the workforce strategic-planning process provides the organization with information as to how many employees and what types will be needed in the future One of the powerful ways of changing an organization's culture is through the type of people brought into, retained, and advanced in the organization Leaders should be able to establish a desired culture base in an organization by bringing in and advancing individuals with the values they want, and screening out those with undesired value bases The strategy of tightening up admissions standards to screen out undesirables works if the organization does not experience systemic problems If a strong culture bias exists, in fact,

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it may be too strong to be changed by selection alone An applicant experiences a sense of

an organization culture, and his or her fit within your culture, during the interview process Observed Criteria for recruitment, selection, Promotion, Retirement, and Excommunication are powerful messages in shaping organizational culture

Secondary Reinforcement Mechanism

The secondary mechanisms are sometimes labeled as organizational climate and they are a reflection and manifestation of cultural assumptions derived from the leaders These are cultural artifacts that are highly visible but hard to interpret They can become a powerful reinforcement of the primary mechanisms used by the leaders, if consistent with the primary mechanisms In young organizations design, structure, architecture, rituals,

stories, and formal statements are cultural reinforcers, not culture creators Once an

organization stabilizes, these reinforcers become primary and will represent the driving forces for next generation, that constrain future leaders

Organization Design and Structure

Reporting lines, hierarchies, and the way that work flows through the business make the organizational design and structure of the organization This structure can be a tight hierarchy, highly centralized or a more decentralized form that allows the negotiation

of solutions How stable the structure should be is variable: some organizations stick to the original setup, some constantly rework it As for the design, some organizations articulate it with awareness others don’t Both structure and design can be used to reinforce leaders assumptions

Organizational Systems and Procedures

A bulletin board content, the company newsletter, the interaction of employees in meetings, and the way in which people collaborate, speak about organizational culture

These routines are the most visible parts of daily life in organization Systems and procedures give consistency to organizational culture and formalize the process of "paying attention." They represent a kind of order group members seek Inconsistency, on the other hand, allows for the development of subcultures and impedes success A norm of accountability, in fact, help make an organization successful: a spectacular customer service sell products and engage employees while tolerating poor performance exhibit a lack of discipline to maintain established processes and systems

Rites and Rituals

Rites and rituals of the organization may be central in deciphering as well as communicating the cultural assumptions They can also be powerful reinforcers but usually they are only views of a limited portion of the organization

Design of Physical Space

Something as simple as the objects chosen to grace a desk tell a lot about how employees view and participate in their organization’s culture Physical Space are visible features that may convey the philosophy of the organization with symbolic purposes An open office means openness

Stories

As the history of the organization develops, stories about important events and people evolve and reinforce assumptions Unfortunately, leaders can't control stories about themselves and using stories to decipher the culture of the organizational has its validity problems

Formal Statements

Format statements of Organizational philosophy, creeds, and charters

only reflect what is available for public consumption They only highlight a small portion

of the assumptions of the organizations and cannot be viewed as definitions of the organization

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RECRUITMENT

Recruitment is the process of attracting qualified applicants for the organization to consider

when filling its positions Two strategic determinations must be made initially before the process begins

The first is whether the organizations want to do its own recruiting or to contract it out An outside vendor might be used for all recruiting or only for specified jobs Some organizations find that it is cost-effective to outsource all recruiting gaining access to expertise and efficiencies of scale Other organizations find that using vendors to recruit for specific jobs is most effective and efficient There are several scenarios in which having a vendor perform the recruiting and initial screening might be advantageous to the organization The first scenario involves hard-to-fill jobs Recruitment firms often specialize in filling specific positions In these cases, outside vendors may be in a better position that the organization to attract qualified candidates The second scenario deals with entry-level workers Organizations often find it cost-effective to deal with employment and temporary agencies to find these types of workers

The second strategic issue is "make or buy." The organization must decide whether

to engage in a practice of internal promotions and transfers (make) to fill its positions or to

go to the external labor market (buy) to fill them The decision is driven by the outcome of the strategic workforce-planning process, which evaluates the availability and skill levels of internal applicants It is the Human Resources' responsibility to ensure that the recruitment strategy is in alignment with organizational goals and objectives An organization operating

in a relatively stable environment and attempting to compete based on cost-leadership and efficiency might find that internal recruitment is more in alignment Also, organizations are often constrained by labor agreements that require an internal process prior to looking for applicants externally Organizations often pursue both strategies, frequently simultaneously

Realistic job preview

A realistic job preview (RJP) provides the applicant with an accurate description of the job and the work environment The realistic job preview process can actually start well before recruitment ever begins as the individual becomes familiar with the organization, its culture, and image This can occur through organizational advertisements and public relations or just from the fact that the individual lives in the community where the organization is located The RJP is reaffirmed by recruiters accurately portraying the requirements of the job and the conditions under which it is performed The RJP process continues during selection interviewing and actually continues after the employee is hired, and through orientation and subsequent continuous socialization Realistic job previews have been shown by numerous research studies to be positively correlated with employee retention, particularly during the first several months of employment

Employer branding

The concept of employer branding is increasingly being discussed in relation to recruitment Branding is a marketing concept that refers to customer perceptions of an organization or its products that differentiate it from it competitors In a recruitment context, branding is the process by which an employer becomes the employer of choice in its relevant labor markets Employer branding is tied to the perception and popularity of the organization and its products or services Recruitment activities can leverage that image to facilitate attracting applicants To be effective, the recruitment strategy must be in alignment with the brand A critical issue in employee branding is the selection and training

of recruiters Recruiters must not only have the appropriate skills and attitude, but they must also reflect the culture and image of the organization If the organization decides to not contract out recruitment, it must determine what types of recruitment activities to engage in and it must evaluate the effectiveness of those activities The following sections discuss the potential methods that an organization can use to recruit both internally and

Quantity of applications

This is a gross measure of the effect of recruitment activities with the philosophy that the more applications an organizations gets, the more likely it is to fill its openings with highly qualified individuals

Yield rates

Recruitment is often evaluated in terms of yield rates from one stage of the process

to another For example, the organization needs to know what percentage of applicants were actually considered to be qualified for the job, what percentage that were qualified passed the initial screening, what percentage passing the initial screening also passed the pre-employment tests, what percentage passing the pre-employment test were offered in-person interviews, and so forth This provides an additional measure of efficiency in that higher yield ratios reduce wasted staff effort and produce more viable candidates for the organization to consider

Cost per hire

Many organizations track the average cost to hire employees, typically by dividing all recruitment-related expenses by the number of actual hires The measure provides an indication of the efficiency of the recruitment program in terms of costs, but yields little information regarding effectiveness

Selection rates

Selection rate provide some indication of efficiency because they evaluate the number of new hires against the total number of applicants However, one cannot really necessarily evaluate that metric in terms of effectiveness Presumably, the higher the selection rate, the more efficient and effective recruitment process But selection rates along with other measures of efficiency do not give the organization any indication of the actual performance of an individual after being hired, nor do they tell the organization anything about employee retention

Acceptance rates

Some organizations track selection rates, which are typically evaluated as the number of applicants that accept the position divided by the number of applicants that were offered the position The higher the ratio, the more efficient the recruitment program is

of customer satisfaction with the recruitment process and results In this case, customers can be defined in a number of ways

First, management satisfaction should be evaluated Managers should be questioned as to their overall satisfaction with the recruitment process and the timeliness of actions and the quality of recruits in particular Because managers at different levels often have different expectations, satisfaction should be surveyed at multiple levels in the organization

The second, and probably more important, customer group is the actual recruits themselves This includes both those who were hired and those who were rejected for employment They should be questioned about their perspectives regarding the various stages of the recruitment and selection process These data often provide valuable information regarding recruitment effectiveness and identify areas that might need improvement The effectiveness of recruitment efforts should be evaluated in terms of eventual employee performance and retention Therefore, the HR should engage in longitudinal studies in these areas These data are the ones that allow the organization to fine-tune current operations Organizations that have effective recruitment evaluation programs periodically evaluate a sample of hires from previous years, correlating retention, promotion rates, and performance data with recruitment sources, selection tests, and other employment practices These data provide rich information as to the long-term effectiveness of recruitment programs The potential value of these types of evaluations is, however, moderated by the nature of the organizational environment and the organizational strategies These data have the greatest impact in planning and engaging in activities to improve the recruitment program when the environment is relatively stable

Corporate Culture: The Fourth Dimension of Recruiting

By using existing tools and skills, an organization can significantly enhance its recruitment efforts by adding cultural fit to the process When recruiting and selecting new hires, most organizations use one or more sets of qualifiers (dimensions) to determine job fit In order of use, these dimensions are: Technical skills and knowledge, Core business skills or behavioral competencies, and Personal attributes

According to John Miraglia (2003), by adding a fourth dimension — corporate culture — hiring managers and human resources can better determine cultural fit: that is, whether the candidate will be able to fully utilize the other three dimensions in the organization (maximize performance) and be satisfied doing so (retention) Corporate culture can be used, in fact, to consistently hire and retain top performers

In order to use the fourth dimension to ensure that top performers are consistently recruited, hired, and retained, an organization must engage in the following steps: Identify the organization's dominant culture and subcultures, Align the organization's people practices to support the dominant culture, Develop and utilize recruiting and selection tools

to determine cultural fit, and Monitor the process on an ongoing basis to ensure continued added value As with any other selection tools or techniques, behavioral questions, competencies, and personal attributes need to be validated for the organization This can be done through a before-and-after analysis that compares performance, retention, hiring manager satisfaction, and overall employee satisfaction between those hired before this initiative and those hired using cultural fit as employment criteria

Competencies

Identifying cultural competencies will be an important part of the recruitment and selection process Competencies must be in place for benchmark jobs, and updated to include company-wide cultural competencies

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Recruiting

In recruiting, searches should focus on companies with a similar culture These organizations can be target, for example, by asking current employees about their former employers' corporate culture, looking for cultural hints on websites, annual reports, or employment ads

In the employment advertising, a company should try to implement a style that reflects its own corporate culture and be sure to communicate its culture to search partners

as well, including researchers, search firms, and employees — especially through employee referral programs An organization can also build a reputation as an employer that supports

a given culture through press releases to newspapers, annual reports and other documents that might go to the public, professional group presentations, and chat rooms

Selection

In interviewing, behavioral questions should be designed to uncover cultural fit into all interview scenarios When an organization uses personality profiling for job fit, it possesses an important tool to determine cultural fit Personality characteristics might provide an insight into all candidates' fit for the organization While people have preferred

or dominant ways of behaving, behavior can be situational Profiling tool must be sophisticated enough to tell you under what conditions a person behaves in a given way, then it is particularly well-suited to determine cultural fit

STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

Management paradigms

The importance of managing the organization’s culture and the ability of management in the past few years, has moved top executives’ interests in corporate culture out of the realm of theory and into the realm of actual applications Many managers are beginning to believe that successful innovation entails change in corporate culture—the company’s traditional values, beliefs and ways of doing things Change the culture, they

argue, and the organization can be reshaped (Berman, 1986) The concept of culture applies

to multiple organizational levels The concept is equally applicable to the engineering staff, the budgeting department, the agency, the department and the federal government Similarly, the power to change an organization’s culture may reside in a critical mass of employees, the organization’s leadership or an external force Daryl Conner (1993) contrasts two ways cultures are shaped: evolutionary and architectural The evolutionary model occurs when the culture is allowed to be shaped by random events The architectural model is based on proactive, interventionist activity by leaders and managers

Moreover, the complex relationship and the debate have focused on identifying the dependent and independent variables in the equation Some have argued convincingly that

an organization's culture determines the nature of its members, while others have argued that the organization's members shape the culture

Finally, cultural changes can also be based on personality Schein (1996) posits that the impact of culture on behavior has not been adequately recognized He states "We did not grasp that norms held tacitly across large social units were much more likely to change leaders that to be changed by them We failed to note that ‘culture’ viewed as such taken-for-granted, shared, tacit ways of perceiving, thinking and reacting, was one of the most powerful and stable forces operating in organizations." Schneider (1987) on the other hand argues the " organizations are the people in them people make the place we have tried to change organizations by changing their structures and processes when it was the