The Human Resource Management and
Organizational Behavior Course will help the
learners define and explain the activities of Human
Resource Department in an organization. As future
tourism professionals, it is important to know the
Human Resource Planning (HRP) in the
organization and to identify the six steps in HRP
process. This will help the learners to effectively
manage the requisition of personnel as it will affect
the attainment of organizational goals. It will also
provide an understanding on the nature of
organization structure and culture in the workplace
Upon course completion, learners are able to
explain a broad range of Human Resource
Management principles applicable to hospitality
and tourism sectors; implement and apply those
principles; and differentiate the career relevance
for employees, managers, and HRM practitioners.
Before we start the lesson, check the activity
below and find terms related to human resources
management and organizational behavior.
Overview of Human Resource Management
     A Human Resource Management (HRM) Head is
viewed by top management with the title
personnel officer, personnel manager, industrial
relations officer, vice-president (VP), or senior vice-
president (SVP) for personnel administration or
industrial relations depending upon the culture
and focus of the company and the degree of
importance of their position and function.
Whatever the job is, the implication that the
position functions within a whole range of
personnel-related activities. Changes in
terminologies reflect the significance associated
with the management of people in the
organization as well as the broader perspective
from which the field is currently viewed.
    As the business environment and the profit
opportunities grew increasingly large organizations
began to create specialized units to cope with their
hiring needs. During the 1930s and the 1940s,
these units gradually began to call personnel
departments (the word personnel is from an old
French word that means "person"). Such
departments were usually set up as special self-
contained departments charged with the
responsibility of hiring new workers and
administering basic HR activities like determining
the appropriate pay and benefits. The recognition
that HR needed to be managed separately and the
creation of the personnel departments also gave
rise to a new type of management function-
personnel management. The manager who headed
the personnel department was called the
personnel manager. Still, from its inception until
the 1990s. personnel management was not seen as
a particularly important critical function in most
business organizations. 
          Although many other managers appreciated
personnel management as a necessary vehicle for
hiring new employees, it was also seen primarily as
a routine clerical and bookkeeping functions-
placing newspaper ads to recruit new employees,
filling out paperwork in those employees after they
were hired, and seeing that everyone got paid on
time. Over the years, however, the role of HRM
changed dramatically and became much more
important in most organizations.
      Human Resource Management emerged in the
late The 70s as a reaction against the more
functional approach embodied in personnel
management. The change was also accompanied
by a fundamental shift in management's view of its
employees. Employees were no longer viewed as a
group of individuals who needed to be closely
supervised and managed, but rather, as a
collection of human resources to be valued as a
distinctive source of competitive advantage. Rapid
advances in technology and communication also
dictated that managers carefully assessed every
facet of their operation to ensure that employees
were being as efficient and as productive as
possible. While managers are becoming
increasingly concerned with ways to improve
productivity and competitiveness, they also began
to realize that workers needed to feel that their
jobs were sources of personal satisfaction and
growth. 
         Given the shift in competitiveness, top
executives in most firms began to see that HRM
practices and policies significantly affected their
ability to formulate and implement the strategy in
any area and that other strategic decisions
significantly affected the firm's HR as well. Top HR
executives in most companies today have a vice
presidential or executive vice presidential status
and are fully contributing members of the firms'
executive committee-a group composed of key
managers who make major policy decisions and set
corporate strategy.
Today, most employee handbooks or declarations
of philosophy and principle of companies
specifically state that " human resources are the
greatest assets of the company". An important by-
product of this change is management behavior
that no longer treats employees as mere costs but
assets. To achieve success, organizations must
maximize competencies-those underlying
attributes or characteristics that can predict
superior performance. These competencies range
from tangible attributes such as skills and
knowledge, technical know-how, to intangible
attitudes and values such as teamwork and
flexibility.  academic analysis and that, ultimately, there is no
      In recent years, however, human resources as
assets have been assailed by management experts
led by Thomas Davenport in his 1999 book Human
Capital. Davenport bristles that "assets are passive-
bought, sold and replace at the whim of their
owners, workers, in contrast, take increasingly
active control over their lives  Human capital in
reference to workers now takes the place of
human education and experience. These can help
the worker develop competencies, knowledge, and
personality attributes that in turn could help
him/her perform and produce economic value for
his/her employer.
       With all these changes, HRM becomes even
more complex because of the need to go beyond
the borders which have become "borderless"
because of technological innovations. All of these
raised the issues of global competition,
communication, outsourcing, and downsizing
which present a number of challenges and
opportunities for human resource management.  approach to managing people.  In this view,
1. Human Resource Management
1.1. Definition of Human Resources Management
There have been many attempts to define what
exactly HRM might be and indeed Heery and Noon
recognize that it is a subject of considerable
common agreement on what HRM means,
Resultantly, they offer ten definitions,  which they
feel capture the complexity and dynamism of HRM
as a subject of academic study:
1. A label HRM is seen as simply being another
name for personnel management and there
is nothing distinct or special about HRM.
2. A convenient shorthand term that allows
for the grouping together of a whole series
of sub-disciplines that are broadly
concerned with people management:  such
as employee relations, industrial/labor
relations, personnel management, and
organizational behavior.
3. A map to help guide students and
practitioners to understand the concept
and ideas associated with the management
of people.
4. A set of professional practices suggests that
there is a range of personnel practices that
can be integrated to ensure a professional
a potentially key role is likely to be played
by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and
Development (CIPD), which is the
professional association for those entering
the HR and personnel profession.
5. A method of ensuring internal fit again sees
the need to co-ordinate approaches to
people management, but here the co-
ordination needs to be with other areas of
the organization.
 6. A competitive advantage where HRM is the
means by which an organization can gain
competitive advantage, a view best
captured by the cliché of “our people are
our greatest asset”.
7. A market-driven approach in that decision
will often be market-driven and the needs
of the business determine the manner in
which employees are treated; some may be
treated well, others less so well.
8. A manipulative device sees it as inherently
exploitative and manipulative.
9. A hologram captures much of the above
discussion in recognizing the fluid identity
of HRM and the fact that it has multiple
meanings.
10. Clearly what the above discussion points to
is that HRM means many things to many
people, depending on whether you are a
manager, an employee, or an academic and
there is no one definition that will
adequately capture the potential
complexity of the topic.
This, HRM  “is a distinctive approach to
employment management which seeks to achieve
competitive advantage through the strategic
deployment of a highly committed and capable
workforce, using an integrated array of cultural,
structural and personnel techniques.  The
challenge of HRM then would seem to be how to
recruit, deploy, develop, reward, and motivate
staff, leading to them being a source of
competitive advantage.  As the above discussion
suggests, however, there is more than one route to
seeking a competitive advantage, and this point is
further considered in examining the notion of
“hard” and “soft” HRM.
As well as providing the concise definition utilized
above, Storey also provided one of the earliest and
most enduring attempts to recognize different
approaches to HRM, each of which is now briefly
described.  The hard version is seen to be an
instrumental and economically rational approach
to human resource management
In this view, people management strategies are
driven by strategic considerations to gain
competitive advantage, maximizing control while
achieving the lowest possible labor cost.  This
approach is quantitative and calculative and labor
is a commodity/resource, the same as any other. 
The focus is on human resource management.  On
the other hand, the soft version is seen to be much
more about adopting a humanistic and
developmental approach to human resource
management.  As a result, an organization’s people
management approach is likely to be more
consensual and based on a high level of managerial
commitment to employees, which is intended to
lead to a mutual high commitment from
employees, high trust, and high productivity, and
so on.  Employees are seen as being proactive,
capable of being developed, and worthy of trust
and collaboration.  This approach focuses on
human resource management.
Boxall and Purcell suggest that attempts to
understand the way in which organizations
approach the management of their HR can be seen
with regard to whether they aim for “best fit” or
“best practice”.  On the one hand, the best fit
school argues for an approach to HRM, which is
fully integrated with the specific organizational and
environmental context in which they operate.  On
the other hand, best practice advocates argue for a
universalistic approach to HRM where all firms
who adopt a range of agreed HR policies and
practices are more likely to create a high-
performance/commitment workplace, as
organizations aim to compete on the basis of high
quality and productivity.
 One of the earliest and most influential attempts
to develop a model that recognized the need for a
fit between the competitive strategy and HRM was
that offered by Schuler and Jackson.  Schuler and
Jackson developed a series of typologies of
“needed role behaviors” that enabled the link
between competitive strategy and HRM practices
to be made.  The type of needed role behaviors
within Schuler and Jackson’s model was contingent
on the overall strategies that an organization could
adopt to seek competitive advantage and the HRM
approached adopted to sustain this.
1.  HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING, RECRUITMENT,
AND SELECTION
Your HR department makes sure that your
company hires the right people to do the right job
at the right time.
They are constantly on the lookout for established,
as well as emerging talent, and they are the ones
who will be responsible for advertising, recruiting
and selecting new employees when there is a
vacancy that needs filling.
 Conducting job analysis to establish the
specific requirements of individual jobs
within the organization.
 Forecasting the human resource
requirements, the organization needs to
achieve its objectives.
 Developing and implementing a plan to
meet these requirements.
 Recruiting the human resources the
organization requires to achieve its
objectives.
 Selecting and hiring human resources to fill
specific jobs within the organization.
 2.  HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT
Your HR department are responsible for getting
new employees all settled in and ready to go.
This means everything from briefing them on
company culture to integrating them into their
department and ensuring cooperation from the
rest of the staff.
Orientation may also include some basic training,
briefings on workplace safety, and discussions
about the awarding for benefits and their
compensation package as a whole.
 Orienting and training employees.
 Designing and implementing management
and organizational development programs.
 Building effective teams within the
organizational structure.
 Designing systems for appraising the
performance of individual employees.
 Assisting employees in developing career
plans.
3.  COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS
The HR department is responsible for negotiating
compensation and benefits with the employees, as
well as being responsible for administering these
benefits and compensations. If an employee is
having problems with a pay-cheque, for example,
they’ll consult the HR department.
If they feel they are not being adequately
compensated for their work, they’ll negotiate the
terms of their contract with the HR department.
 Designing and implementing compensation
and benefits systems for all employees.
 Ensuring that compensation and benefits
are fair and consistent.
 4.  SAFETY AND HEALTH
Your HR department helps ensure workplace safety
– whether this means offering seminars on
workplace safety if your company operates in a
more dangerous sector (such as mining, for
example), or whether this means ensuring all the
employees feel safe in the workplace.
Workplace safety can refer to bodily safety, such as
from falling objects or sexual harassment and
assault in the workplace, or even to psychological
safety, such as protecting employees from hazing,
intimidation or blackmail in the workplace.
A healthy and safe employee is a happy employee,
and a happy employee is a productive one; so by
making sure your employees are safe and healthy,
your HR department is having a direct positive
impact on the company’s overall productivity.
 Designing and implementing programs to
ensure employee health and safety
 Providing assistance to employees with
personal problems that influence their work
performance
 5.  EMPLOYEE AND LABOR RELATIONS
If employees employ a trade union representative
to negotiate or speak on their behalf, this trade
union rep will engage first and foremost with the
HR department.
Similarly, if any of your employees are experiencing
discomfort or conflict in the workplace, the HR
department is their first stop on the road to
conflict resolution and can be called in to mediate
discussions on any level.
 Serving as an intermediary between the
organization and its unions.
 Designing discipline and grievance handling
systems.
 6.  HUMAN RESOURCE RESEARCH
 Providing a human resource information
base.
 Designing and implementing employee
communication systems.
3. Managing HR in Hospitality Organization
HR in the Hospitality Industry
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,
human resource managers oversee the recruiting,
interviewing and hiring of staff and serve as the
bridge between management and employees. In
the hospitality industry, HR must not only cultivate
a skilled and dedicated talent pool but also retain it
in a demanding job field.
Human resource managers direct the
administrative functions of the business. While it
takes many others to implement these functions,
HR looks to attract, motivate and place employees
in the best-fitting positions. When employees are
happy and motivated, they provide the desired
level of customer service required for the
business's success.
HR in the hospitality industry plays an essential
role: HR keeps employees happy so that they
maintain the excellent reputation of the business
and keeps customers happy by ensuring employees
behave appropriately and according to company
policy.
Unique HR Challenges in Hospitality
Positions in the hospitality industry are usually
hourly rather than salaried, making employee
retention challenging to maintain. Employees work
long hours, including nights, weekends and
holidays. Additionally, customer-facing positions
come with their own set of unique challenges.
Having to meet the high demands from the
business and customers – and with such a strong
focus on customer service – these positions are
physically and mentally exhausting. When
businesses are understaffed, employees lose
possible flexibility in scheduling, leading to
frustration and burnout.
Recruiting Hospitality Industry Employees
Attracting skilled employees begins with the job
posting. Detailed job postings that lay out the
desired skills, experience and benefits of the
position ensure that applying candidates
understand the job and know whether their
qualifications meet the requirements.
When faced with shortages, HR can hire seasonal
employees under the H-2B visa program as
detailed at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Services website. Alternatively, human resource
managers in the hospitality industry may turn to
staffing agencies for help with their shortages.
Some of these employees can become permanent
later on if they meet expectations and a need
arises.
Employee Morale and Retention
In the hospitality industry, it's essential that
employees are professional and happy because
their attitude reflects strongly on the business
itself. This task usually falls to human resources.
Offering good benefits and proposing incentives is
an excellent place to start. Discounts on the
company's own services and employee recognition
programs effectively increase employee happiness
in the workplace. However, employees want to
know that there are growth opportunities within
the business to stay. Additionally, they want
promises of retirement plans or health insurance.
In-house professional development programs and
hiring from within are ways for new hires to see a
future in the industry. Preparing employees for
future leadership opportunities within the
company shows employees that their time with the
company can be a viable career option.
Uniting Management and Employees
HR in the hotel industry often serves as the bridge
between management and employees. HR should
look to streamline communications to decrease the
potential of misunderstandings and frustrations
between the two.
Best Practice Institute suggests that eliminating
information silos in the organization's levels allows
for experience and knowledge to be readily
available, increasing performance and employee
satisfaction.
Pay is critical for employee satisfaction and
retention. HR should ensure that pay is based on
regional market rates, and help employers handle
tips under the federal tax code. Issuing cash
bonuses for raising productivity is another way of
improving employee satisfaction within the
hospitality industry.
Human Resources and Liability
It is critical for the human resources department to
understand state and federal employment laws to
guarantee the business complies. Jobs within the
hospitality industry can be hazardous and must
abide by the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) safety codes. Businesses
that don't abide by safety codes can face penalties,
fines and lawsuits.
It's also HR's responsibility to investigate
misconduct claims, provide the necessary
disciplinary actions, and ensure businesses abide
by a zero-tolerance policy toward discrimination.
Additionally, human resource managers ensure
that the business complies with the National Labor
Relations Act as described by the National Labor
Relations Board. Many employees are often union
members. It's HR's responsibility to make sure
employers do not keep employees from joining or
taking part in unions. HR also serves a chief role in
negotiations between union leaders and
management.
Large organizations typically have an HR
department with staff (employees) whose primary
responsibilities focus on HR concerns.  In contrast,
smaller operations typically employ managers who
function as generalists and assume HR
responsibilities, in addition to numerous others, as
part of their jobs.
Most organizations in the hospitality industry are
small, and their managers must make HR-related
decisions without the benefit of the specialized
assistance received by their counterparts in larger
organizations.  This book is written to help HR
managers but especially to assist managers in small
organizations and it discusses basic HR concerns
that these managers must address as they
facilitate the work of their staff members.
 The following are the basic HR activities and it
indicates that external and internal influences
impact these HR activities.
Ø Recruiting and selecting – using tactics and
procedures to attract applicants to the
organization (recruiting) and then choosing the
best people from among them (selecting).  This is
probably among the first responsibilities that many
people associate with HR management.  Ø  Legislation – the impact of federal and state
Ø Training and Development – Preparing new staff
members to do required work, updating their
experienced peers, and providing opportunities for
all interested employees to assume more
responsible positions are important strategies to
attain goals and address competitive pressures.  HR activities.  Examples include issues related to
Ø Compensation and appraisal – Personnel should
receive pay and benefits commensurate with their
contributions to the organization.  Performance
appraisal provides input to help employees attain
on-the-job success that can yield promotions with
higher compensation.
Ø Protection and communication – Safety and
security concerns are important to all employees.  military and correctional facilities, where 100% of
Many laws and regulations mandate safety
procedures, and there are numerous other tactics
that top-level managers should do (and not do)
that impact employee safety.  Many legal and
procedural issues with safety implications are
addressed by those with HR responsibilities.  In
addition, effective communication that flows up,
down, and across the organization helps to ensure
that staff members know about issues that affects
them.
EXTERNAL INFLUENCES ON HR ACTIVITIES
Managers in all types and sizes of hospitality
organizations benefit from recognizing the worth
of their staff members; doing so helps to develop
positive relationships that are important for team
efforts.  These relationships are influenced by the
sum of all HR-related activities.  Some influences
(those that are external) are beyond managers’
control.  Other influences (those that are internal)
are not beyond their control.
Staff members with HR responsibilities must
recognize and support the critical role that they
play in their organization’s success.  They can do so
by recognizing external limitations and by
considering how internal influences can assist
them in their efforts.  Hr activities within it are
impacted by several external influences, these
include:
laws on the hiring process and their influence on
management decisions affecting personnel cannot
be overstated. 
Ø  Competition – Competitors for the hospitality
organizations’ employees often have an impact on
compensation (salaries, wages, and benefits),
professional development opportunities and even
promotional decisions.
Ø  Consumer preferences – What the consumer
desires must be identified and delivered. 
Exception occur in some operations, including
health care (hospitals and long-term care facilities),
where nutritional concerns become important; in
the dietary intake may be from the food services
provided; and in religious/charitable institutions,
where cost concerns are especially important. 
What are business/operating volumes?  What
products and services must be produced, and
when are they needed?  The answers to these and
related questions drive employee
recruiting/selecting, training and development, and
compensation and appraisal activities, which are
HR activities.
Ø  Demographics – The characteristics of the local
labor market and of present and potential guests
are of concern to all hospitality organizations.  For
example, income levels in a community affect wage
and salary rates and impact the ability and interest
of consumers to purchase the organization’s
products and services.
Ø  Global Issues – Many hospitality organizations
exist to serve travelers.  They, in turn, are
dramatically affected by international and national
events that encourage travel (for example, sporting
events and special commemorations) and
discourage travel (for example, terrorism, crime,
and disease threats).  Business volumes, in turn,
impact HR activities.
Ø  Ethical concerns – Issues relating to how
employees are treated, how products and services
are provided to guests, and “honest” hospitality
organizations as they conduct business with
suppliers are examples of ethical concerns? Do
hospitality managers have an obligation of
corporate social responsibility within their
community?  The answer to this question also has
ethical implications.
Ø  Employee unions – Staff members may belong
to an employee union that represents their
interests in al aspects of the HR activities.  and approved, the external portion of the selection
Employee union is an organization of employees
who act together to protect and promote their
interests by collective bargaining with
representatives of hospitality organizations.
INTERNAL INFLUENCES ON HR ACTIVITIES
Ø  Policies – An operation’s policies reveal the
extent to which an organization respects its staff
members.  In the absence of laws that regulate
specific actions, employers have significant
discretion in establishing protocols that may affect
the attitudes of staff members toward the
organization.
Ø  Work Procedures – It is a course of action or the
steps used to describe how a work-related task
should be done. It is designed with (or without)
input from applicable personnel; the extent to
which equipment replaces physical work tasks and
the extent of employee empowerment impact how
work is done and, in turn, the HR activities that are
required.
Ø  Corporate culture – The perceived worth of
employees to the organization is an integral part of
its culture.  It drives the Philosophies and attitudes
about employees and their role in the organization
and has a significant impact on many HR activities.
Ø  Long-and-short-term plans – Long-term plans
such as business expansions or reductions and
short-term plans such as introducing a new menu
item or service impact employees and, in the
process, affect recruiting, selecting, and training
activities that are integral to the HR function.
Ø  Management judgment and experience –
Managers and HR specialists (in large
organizations) bring their own judgment and
experience to the decision-making process.  This
input affects the policies, procedures, and plans
already discussed and influences other HR
decisions.
1. Recruitment Process
With the employee requisition form completed
process can begin.  
Recruitment
Recruitment involves attracting and obtaining
as many applications as possible from eligible job
seekers. It is the process of finding and attracting
capable applicants for employment. The process
begins when new recruits are sought and ends
when their applications are submitted. The result is
a pool of applicants from which new employees
are selected.
Steps of Recruitment Process
There are 4 steps in the recruitment process
for locating a potential candidate for
selection;
1.  Identifying the HR Requirement.
2.  Identifying possible sources of HR Supply
3.  Communicating the Information.
4.  Receiving Application.
It is the process of finding and attracting capable
applicants for employment. It is the discovering of
potential candidates for actual or anticipated
organizational vacancies.
Recruitment as a process of searching for
prospective employees and stimulating and
encouraging them to apply for jobs in an
organization. Recruitment is a step-by-step process
of locating, identifying and attracting qualified
people to apply for the vacant post in an
organization.
1. Identifying the HR Requirement
The first step of recruitment is to assess
the requirement of human resource in an
organization to carry out the organizational
mission, goals, and objectives.
Under this step, the required number and kinds of
people needed for organizational performance are
identified. It can be done through the information
obtained from HR planning and job analysis.
This provides information on the current
availability of human resources and anticipates the
future requirement of HR for organizational
activities.
Under it, a comprehensive draft is prepared to
specify the duties, responsibilities, working
conditions and skill requirements to perform the
task.
2. Identifying possible sources of HR Supply
After the assessment of HR requirement, the
probable sources are identified for generating a
pool of qualified candidates. This process involves
searching for potential candidates.
Mainly sources of HR supply are of two types:
internal sources and external sources. Internal
sources consist of transfers and promotions,
whereas external sources include a variety of
alternatives like employment agencies,
advertisement, casual callers, recommendations,
educational institutions, etc.
Along with the probable sources, the suitable
method of recruitment is also identified under this
phase of recruitment. The sources and methods
are adopted in such a way that they provide the
best and qualified human resource at a minimum
cost.
3. Communicating the Information
In this step of recruitment, the potential
candidates are informed about the vacancy
announcement.
Under it, the information about the job
requirement is passed away to the potential
candidates about the job and required a number of
employees to be recruited.
This information is passed away through different
media or from the organization’s notice board. The
popular media for vacancy announcement are
print media, electronic media, internet, and so on.
4. Receiving Application
Recruitment process ends by generating a pool of
qualified candidate to fill organizational vacancies.
Under it, a recruiter receives the application forms
dropped by different applicants who are interested
to apply for a job. It provides a pool of candidates
for selection.
After recruitment, the selection process begins,
which chooses the best applicant for the job who is
supposed to perform well in the actual work
situation.
After receiving application forms, they are
evaluated to check whether the basic requirement
is maintained or not.
2. Selection Process
Typically, a job offer is contingent on successfully
passing this examination.
For example, firefighters must perform activities
that require a certain physical condition. Whether
it is climbing a ladder, lugging a water-filled four-
inch hose, or carrying an injured victim, these
individuals must demonstrate that they are fit for
the job.
Permanent Job Offer
Individuals who perform successfully in the
preceding steps are now considered eligible to
receive the employment offer. The actual hiring
decision should be made by the manager in the
department where the vacancy exists.
Notification to Candidates
The selection process results should be made
known to candidates—successful and unsuccessful
—as soon as possible.
Any delay may result in the firm losing a prime
candidate, as top prospects often have other
employment options. As a matter of courtesy and
good public relations, the unsuccessful candidates
should also be promptly notified.
Ways of Making an Effective Employee Selection
All companies, irrespective of size, make hiring
mistakes, but here are few tips experts /suggest to
help avoid making them.
Determine the criteria a candidate must meet
Before filling a position, the HR manager of a
company must clearly define the skills, experience,
character, ‘educational background, work
experience, technical skills and competencies, they
must possess.
Hiring without testing
Skill testing is a must. Every job has some form of
measurable, objective performance standard.
Identify it and test for it.
There are tests that can indicate if a job candidate
meets the required criteria. With these pre-hire
screening tools, a recruiter can test the knowledge
of potential hires before they are extended an
offer.
Hiring after the first interview
It is important to have several interviews with the
same person — and not to hire from one
interview. The person may not present the same
later, and HR manager may get fresh insights from
different meetings.
Underestimating the unemployed.
A person who does not have a job at the moment
may be the right fit for the position. They are
plenty of good talent out there that are not hired.
Poor or no reference checking
It is important to know how to conduct a detailed
‘reference check. A proper reference check verifies
job skills and the behavioral fit in which the person
operates. It is essential to conduct an extensive
background investigation and reference checks.
Avoid hiring out of desperation
Too many hiring decisions are made out of
operation. The following scenarios occur
repeatedly; a key manager quits and must be
replaced now; rapid growth forces a company to
fill positions without enough forethought;
programmers are so scarce that anyone will do.
If we hire employees in haste, we may find out
later that the new recruits are not trustworthy or
competent.
If an HR manager is unable to conduct a thorough,
timely hiring process, hire a temporary or leased
employee or borrow an employee from another
company.
Watch out for fascination
A series of surveys have revealed that during the
hiring process, most interviewers made their
decision-up or down within the first 10 minutes of
the interview.
They then spent the next 50 minutes internally
justifying that decision. We buy cars in the same
way.
First, we choose the car we want to buy from an
emotional standpoint and then search for objective
data to justify that emotional decision.
We all know that facts tell, but emotions sell. The
recruiter can guard against obsession by having
coworkers’ interview prospects, having group
interviews, and by conducting follow-up
interviews.
Carefully evaluate candidates recommended by
employees and associates.
Just because someone recommends a person they
think would be highly capable for a particular
position doesn’t mean that person is qualified.
We have seen many occasions where someone
was hired without going through the usual
evaluation process simply because they were
recommended by another employee or colleague
Follow the usual channels and requirements when
anyone-no matter how highly recommended-seeks
to work for the organization.
Do not blindly promote from within
It is widely believed that the HR manager should
recruit employees from within the organization.
The best performers are not necessarily always the
most qualified candidates for a specific job. This is
especially true when promoting to the
management level.
Simply because someone is particularly adept at
handling a certain function doesn’t mean they are
capable of managing others. It is important to
remember the Peter Principle.
It is a concept in management theory in which the
selection of a candidate for a position is based on
their performance in the current role rather than
on their abilities relevant to the intended role.
Peter suggests that people will tend to be
promoted until they reach their “position of
incompetence”.
One’s career may cripple after such a promotion.
Promoting solely from within can create inbreeding
and stagnate creativity.
To guard against these pitfalls, companies should
consider filling at least one-third of all positions
involving promotions with people from outside the
organization.
Common Mistakes in the Selection of Employees
If workers are carefully selected, the problems of
employee discipline will be negligible.
Consequently, hiring employees is a major part of
the success of every company. Colin, (2011) and
Fraser (2012) identified some common mistakes
that might occur while hiring new employees.
Organizations today are experiencing high rates of
employee turnover, wrongful hiring claims, gender
discrimination, political consideration, regionalism,
workplace violence; and employee theft, etc.
Hiring a wrong person may aggravate such risk.
The wrong person is under-qualified,
insubordinate, and detrimental to the entire firm.
Indeed, the seeds of many failed employee-
employer relationships are planted during the
hiring process.
The wrong person may be an unavoidable liability
for the organization. The wrong person can do a lot
of damage to the organization. Hiring mistakes can
be more costly.
These mistakes can include the cost of termination,
replacement and productivity loss. They can impact
the organization’s bottom line as well as the
morale and productivity of other employees.
Selecting the right people is a key leverage point to
support and drive an organization’s growth and
development.
But selecting the right person is not an easy task.
Many mistakes may occur while selecting
employees. The cost associated with the making
such a mistake are tremendous.
Both dismissal and turnover are costly.
The best way to reduce turnover is to make the
right selection decision in the beginning of the
entire process. Selecting the right people is crucial
to an organization’s success.
How can HR manager make sure that he or she is
not making the top hiring mistakes?
Colin (2011) says, “It’s important to get your hiring
right the first time and encourages employers to
take steps to reduce the likelihood of costly hiring
mistakes”.
However, the following mistakes are identified in
the selection process of an employee:
Poor listening
Few recruiters do not pay full attention to the
candidate. In fact /following the 80: 20 rule, the
80% needs to come from the applicant.
The interviewer should listen 80% of the time.
Recruiters listen to the candidate’s words
They should pay more attention to the body
language, posture, eye contact: essentially all the
non-verbal communication cues.
About 93% of all communication is nonverbal, so
being attuned to the multitude of nonverbal cues
provides an interviewer with much richer
information about the candidate (McMurray, R. N.,
1990).
They should read and observe the personality of
the applicants.
For example, voice quality is important for a
candidate to become a teacher, in addition to his
academic qualification. Recruiters should talk less
and listen more.
Questions are not purposeful
This is due to a lack of preparation. If recruiters
/have benchmarked the job and prepared a list of
questions in advance, then they cannot go wrong.
Recruiters should get prepared both for the basic
and follow-up questions.
A review of the job specification and employee
specification may help the interviewer prepare
specific questions. They should build rapport with
the interviewee. The burden to establish rapport
falls on the interviewer.
Recruiters do not know what they are looking for
The recruiters may lack in / preparation. So make a
list of all the hard skills as well as soft skills
(personality traits and personal values) that
employers need for the employee.
Jot down any additional demands the job requires,
such as lots of overtime, travel and set hours. The
recruiter must know exactly what they are looking
for, they are more likely to get it. Like most
decision making, employee selection is
fundamentally emotional.
Therefore, it is important to define and prioritize
the Critical Success Factors for the job in advance.
This enables clear thinking to establish a specific
position profile. Yes, it takes time, but it is an
effective use of time versus “shooting in the dark.”.
Use the gut feels the approach
Experience and intuition are important no doubt
but do /not ignore the selection process. Have
procedures in place which will assist a recruiter in
making the right choice, such as testing, pre-
interview questionnaires, psychometric
assessments, etc.
It is important to verify and check all information
provided in the resume to make sure that nothing
is given wrong.
Be open to the possibility that some of them might
not be totally honest and are bending the truth to
get the job. It is very common for applicants to
paint a much brighter picture on their resumes so
this makes testing extra important.
Time and work under pressure
Recruiters spend too little time on hiring and
make /take too long to look for a replacement.
They should understand that the costs of hiring are
nothing as compared to turnover costs.
Don’t meet the candidate only once. Create
opportunities for other managers to meet the
applicant as well and hear what they have to say. It
is very important to get the whole picture and see
whether the applicant will be an overall good fit for
the company.
Will they be able to fit into the organizational
culture and get along well with the rest of the
team?
Go with the flow
Most interviewers do not take control of the
interview. HR /managers must remember, it is his
interview. He not candidate-set the process,
timing, roles, pace, and questioning.
Take candidates at their word
Do not settle for vague general responses just
because you want to be polite. Let the candidate
know at the beginning of the interview that as an
HR manager, your goal is to fully and- specifically
understand his/her capabilities.
Oblivious to the legal
This may not prevent HR managers from making
the right /selection decision, but it will increase the
company’s liabilities to solve this problem, the HR
manager must know the law, train employees and
enforce the law in his selection process.
Ignorance is no excuse.
Where Recruitment Ends Selection Starts
Recruitment involves attracting and obtaining as
many applications as possible from eligible job
seekers. Recruitment is the process of finding and
attracting capable applicants for employment.
The process begins when new recruits are sought
and ends when their applications are submitted.
The result is a pool of applicants from which new
employees are selected.
Selection is the process of differentiating between
applicants in order to identify and hire those with a
greater likelihood of success in a job. Though some
selection methods can be used within the
organization for promotion or transfer, in this case,
the statement of the question is not correct.
But when the selection of applicants from outside
the organization has occurred then the given
statement in the question is correct.
Recruitment and relation are the two crucial steps
in the HR process and are often used
interchangeably. There is however a fine
distinction between the two steps.
While recruitment refers to the process of
identifying and encouraging prospective
employees to apply for jobs, the selection is
concerned with picking the right candidates from
the pool of applicants which are obtained during
the recruitment process.
So in this case selection is derived from after
completing the recruitment process. Recruitment
is said to be positive in its approach as it seeks to
attract as many candidates as possible.
Selection, on the other hand, is negative in its
application in as much as it seeks to element as
many unqualified applicants as possible in order to
identify the right candidates from the pool.
So in the recruitment and selection
process; recruitment is the first step and selection
is the second steps or final step.
In conclusion, we can say “When recruitment ends
selection to start.
Selection, Recruitment and Job Analysis
Relationship
Job analysis
Job analysis is the process of collecting job-related
information. Such information helps in the
preparation of job description and job
specification.
A job is a collection of tasks that can be performed
by a single employee to contribute to the
production of some product or service provided by
the organization.
Each job has certain ability requirements as well as
certain rewards associated with it. Job analysis is
the process used to identify these requirements.
Job analysis involves the following steps:
1. Collection and recording job information.
2. Checking the job information for accuracy.
3. Writing job descriptions based on the
information
4. Using the information to determine the
skills, abilities, and knowledge that are
required on the job.
5. Upgrading the information from time to
time.
Job analysis has an impact on all foundations of
HRM. Job analysis, if properly has done will
enhance the effectiveness of all HR activities.
It benefits the organization in the following ways:
1. Laying the foundation for human resources
planning.
2. Laying the foundation for employee hiring.
3. Laying the foundation for training and
development.
4. Laying the foundation for performance
appraisal.
5. Laying the foundation for salary and wage
fixation.
 6. Laying the foundation for safety and health.
Recruitment
Recruitment involves attracting and obtaining as
many applications as possible from eligible job
seekers. It is the process of finding and attracting
capable applicants for employment. The process
begins when new recruits are sought and ends
when their applications are submitted. The result is
a pool of applicants from which new employees
are selected.
Selection
Selection is the process of differentiating between
applicants in order to identify and hire those with a
greater likelihood of success in a job.
Recruitment and selection are the two crucial steps
in the HR process and are often used
interchangeably.
There is, however, a fine distinction between the
two steps.
While recruitment refers to the process of
identifying and encouraging prospective
employees to apply for jobs then the selection is
concerned with picking the right candidates from a
pool of applicants.
From the above discussion, we can find a
relationship between the recruitment and
selection i.e. recruitment is the precondition for
the selection of an employee for the organization.
The relationship between “Job analysis” and
“Recruitment and Selection” is i.e. job analysis is
the foundation of recruitment and selection for
selecting a qualified and capable employee as
required for performing the job accurately.
Conclusion
The objectives of the selection process are to
select the candidates whose success probability in
the job is the highest and motivate right candidates
to opt for the vacancy by a proper presentation of
the organization to the potential candidates.
In many HR departments, recruiting and selection
are combined and called the employment function.
In large HR departments, the employment function
is the responsibility of the HR Director.
In smaller departments, HR managers handle these
duties.
The selection process relies on three helpful inputs.
Job analysis information provides the description
of the jobs, the human specifications and the
performance standards each job requires.
Human resource plans tell HR managers what job
openings are likely to occur. These plans allow
selection to proceed in a logical manner.
Finally, recruits are necessary so that the HR
manager has a group of people from which to
choose. These three inputs largely determine the
effectiveness of the selection process.
The selection process is a series of steps through
which applicants pass.
For example, a candidate who fails to qualify for a
particular step is not eligible for appearing for the
subsequent step. The result of each step is crucial.
Failure of any step disqualifies the candidate from
attempting the next step.
Because of this characteristic, Yoder (1972) has
termed this process as a succession of hurdles. It is
designed to determine the most likely candidates
to be successful at fulfilling the job requirements
by eliminating those candidates least likely to
succeed.
3. Orientation Process
Orientation is the process of providing basic
information about the hospitality organization that
must be known by all staff members in every
department.  Implemented effectively, orientation
efforts provide initial on-job experiences that help
new staff members learn about the organization
and its purposes, become comfortable with the
work environment, and learn where they fit into it.
In other words, orientation assists with the new
employee adaptation process.  Discussions about
basic policies and procedures help new staff
members learn about matters of personal
importance such as their employer’s expectations
and job-related benefits for which they qualify.  In
effect, then, orientation and other initial work-
related experiences help the new employee learn
how the organizational culture views its staff
members.  It is critical that an effective orientation
program be planned and implemented because it
significantly affects the initial and ongoing
relationship between the organization and its
newly hired staff members.
Goals of Orientation Programs
Ø  It provides an overview of the organization
Many newly employed staff members want to
know their employer’s history, size (number of
locations and staff members, for example), and the
products and services it provides.  They should
learn about the results their new organization is
attempting to achieve.  Trainees may want to know
how their organization adds value for its guests, to
themselves, and to the organization’s owners.  Orientation helps to establish a solid foundation
Hopefully, there is mission statement explaining
what the organization wants to accomplish and
how it intends to do so.  Hopefully, the mission
statement serves as a guide for decision making, as
well, and is used every day and not just as an
introductory page in an employee handbook or as
a slogan on the managers’ business cards.
 
Ø  It indicates the new staff member’s role
If you were a new staff member, would you like to
see an organizational chart showing all positions,
including yours, and the reporting relationships
between them?  Would you like to learn where you
fit in and about promotion tracks if you perform
well?  You probably would, and new staff members
would like to learn this information as well.
 
Ø  It explains policies, rules, and other information
Staff members want to know general guidelines,
including their days and hours of work, uniform
requirements, break times, auto parking, and other
similar information to help them feel more
comfortable.
 
Ø  It outlines specific expectations
Topics including responsibilities of the employer to
the employees and, in turn, their responsibilities to
the employer should be addressed.
 
Ø  It provides details about employee benefits
Staff members want information about
nonsalary/nonwage compensation and the
requirements to receive these benefits.
 
Ø  It motivates new staff members
The enthusiasm and excitement exhibited by those
providing orientation experiences are important. 
for a positive relationship between the
organization, its managers and supervisors, and the
new staff member.
 
Taken together, the benefits of effective
orientation programs can eliminate confusion,
heighten a new staff member’s enthusiasm, create
favorable attitudes, and, in general, make a
positive first impression.  Would you like to receive
a proper orientation to you new organization? 
Your answer is likely yes, and this is the probable
response of almost every new staff member in
every organization.
 
Properly conducted orientation sessions to address
many concerns of new staff members.  Managers
should encourage questions and recognize their
role as they provide an appropriate “welcome” to
the organization.
How about we know more about Onboarding and
Orientation? Watch and learn.
4. Training Process
Training is the process of developing a staff
member’s knowledge, skills, and attitudes
necessary to perform tasks required for a position.
 Hospitality operations are labor-intensive.  While
technology has reduced the need for staff in
departments such as accounting and the front
office, it generally has not affected the number of
employees required to produce and deliver most
of the products and services guests desire.  productive, and fewer labor hours will be needed.
Recently employed staff must acquire the
knowledge and skills needed to become proficient
in their positions.  Their more experienced peers
must obtain new knowledge and skills to keep up
with an ever-changing workplace.  Effective
training is critical to attaining these goals.
 Performance-Based Training Is Needed
Numerous responsibilities and tasks demand the
ongoing attention of those responsible for training,
and they are confronted with a challenge of
determining whether “nice-to-know” or,
alternatively, only “need-to-know” information and
skills should be emphasized.  In fact, training must
be cost-effective.  It must provide time and money
benefits that outweigh its costs.  To do so, training
must be performance-based.  It should be planned
and delivered in a a systematic way to help
trainees become better able to perform the tasks
that are essential for their job.  The success of
training can then be demonstrated by considering
the extent to which knowledge and skills improve
as a result of the training.
 Performance-based training is typically best
delivered at the job site during one-on-one
interactions between the trainer and trainee.  become candidates for position vacancies that
Conceptually, this is much better than group
training.  Why?  The trainer can focus on what the
individual must learn, feedback can be immediate,
and training can be delivered at the best place for
the individual trainee.
 
Training Benefits
 There are numerous benefits to the hospitality
organization when effective training programs are
in place.
 Ø  Improved performance – Trainees learn
knowledge and skills to perform required tasks
more effectively, and their on-job performance
improvers.
Ø  Reduced operating costs – Improved job
performance helps to reduce errors and rework,
and associated costs are reduced.  Workers
performing their jobs correctly will be more
Ø  More satisfied guests – Training can yield more
service-oriented employees who know how to
please guests.
Ø  Fewer operating problems – Busy managers can
focus on priority concerns and will not need to
address routine operating problems caused by
inappropriate training.
Ø  Lower employee turnover rates – Fewer new
staff members become necessary as turn-over
rates decrease.  Those who are properly trained
and rewarded for successful performance are less
likely to leave, and managers have less need to
recruit new employees.
Ø  Higher levels of work quality – Effective training
identifies quality standards that define acceptable
product and service outputs.  Trained employees
are more interested in operating equipment
correctly, in preparing the “right” products, and in
properly interacting with guests.
Ø  Easier to recruit new staff – Satisfied staff
members tell their family and friends about their
positive work experiences, and their contacts may
arise.  Hospitality operations that emphasize
training can evolve into “employers of choice”  that
provide “first choice” rather then “last choice”
employment opportunities.
Ø  Greater profits – If guests are more satisfied and
revenues increase, and if labor and other operating
costs are reduced, there is significant potential for
increased profits.  In the long run, training must be
“value-added” and should be measured by the
difference between the increased profits and the
added training costs.  While this measurement is
not easy to make, most industry observers believe
that, if done correctly, training will always “win” in
the comparison.
Ø  More professional staff – Professional want to
do their job as best they can, and this is only
possible with appropriate training.
 
Modern Types of Employee Training
A training program is an opportunity for a business
to polish its employees’ skills. Hence, your training
program should also cover the areas where
employees lack or want to improve specifically.
Along with that, there are several training
opportunities for a business even outside the
specific role of an employee such as management
training or training to improve communication/soft
skills.
Regardless of whether you schedule the
managerial training in-house, arrange them
externally or apply for online employee training
programs, all of these training aspects will help in
improving the business productivity.
 Now, let’s have a look at modern types of
employee training which are adopted by successful
organizations as a part of their general training
programs to help their employees develop a
holistic skill set.
Managerial Training
Many organizations keep the internal hiring policy
for employees and help them in moving up in
better positions. Similarly, when an employee
spends considerable time in a position, he/she may
be considered for a better managerial position.
Hence, when an organization holds such practices
then managerial training is inevitable.
Managerial training is offered to enhance the skills
required in terms of business management. This
particular training type may cover various aspects
such as proper and timely delegation, ways to
maintain motivation in your team, how to provide
proper feedback or coaching, or maybe a more
technical skill that would be required to take up
the managerial position. For instance, if an
organization uses a particular software tool for
tracking employees’ time then the employee will
have to get technically trained before he/she leads
the position
Does Managerial Training work for your
organization?
If your company prefers to cover managerial
vacancies with current employees that are striving
to grow professionally, managerial training will
help a lot
What is needed?
Managerial training takes time, so you need to
know what positions you’ll need to cover by
developing your employees for at least 1 year
ahead.
Modern companies have a strategic plan of
development for 5-10 years ahead and tactical plan
for at least 1 year ahead. This tactical plan almost
always provides for new job titles.
Top management should align such “job title
demand” with L&D department. In its turn, the
L&D department will look for internal staff that can
be developed to fit the role and proposes them to
pass the appropriate course.
The managerial training program obviously needs
to be aligned with job title
preferences/requirements.
Technical Training
This type of employee training depends on the job
role and responsibilities. While you may
incorporate technical training in your employee
training program, this could be both in terms of the
current job role or the job role that you are
expected to take up after promotion. Technical
training is aimed at educating the employee in
more technical aspects of a position. For instance,
you must be fully familiar with the use of different
software that you may require to perform your
day-to-day tasks. Similarly, you must get familiar
with proper system usage so that you can work
efficiently and error-free. All of this is required to
fulfill your job role and the same goes for other job
roles as well. This is indeed extensive training and
needs more than one training session to complete.
Hence, regardless of the technical level of your
employees, the room for improvement is always
there. Technical training is difficult as it involves
different aspects such as content writing or data
analysis. It’s a technical way to make your
employees perform their job in a more efficient
and effective manner. As technology advances with
time, this type of training is inevitable. Every time
there is a change in the technical tools or if the
organization adopts new software tools, this
training will be needed to keep a smooth flow of
operations and to stay updated with the latest
developments.
Does your organization need to employ Technical
Training?
If your employees’ day-to-day job involves usage of
complicated software products your organization
will benefit from technical training
What is needed?
To employ technical training in your organization,
you need mentors and content.
World-leading providers of software understand
the need for technical training for their customers,
so they create the infrastructure for such process.
For example, Microsoft has created the network
of Microsoft Learning Partners to distribute
knowledge related to their products.
Ask your software provider for technical training
assistance. If there is no such service, you will need
to use your internal expertise to create your own
courses.
 
Product Specific Training – PST
This type of training incorporates information
about the organization’s offered products or
services. The training can be conducted for both
new and existing employees. For new employees,
the training is usually conducted after the
orientation session. The training allows new
employees to fully understand the product or
service specification so that they can further offer
to customers and to perform their jobs the right
way.
However, considering the existing employees, the
training might be offered to provide them with a
refresher on product or services. Another reason
for existing employees to attend this training to get
on board with any new service or product or
feature introduced by your organization.
Does your organization need to employ Product
Specific Training?
If your company sells any kind of product/service -
product-specific training is a must
What is needed?
You will need to develop a lot of content. The most
common types of content for such training is:
 Interactive sales demos
 2D/ 3D product simulations, guided-demos,
and walkthroughs
 Product manuals / how-to guides
 Animated product banners, collaterals,
how-to guides, and manuals
(Print/Web/Multimedia)
 Product pre-launch and post-launch
training
What content would work for you depends on
what learning strategy you are going to choose for
your specific case. It can be fully offline
learning, blended learning, and fully online
learning. For the latter two you’ll need to develop
an online course.
 
The bottom line
Employee training is an inevitable aspect of a
growing organization. It not only develops the
individuals’ skills but it also increases business’s
worth and growth rate. An organization that offers
a strategic employee training program, keeping
every aspect of the organization and employees’
training needs into consideration, is the one who
establishes the best customer portfolio.
Moreover, it helps employees as well as the
business to develop itself with time and to stand
out from the rest. It brings satisfaction, happiness,
and confidence amongst employees and helps
them to perform better. Similarly, corporations
that take employee training and development as a
crucial and important business practice are always
advancing in the diverse working environment and
never fail to bring new ideas for the organization’s
improvement.
Nonetheless, a strategic employee training
program is the one that starts with hiring a new
employee and continues throughout their
employment.
5. Basic Labor Law Affecting Employer- Employee
Relationship
Basic Labor Laws
     The State shall protect labor, promote full
employment, provide equal work opportunity
regardless of gender, race, or creed; and regulate
employee-employer relations.
      Male and female employees are entitled to
equal compensation for work of equal value and to
equal access to promotion and training
opportunities. Discrimination against female
employees is unlawful. It is also unlawful for an
employer to require a condition of employment
that a woman employee shall not get married, or
to stipulate expressly or tacitly that a woman
employee shall be deemed dismissed upon
marriage.
     The minimum age of employment is 18 years for
hazardous jobs, and 15 years for non-hazardous
jobs. But a child below 15 maybe employed by
parents or guardians in a non-hazardous job if the
employment does not interfere with the child's
schooling.
1. Security of Tenure. Every employee shall be
assured security of tenure. No employee can be
dismissed from work except for a just or
authorized cause, and only after due process.
     Just Cause refers to any wrongdoing committed
by an employee including:
1. serious misconduct
2. willful disobedience of employers' lawful
orders connected with work
3. gross and habitual neglect of duty
4. fraud or willful breach of trust
5. commission of crime or offense against the
employer, employer's family member/s or
representative
6. other analogous cases
      Authorized Cause refers to an economic
circumstance not due to the employee's fault,
including:
1. the introduction of labor-saving devices
2. redundancy
3. retrenchment to prevent losses
4. closure or cessation of business
    Due Process in cases of just cause involves:
1. notice to employee of intent to dismiss and
grounds for dismissal
2. opportunity for employee to explain his or
her side
3. notice of decision to dismiss
      In authorized causes, due process means
written notice of dismissal to the employee
specifying the grounds, at least 30 days before the
date of termination.
     The inability of a probationary employee to
meet the employer's prescribed standards of
performance made known to him or her at the
time of hiring is also a just cause for dismissal.
2. Work Days and Work Hours . Work Day refers to
any day during which an employee is regularly
required to work. Hours of Work refer to all the
time an employee renders actual work, or is
required to be on duty or to be at a prescribed
workplace. The normal hours of work in a day is 8
hours. This includes breaks or rest period of less
than one hour, but excludes meal periods, which
shall not be less than one hour. An employee must
be paid his or her wages for all hours worked. If all
or any part of his or her regular work hours falls
between 10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m., a covered
employee shall be entitled to a night shift pay in
addition to his or her  pay for regular work hours. If
he or she works for more than 8 hours in one day,
he or she shall be entitled to overtime pay.
 3.Weekly Rest Day . A day-off of 24 consecutive
hours after 6 days of work should be scheduled by
the employer upon consultation with the workers.
4. Wage and Wage-Related Benefits. Wage is the
amount paid to an employee in exchange for a
task, piece of work, or service rendered to an
employer. This includes overtime, night
differential, rest day, holiday and 13th month pay.
It also includes the fair and reasonable value of
board, lodging and other facilities customarily
furnished by the employer.  Wage may be fixed for
a given period, as when it is computed hourly, daily
or monthly. It may also be fixed for a specified task
or result. If wage is for a fixed period, the minimum
wage for a regular 8-hour workday shall not be
lower than the minimum daily wage applicable to
the place of work as determined by the Regional
Tripartite Wage and Productivity Board having
jurisdiction over workplace.
      If wage is paid by result, the worker shall
receive at least the prescribed minimum wage for
8 hours of work. The amount may be increased or
reduced proportionately if work is rendered for
more or less than 8 hours a day. An employer
cannot make any deduction from an employee's
wage except for insurance premiums with the
consent of the employee, for union dues, or for
withholding taxes, SSS premiums and other
deductions expressly authorized by law.
5.  Payment of Wages. Wages shall be paid in cash,
legal tender at or near the place of work. Payment
may be made through a bank upon written petition
of majority of the workers in establishments with
25 or more employees and within one (1)
kilometer radius to a bank. Payment shall be made
directly to the employees. Wages shall be given not
less than once every two (2) weeks or twice within
a month at intervals not exceeding 16 days.
 6. Employment of Women  Nightwork prohibition
unless allowed by the Rules:
 in industrial undertakings from 10PM to
6AM
 in commercial/non-industrial undertakings
from 12MN to 6AM
 in agricultural undertakings, at night time
unless given not less than 9 consecutive
hours of rest
      Welfare facilities must be installed at the
workplace such as seats, separate toilet rooms,
lavatories, and dressing rooms. Prohibition against
discrimination with respect to pay (i.e. equal pay
for work of equal value), promotion, training
opportunities, study and scholarship grants.
 7. Employment of Children. Minimum employable
age is 15 years. A worker below 15 years of age
should be directly under the sole responsibility of
parents or guardians; work does not interfere with
child's schooling/normal development. No person
below 18 years of age can be employed in a
hazardous or deleterious undertaking.
8. Safe Working Conditions. Employers must
provide workers with every kind of on-the-job
protection against injury, sickness or death through
safe and healthful working conditions. Jobs may be
hazardous or highly hazardous. Hazardous jobs are
those which expose the employee to dangerous
environment elements, including contaminants,
radiation, fire, poisonous substances, biological
agents and explosives, or dangerous processes or
equipment including construction, mining,
quarrying, blasting, stevedoring, mechanized
farming and operating heavy equipment. If you
need further information on the provisions of the
OSH Standards.
8. Right to Self-Organization and Collective
Bargaining. The right to self-organization is the
right of every worker, free of any interference from
the employer or from government, to form or join
any legitimate worker's organization, association or
union of his or her own choice. Except those
classified as managerial or confidential employees,
all employees may form or join unions for purposes
of collective bargaining and other legitimate
concerted activities. An employee is eligible for
membership in an appropriate union on the first
day of his or her employment.
      Collective Bargaining involves two parties:
1. the representative of the employer
2. a union duly authorized by the majority of
the employees within a bargaining unit
called exclusive bargaining agent.
     It is a process where the parties agree:
 1. to fix and administer terms and conditions
of employment which must not be below
the minimum standards fixed by law
2. to set a mechanism for resolving their
grievances
      The result of collective bargaining is a contract
called collective bargaining agreement (CBA). A
CBA generally has a term of five years. The
provisions of a CBA may be classified as political or
economic. Political provisions refer to those which
define the coverage of the CBA and recognize the
collective bargaining agent as the exclusive
representative of the employees for the term of
the CBA. Economic provisions refer to all terms and
conditions of employment with a monetary value.
Economic provisions have a term of five years but
may be renegotiated before the end of the third
year of effectivity for the CBA.
Source: Department of Labor and Employment
6. Employee Grievances, Moral and Motivation
Concept of Employee Grievance
The grievance may be any genuine or imaginary
feeling of dissatisfaction or injustice which an
employee experiences about his job and it’s
nature, about the management policies and
procedures. Employee grievance is the perception
of unfair treatment on the job. There are many
factors that make employees unhappy.
An effective grievance procedure provides
employees with a mechanism to resolve issues of
concern. For instance, non-cooperation from
fellow members or a harsh remark relating to
domestic affairs may create an unhappy situation
at work. Finally, such feelings of dissatisfaction or
discontent result in employee grievance. There is
hardly an organization that runs smoothly at all
times. The grievance procedure may also help
employers correct issues before they become
serious issues or result in litigation.
Grievance may result from the following factors-
 Improper working conditions such as strict
production standards, unsafe workplace,
bad relation with managers, etc.
 Irrational management policies such as
overtime, transfers, demotions,
inappropriate salary structure, etc.
 Violation of organizational rules and
practices.
In most of the organizations, employees have the
complaint against their employers which is termed
as employee grievance. Hence, a complaint
affecting one or more employees at a time does
constitute a grievance. The complaint may be
related to wages, working hours or conditions of
employment. The dissatisfaction which is
expressed by an employee is regarded as a
complaint. When the complaint is filed and
brought to the notice of management, it will then
be the grievance. Hence, employee grievance has
resulted from the perception of unfair treatment
and differences in employee’s expectations and
managerial practices. A well-defined grievance
procedure is an important constituent of employee
relation as it provides a medium for the
transmission of complaints to the table of
management.
Grievances are brought to the employee’s
immediate supervisor. This may be either an
informal process or the beginning of the formal
process. Generally, there will be a requirement
that the grievance is submitted in writing using a
grievance form. Usually, the supervisor and the
union representative will review the grievance to
determine whether it is valid. Also, most grievance
procedures will require that the submission occurs
within a specified timeframe following the event or
incident.
Therefore, employee grievance is a formal
complaint affecting one or more individuals at a
time with respect to wages, working hours, a
condition of the work environment, transfers,
promotion and so on and formally informed to the
management.
Employee Grievances
       Effective HR Management should create a
pleasant and rewarding place to work. If
employees are treated fairly, grievances will be
minimized. Good policies could lead to highly
motivated, effective workers. Unfortunately,
problems are likely to occur regardless of how well
the HR policies and practices are designed.  the supervisor or ineffective or inadequate
    To maintain fair and effective employee
relations, every organization needs both a
grievance procedure and a discipline procedure.
Both procedures are needed regardless of whether
the employees are represented by a union, or
there is no union at all.  workers.
   Grievance procedures provide a systematic
process for hearing and evaluating the complaints
of employees They tend to be more highly
developed in unionized companies than in
nonunionized  companies because they are
specified in the labor agreement. This procedure
protects the rights employees and eliminates the
need for strikes or slowdowns everytime a
disagreement occurs about the labor contract.
     Discipline procedures provide a systematic
process for handling problem employees. The goal
of a good discipline system is to help employees
perform better; but if they fail to respond, a
procedure is needed for hiring them as a last
resort.
Definition of Grievance
     Grievance is a disagreement between an
employee and the employer on the  terms or
conditions of employment. The causes for a
grievance may include, but are not limited to,
complaints concerning wages, hours of work,
working conditions, performance evaluations, job
assignments or the interpretation or application of
a rule, regulation or policy.
    Unionized firms use a more limited definition in
which grievances refer to "any question by either
the employer or the union regarding the
interpretation or application of the collective
bargaining agreement or company personnel
policies, thus referring only to specific disputes
concerning any violation of the CBA or the labor
code.  from person to person, so does what motivates
Causes of Grievances
1. Differing application and interpretation of the
collective bargaining agreement  (CBA).
2. Perceived unfair treatment of the employee by
supervision.
3. Unfair labor practices of the employers.
4. Violation by management of the labor
agreement or violation of the law concerning the
5. Grievances inspired by the union leaders.
6. Lack of a clear-cut company labor policy.
Motivation and Job Satisfaction
     Motivation is defined as the willingness to exert
high levels of effort to reach organizational goals,
conditioned by the effort's ability to satisfy some
individual needs. It is the feeling that prompts
people to do what they need to do. The effort
element is a measure of intensity of drive. When
someone is motivated, he or she tries hard to
accomplish more and do a job well. Motivating
employees to perform well should be the concern
of all supervisors and managers who have
subordinates who should be properly led and
directed to achieve organizational objectives.
       Needs differ among individuals and reward is in
the form of the individual'desires needs and
his/her objectives. The task of management is to
arouse and maintain the interests of its employees
to work willingly and enthusiastically to achieve
the company's goal. Performance-based rewards
play a number of roles and addresses a variety of
purposes in organization, employees will
presumably be motivated  to work harder to
achieve those awards.
Factors Influencing Motivation
1. Individual Differences - personal needs, values,
attitudes, interests and abilities that people bring
to their jobs. Because these characteristics vary 
people. One employee may be motivated by
money and go for a high paying job while another
may be motivated by security and accept a low-
paying job that involves less risk of unemployment.
2. Job Characteristics - the aspects of the position
that determine its limitations and challenges.
These include:
    a. Variety of skills required to do the job
    b. Degree to which the employee can do the
entire  task from start to finish.
    c. Significance attributed to the job
    d. Autonomy
    e. The type and extent of performance feedback
that an employee receives.
3. Organizational Practices. the rules, human
resource policies, managerial practices and
rewards systems of an organization. Policies
defining benefits and rewards can attract new
employees and keep existing employees happy.
Source: Corpuz,  Cristina R. (2013) Human
Resource Management:  RexBookstore. Manila.
Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation Video
Employee Separations, Downsizing, and
Outplacement
Reduced labor costs—The will affect the bottom
line. Not only are the salary savings earned, but
also all costs associated with providing benefits
and other processing of that employee.  downturn circumstances or restructuring of
Replacement of poor performers—An integral part
of management is identifying poor performers. If
poor-performing employees do not turn around
performance, it may be best to terminate.
Increased innovation—Separations create
advancement opportunities for high-performing
individuals and also open up entry-level positions.
New hires can fill those open positions and offer a
fresh perspective.  economic, business, or personal reasons. The HR
Opportunity for diversity—Separations can offer
opportunities to hire diverse employees with
varied backgrounds, knowledge, skills, and
abilities.  such as temporary leaves of absence, attrition,
Voluntary separations occur when an employee
decides, for personal or professional reasons, to
end the relationship with the company. 
Quits—employee leaves the company for either a
more attractive job alternative or is dissatisfied
with job.
Retirement—differs from quits in that it usually
occurs at the end of the employee’s work life. 
Involuntary separations occur when management
decides to terminate its relationship with an
employee due to 
     (1) economic necessity or 
    (2) a poor fit between the employee and
organization. 
There are two basic types of involuntary
separations. 
1. The first is discharges, which take place
when management decides that there is a
poor fit between employee and the
organization. 
2. Layoffs are a means for organizations to cut
costs. Layoffs are usually due to economic
the organization with need to change or
eliminate positions. 
Employment Separation: Types of Separation from
Employment
Employment separation is a decision that the
individual and the organization should part. The
employer or the employee may initiate
it. Additionally, it may be motivated by disciplinary,
department’s role is to find the most satisfactory
method of conducting the separation in a way that
minimizes the harm to the organization and the
individual. Separations can take several forms,
layoffs, and termination.
Types of Employment Separation
Temporary Leaves of Absentee
Employees sometimes need to leave their jobs
temporarily. The reasons may be medical family,
educational, recreational, and other motives.
When the reasons are both or adoption, caring for
an ill spouse, child or parent, or a severe health
condition that makes the employee unable to
perform his job. The employee is entitled to twelve
weeks’ leave in a twelve-month (depends on the
existing law of your country).
Attrition
Attrition is the normal separation of people from
an organization as a result of resignation,
retirement, or death. It is initiated by the individual
worker, not by the company.
In most organizations, the key component of
attrition is resignation, which is voluntary
separation.
Layoffs
Layoffs entail the separation of employees from
the organization for economic or business reasons.
The separation may last only a few weeks if its
purpose is to adjust inventory levels or allow a
factory to retool for a new product. When caused
by a business cycle, layoffs may last many months
or years.
However, if it occurs because of restructurings
such as downsizing or mergers and acquisitions, a
“temporary” layoff may become permanent.
Termination
Termination is a broad term that encompasses
permanent separation from the organization for
any reason. Usually, this term implies that the
person was fired as a form of disciplinary action.
When people are discharged for business or
economic reasons, it is commonly called a layoff.
Sometimes, however, the employer needs to
separate some employees for business reasons and
has no plans to rehire them.
Rather than being laid off, those people are simply
terminated. Employees leave for many reasons,
such as dismissal, resignation, redundancy, and
retirement.
1. Organizational Behavior
Organizational Behavior: Definition, Importance,
Nature
Organizational Behavior (OB) is the study of
human behavior in organizational settings, the
interface between human behavior and the
organization, and the organization
itself. Organizational Behavior researchers study
the behavior of individuals primarily in their
organizational roles. One of the main goals of
organizational behavior is to revitalize
organizational theory and develop a better
conceptualization of organizational life. As a multi-
disciplinary field, organizational behavior has been
influenced by developments in a number of allied
disciplines including sociology, psychology,
economics, and engineering as well as by the
experience of practitioners.
Origin of Organizational Behaviour can trace its
roots back to Max Weber and earlier organizational
studies.
The Industrial Revolution is the period from
approximately 1760 when new technologies
resulted in the adoption of new manufacturing
techniques, including increased mechanization.
The industrial revolution led to significant social
and cultural change, including new forms of
organization.
Analyzing these new organizational forms,
sociologist Max Weber described bureaucracy as
an ideal type of organization that rested on
rational-legal principles and maximized technical
efficiency.
In the 1890’s; with the arrival of scientific
management and Taylorism, Organizational
Behavior Studies was forming it as an academic
discipline.
Failure of scientific management gave birth to the
human relations movement which is characterized
by a heavy emphasis on employee cooperation and
morale.
Human Relations Movement from the 1930’s to
1950’s contributed to shaping the Organizational
Behavior studies.
Works of scholars like Elton Mayo, Chester
Barnard, Henri Fayol, Mary Parker Follett, Frederick
Herzberg, Abraham Mas low, David Mc Cellan and
Victor Vroom contributed to the growth of
Organisational Behaviour as a discipline.
Works of scholars like Elton Mayo, Chester
Barnard, Henri Fayol, Mary Parker Follett, Frederick
Herzberg, Abraham Maslow, David Mc Cellan and
Victor Vroom contributed to the growth of
Organisational Behaviour as a discipline.
Herbert Simon’s Administrative Behavior
introduced a number of important concepts to the
study of organizational behavior, most notably
decision making.
Simon along with Chester Barnard; argued that
people make decisions differently in organizations
than outside of them. Simon was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on
organizational decision making.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the field became more
quantitative and produced such ideas as the
informal organization, and resource dependence.
Contingency theory, institutional theory, and
organizational ecology also enraged.
Starting in the 1980s, cultural explanations of
organizations and organizational change became
areas of study.
Informed by anthropology, psychology, and
sociology, qualitative research became more
acceptable in OB.
The organizations in which people work have an
effect on their thoughts, feelings, and actions.
These thoughts, feelings, and actions, in turn,
affect the organization itself.
Organizational behavior studies the mechanisms
governing these interactions, seeking to identify
and foster behaviors conducive to the survival and
effectiveness of the organization.
1. Job Satisfaction.
2. Finding the Right People.
3. Organizational Culture.
4. Leadership and Conflict Resolution.
5. Understanding Employees Better.
6. Understand how to Develop Good Leaders.
7. Develop a Good Team.
8. Higher Productivity.
These 8 objectives of organizational behavior show
that OB is concerned with people within the
organization, how they are interacting, what is the
level of their satisfaction, the level of motivation,
and find ways to improve it in a way the yields
most productivity.
Fundamental Concepts of Organizational Behavior
Organization Behavior is based on a few
fundamental concepts which revolve around the
nature of people and organizations.
Such basic concepts are not specific to the field of
OB.
The fundamental concepts of organizational
behavior are;
 Individual Differences.
 Perception.
 A Whole Person.
 Motivated Behavior.
 The desire for Involvement.
 The value of the Person.
 Human Dignity.
 Organizations are Social System.
 Mutuality of Interest.
 Holistic Concept.
In every field of social science or even physical
science, has a philosophical foundation of basic
concepts that guide its development. There are
certain philosophical concepts in organizational
behavior also.
Individual Differences
Every individual in the world is different from
others. Science supports this idea. Each person is
different from all others, probably in a million
ways, just as each’s DNA profile is different. The
idea of the individual difference comes originally
from psychology. From the day of birth, each
person is unique, and personal experiences after
birth tend to make people even more different.
Perception
Peoples’ perceptions are also different when they
see an object. Two people can differently present
the same object. And this is occurring for their
experiences. A person always organizes and
interprets what he sees according to his lifetime of
experience and accumulated value. Employees also
see work differently for differ in their personalities,
needs, demographics factors, past experiences,
and social surroundings.
A Whole Person
An employee’s personal life is not detached from
his working life. As an example, A women who
attend the office at 9:00 AM is always anxious for
her children’s school time (if her kids can
participate in the school or not). As a result, its
impact falls on her concentration that means her
working life. For this reason, we cannot separate it.
So the manager should treat an employee as a
whole person.
Motivated Behavior
An employee has so many needs inside him. So,
they want to fulfill those needs. That’s why; they
had to perform well in the organization. Some
motivations are necessary to enrich the quality of
work. A path toward increased need fulfillment is
the better way to enhances the quality of work.
Desire for Involvement
Every employee is actively seeking opportunities to
work to involve in decision-making problems. They
hunger for the chance to share what they know
and to learn from the experience. So, the
organization should provide them a chance to
express their opinions, ideas, and suggestions for
the decision-making problem. A meaningful
involvement can bring mutual benefit to both
parties.
Value of the Person
An employee wants to be treated separately from
another factor of production, (land, capital,
labor). They refuse to accept the old idea that they
are just treated as economic tools because they
are the best creation of Almighty Allah. For
this, reason, they want to be treated with carrying
respect, dignity and other things from their
employers and society.
Human Dignity
This concept is very philosophical. Every person
needs to be treated with dignity and respect,
whether it’s the CEO of the company or labor. It
confirms that people are to be treated differently
from other factors of production because they are
of a higher order in the universe.it recognizes
human dignity because people are of a higher
order; they want to be treated with respect and
dignity and should be treated this way.
Organizations are Social System
From sociology, we learn that organizations are
social systems; consequently, activities therein are
governed by social laws as well as psychological
laws. Just as people have psychological needs, they
also have social roles and status. Their behavior is
influenced by their group as well as by their
drives. In fact, two types of social systems exist
side by side in organizations. One is a formal
system, and the other is the informal social system.
Mutuality of Interest
Mutual interest is represented by the statement
that organizations need people and people also
need organizations. Organizations have a human
purpose. They are formed and maintained by some
mutuality of interest among their
participants. People see organizations as a means
to help them reach their goals, while at the same
time, organizations need people to help achieve
organizational objectives. If mutuality is lacking, it
makes no sense to try to assemble a group and
develop cooperation, because there is no common
base on which to build. Mutual interest provides a
super-ordinate goal that unites the variety of
needs that people bring to organizations. The
result is that people are encouraged to attack
organizational problems rather than each other.
Holistic Concept
When the fundamental concepts of OB are placed
together, a holistic concept emerges. This concept
interprets people-organization relationships
regarding the whole person, the whole group,
whole organization, and the whole social system.It
takes across the board view of people in
organizations to understand as many as possible of
the factors that influence their behavior.  Issues
are analyzed in terms of the total situation
affecting them rather than in terms of an isolated
event or problems.
2. Importance of Organizational Behavior
Organizations can have a powerful influence on
our lives:
–Most people are born and educated in
organizations
–Most people acquire most of their material
possessions from organizations
–Most people die as members of organizations
–Many of our activities are regulated by
governmental organizations
–Most people spend most of their lives in
organizations
Organizational Behavior and Management: Why
Study OB?
1. Studying organizational behavior can clarify
factors that affect how managers manage by:
     –Describing the complex human context of
organizations
     –Defining the associated opportunities,
problems, challenges, and issues
     –Isolating important aspects of the manager’s
job
     –Offering specific perspectives on the human
side of management
2. Studying OB helps managers understand:
     –The behaviors of others in the organization
          •Personal needs, motives, behaviors, feelings
and career dynamics
          •Attitudinal processes, individual
differences, group dynamics, inter group dynamics,
organization culture, power, and political behavior
      –Interactions with people outside of the
organization and other organizations
      –The environment, technology, and global
issues
The reason Organizational Behavior studies are
uniquely useful for succeeding as a leader of a
large business (or other organization). OB teaches
you what makes people make decisions, why
employees are not motivated to do what you want
them to do and why people are productive or not
productive. Making good decisions and creating an
environment where people can be creative and
motivated, are very important for a successful
business.
So studying and understanding Organizational
Behavior is one of the truly important ingredients
of business success. Organizational Behavior
studies power and organizational politics. If you
don’t understand these topics, you will struggle as
an employee, especially in large
organizations. Stanford professor Jeff Pfeffer has
summarized the status of the Organizational
Behavior approach to real-world management as a
“one-eighth” situation, and “the knowing-doing
gap”. OB applies the knowledge gained
from individuals, groups, and the effect of
structure on behavior to make organizations work
more effectively. It is concerned with the study of
what people do in an organization and how that
behavior affects the performance of the
organization. There is increasing agreement as to
the components of OB. But there is still
considerable debate as to the relative importance
of each; motivation, leader behavior and power,
interpersonal communication, group structure and
processes, learning, attitude development,
and perception, change processes, conflict, work
design, and work stress. It is also important
because it focuses on the following areas. It is also
important because it focuses on the following
areas. OB draws heavily from behavioral and social
sciences, most importantly from psychology.
It studies the interrelation between an individual
and an organization in the following ways:
1. OB helps to learn about thyself and how to
deal with others
2. Organizational Behavior is a way of
thinking.
3. Organizational Behavior is multidisciplinary
and it helps us multiple ways.
4. There is a distinctly humanistic orientation
with OB.
5. The field of organizational behavior is
performance-oriented.
6. Organizational Behavior satisfies the need
to understand and predict.
7. It helps us to test personal theories.
8. OB helps the managers to understand the
basis of motivation and what he should do
to motivate his subordinates.
9. OB helps to maintain cordial industrial
relations which help to increase the overall
productivity of the industry.
10. The subject of organizational behavior is
useful in the field of marketing.
11. This helps greatly in improving bur inter-
personal relations in the organizations.
Friendly and cordial relations between
employees and management and also
among the employees create a congenial
work environment in organizations.
12. It helps managers apply appropriate
motivational techniques by the nature of
individual employees who exhibit a glaring
difference in many respects.
13. One of the basic characteristics of OB is
that it is human. So to say, OB tackles
human problems humanely. It helps
understand the cause of the problem,
predicts is the future course of action and
controls its evil consequences.
14. Another popular reason for studying OB is
to learn how to predict human behavior ‘
and, then, apply it in some useful way to
make the organization more effective.
15. OB implies that the effective utilization of
people working in the organization
guarantees the success of the organization.
16. The most popular reason for studying
organizational behavior is that the reader is
interested in pursuing a career in
management and wants to learn how to
predict behavior and apply in some
meaningful way to make organizations
more effective.
OB has a great impact on individuals and also in
organizations that cannot be ignored. To run the
businesses effectively and efficiently, the study of
organizational behavior is very essential.
3. Organizational Behavior and the Manager’s Job
Organizational Behavior and the Manager’s Job
4. Contemporary Organizational Behavior
Contemporary Organizational Behavior
Characteristics of the Field
     –Interdisciplinary in focus
     –Descriptive in nature
Basic Concepts of the Field
     1.Individual processes
     2.Interpersonal processes
     3.Organizational processes/characteristics
The Systems Perspective
System
     –An interrelated set of elements that function 
as a whole—inputs are combined/transformed  by
managers into outputs from the system
Value of the Systems Perspective
     –Underscores the importance of an
organization’s environment
     –Conceptualizes the flow and interaction of
various elements of the organization.
The Situational Perspective
The Situational Perspective
     –Recognizes that most organizational
situations and outcomes are influenced by other
variables
The Universal Model
     –Presumes a direct cause-and-effect linkage
between variables
     –Complexities of human behavior and
organizational settings make universal conclusions
virtually impossible
Managing for Effectiveness
Managers work toward accomplishing the various
goals (outcomes) that exist at specific levels in an
organization:
     –Individual-level outcomes
     –Group-level outcomes
     –Organizational-level  outcomes
1. The Nature of Organization Culture
Culture: Definition, Functions, Characteristics,
Elements of Culture
Culture consists of all learned, normative behavior
patterns – that is all shared ways or patterns of
thinking and feeling as well as doing.
Word ‘culture’ comes from the Latin word ‘cultura’
which is related to cult or worship. In its broadest
sense, the term refers to the result of human
interaction.
The culture of society comprises the shared values,
understandings, assumptions, and goals that are
learned from earlier generations, imposed by
present members of society, and passed on to
succeeding generations.
Sometimes an individual is described as a highly
cultured person, meaning thereby that the person
in question has certain features such as his/her
speech, manner, and taste for literature, music or
painting which distinguish him from others.
Culture, in this sense, refers to certain personal
characteristics of an individual.
However, this is not the sense in which the word
culture is used and understood in social sciences.
Sometimes culture is used in popular discourse to
refer to a celebration or an evening of
entertainment, as when one speaks of a ‘cultural
show’. In this sense, culture is identified with
aesthetics or the fine arts such as dance, music or
drama.
This is also different from the technical meaning of
the word culture.
Culture is used in a special sense in anthropology
and sociology. It refers to the sum of human
beings’ lifeways, their behavior, beliefs, feelings,
thought; it connotes everything that is acquired by
them as social beings. Culture has been defined in
a number of ways.
There is no consensus among sociologists and
anthropologists regarding the definition of culture.
There are some writers who add to these
definitions some of the important” other
capabilities and habits” such as language and the
techniques for making and using tools.
What is Culture?
Culture has been defined in a number of ways, but
most simply, as the learned and shared the
behavior of a community of interacting human
beings.
According to British anthropologist Edward Taylor,
“Culture is that complex whole which includes
knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any
other capabilities and habits acquired by man as. a
member of society”.
According to Phatak, Bhagat, and Kashlak, “Culture
is a concept that has been used in several social
science disciplines to explain variations in human
thought processes in different parts of the
world.”         ‘
According to J.P. Lederach, “Culture is the shared
knowledge and schemes created by a set of people
for perceiving, interpreting, expressing, and
responding to the social realities around them”.
According to R. Linton, “A culture is a configuration
of learned behaviors and results of behavior whose
component elements are shared and transmitted
by the members of a particular society”.
According to G. Hofstede, “Culture is the collective
programming of the mind which distinguishes the
members of one category of people from another.”
According to H.T. Mazumdar, “Culture is the sum
total of human achievements, material as well as
non-material, capable of transmission,
sociologically, i.e., by tradition and communication,
vertically as well as horizontally”.
Actually, culture is defined as the shared patterns
of behaviors and interactions, cognitive constructs,
and affective understanding that are learned
through a process of, socialization. These shared
patterns identify the members of a cultural group
while also distinguishing those of another group.
Functions of Culture
We will review the functions that culture performs
and assess whether culture can be a liability for an
organization. Culture performs a number of
functions within an organization.
 First, it has a boundary-defining role; that
is, it creates distinctions between one
organization and another.
 Second, it conveys a sense of identity for
organization members.
 Third, culture facilitates the generation of
commitment to something larger than
one’s individual self-interest.
 Fourth, it enhances the stability of the
social system. Culture is the social glue that
helps hold the organization together by
providing appropriate standards for what
employees should say and do.
 Finally, culture serves as a sense-making
and control mechanism that guides
and shapes the attitudes and behavior of
employees. It is this last function, that is of
particular interest to us.
The role of culture in influencing employee
behavior appears to be increasingly important in
today’s workplace.
As organizations have widened spans of control,
flattened structures introduced, teams reduced
formalization and empowered employees. The
shared meaning provided by a strong culture
ensures that everyone is pointed in the same
direction.
1. The Nature of Organization Culture
1.1. Characteristics of Culture
Characteristics of Culture
All organizations have the culture in the sense that
they are embedded in specific societal cultures and
are part of them.
Some values create a dominant culture in the
organizations that help guide the day to day
behavior of employees.
There is also evidence that these dominant
cultures can have a positive impact on desirable
outcomes such as successfully conducting mergers
and acquisitions supporting product – innovation
processes, and helping firms cope with rapid
economic and technological change.
Culture has various characteristics. From various
definitions, we can deduce the following
characteristics of culture:
 Learned Behavior.
 Culture is Abstract.
 Culture Includes Attitudes, Values, and
Knowledge.
 Culture also Includes Material Objects.
 Culture is Shared by the Members of
Society.
 Culture is Super-Organic.
 Culture is Pervasive.
 Culture is a Way of Life.
 Culture is Idealistic.
 Culture is Transmitted among Members of
Society.
 Culture is Continually Changing.
 Language is the Chief Vehicle of Culture.
 Culture is Integrated.
 Culture is Dynamic.
 Culture is Transmissive.
 Culture Varies from Society to Society.
 Culture is Gratifying.
Learned Behavior
Not all behavior is learned, but most of it is
learned; combing one’s hair, standing in line,
telling jokes, criticizing the President and going to
the movie, all constitute behaviors that had to be
learned.
Sometimes the terms conscious learning and
unconscious learning are used to distinguish the
learning.
Some behavior is obvious. People can be seen
going to football games, eating with forks, or
driving automobiles. Such behavior is called
“overt” behavior. Other behavior is less visible.
Culture is Abstract
Culture exists in the minds or habits of the
members of society. Culture is the shared ways of
doing and thinking. There are degrees of visibility
of cultural behavior, ranging from the regularized
activities of persons to their internal reasons for so
doing.
In other words, we cannot see culture as, such we
can only see human behavior. This behavior occurs
in regular, patterned fashion and it is called
culture.
Culture Includes Attitudes, Values, and
Knowledge
There is a widespread error in the thinking of many
people who tend to regard the ideas, attitudes,
and notions which they have as “their own”.
It is easy to overestimate the uniqueness of one’s
own attitudes and ideas. When there is an
agreement with other people it is largely
Unnoticed, but when there is a disagreement or
difference one is usually conscious of it.
Your differences, however, may also be cultural.
For example, suppose you are a Muslim and the
other person is a Christian.
Culture also Includes Material Objects
Man’s behavior results in creating objects.
Men were behaving when they made these things.
To make these objects required numerous and
various skills which human beings gradually built
up through the ages. Man has invented something
else and so on.
Occasionally one encounters the view that man
does not really “make” steel or a battleship.
All these things first existed in a “state nature”.
The man merely modified their form, changed
them from a state in which they were to the state
in which he now uses them. The chair was first a
tree which man surely did not make. But the chair
is’ more than trees and the jet airplane is more
than iron ore and so forth.
Culture is Shared by the Members of Society
The patterns of learned behavior and the results of
behavior are possessed not by one or a few
people, but usually by a large proportion.
Thus, many millions of persons share such behavior
patterns as the use of automobiles or the English
language. Persons may share some part of a
culture unequally.
Sometimes the people share different aspects of
culture.
Culture is Super-Organic
Culture is sometimes called super organic. It
implies that “culture” is somehow superior to
“nature”. The word super-organic is useful when it
implies that what may be quite a different
phenomenon from a cultural point of view.
For example, a tree means different things to the
botanist who studies it, the old woman who uses it
for shade in the late summer afternoon, the farmer
who picks its fruit, the motorist who collides with it
and the young lovers who carve their initials in its
trunk.
The same physical objects and physical
characteristics, in other words, may constitute a
variety of quite different cultural objects and
cultural characteristics.
Culture is Pervasive
Culture is pervasive it touches every aspect of life.
The pervasiveness of culture is manifest in two
ways.
First, culture provides an unquestioned context
within which individual action and response take
place. Not only emotional action but relational
actions are governed by cultural norms.
Second, culture pervades social activities and
institutions.
Culture is a Way of Life
Culture means simply the “way of life” of a people
or their “design for a living.” Kluckhohn and Kelly
define it in his sense”, A culture is a historically
derived system of explicit and implicit designs for
living, which tends to be shared by all or specially
designed members of a group”.
Explicit culture refers to similarities in word and
action which can be directly observed.
For example, adolescent cultural behavior can be
generalized from regularities in dress, mannerism,
and conversation. Implicit culture exists in abstract
forms which are not quite obvious.
Culture is Idealistic
Culture embodies the ideals and norms of a group.
It is sum-total of the ideal patterns and norms of
behavior of a group. Culture consists of the
intellectual, artistic and social ideals and
institutions which the members of the society
profess and to which they strive to confirm.
Culture is Transmitted among Members of Society
The cultural ways are learned by persons from
persons.
Many of them are “handed down” by one’s elders,
by parents, teachers, and others. Other cultural
behaviors are “handed up” to elders. Some of the
transmission of culture is among contemporaries.
For example, the styles of dress, political views,
and the use of recent labor-saving devices. One
does not acquire a behavior pattern
spontaneously.
He learns it. That means that someone teaches him
and he learns. Much of the learning process both
for the teacher and the learner is quite
unconscious, unintentional, or accidental.
Culture is Continually Changing
There is one fundamental and inescapable
attribute (special quality) of culture, the fact of
unending change.
Some societies sometimes change slowly, and
hence in comparison to other societies seem not to
be changing at all. But they are changing, even
though not obviously so.
Language is the Chief Vehicle of Culture
Man lives not only in the present but also in the
past and future.
He is able to do this because he possesses
language which transmits to him what was learned
in the past and enables him to transmit the
accumulated wisdom to the next generation.
A specialized language pattern serves as a common
bond to the members of a particular group or
subculture.
Although culture is transmitted in a variety of
ways, language is one of the most important
vehicles for perpetuating cultural patterns.
Culture is Integrated
This is known as holism, or the various parts of a
culture being interconnected.
All aspects of a culture are related to one another
and to truly understand a culture, one must learn
about all of its parts, not only a few.
Culture is Dynamic
This simply means that cultures interact and
change.
Because most cultures are in contact with other
cultures, they exchange ideas and symbols. All
cultures change, otherwise, they would have
problems adapting to changing environments.
And because cultures are integrated, if one that are learned from earlier generations, imposed
component in the system changes, it is likely that by present members of society, and passed on to
the entire system must adjust. succeeding generations.

Culture is Transmissive There are some elements of culture about which

the managers of international operation should be
Culture is transmissive as it is transmitted front one aware of.
generation to another.
 Languages,
Language is the main vehicle of culture. Language  Norms,
in different forms makes it possible for the present  Symbols,
generation to understand the achievement of  Values,
earlier generations.  Attitude,
 Rituals,
Transmission of culture may take place by  Customs and Manners,
imitation as well as by instruction.  Material Culture,
 Education,
Culture Varies from Society to Society  Physical Artifacts,
 Language, Jargons, and Metaphors,
Every society has a culture of its own. It differs
 Stories, Myths, and Legends,
from society to society. The culture of every
 Ceremonies and Celebrations,
society is unique to itself. Cultures are not uniform.
 Behavioral Norms, and
Cultural elements like customs, traditions, morals,  Shared Beliefs and Values.
values, beliefs are not uniform everywhere. Culture
Languages
varies from time to time also.
It is a primary means used to transmit information
Culture is Gratifying
and ideas. Knowledge of local language can help
Culture provides proper opportunities for the because-
satisfaction of our needs and desires.
 It permits a clearer understanding of the
Our needs both biological and social are fulfilled in situation.
cultural ways. Culture determines and guides  It provides direct access to local people.
various activities of man. Thus, culture is defined as  Understanding of implied meanings.
the process through which human beings satisfy
their wants. Religion: The spiritual beliefs of a society are often
so powerful that they transcend other cultural
So we can easily say that culture has various aspects. Religion affect-
features which embodied it in an important
position in organizations and other aspects too.  The work habit of people
 Work and social customs
 Politics and business
1.2. Elements of Culture
Norms
Elements of Culture
Cultures differ widely in their norms, or standards
Culture is transmitted to employees in a number of and expectations for behaving. Norms are often
ways. The most significant are stories, rituals, divided into two types, formal norms, and informal
material symbols, and language. norms.

The culture of society also comprises the shared

values, understandings, assumptions, and goals
Formal norms, also called mores and laws, refer to
the standards of behavior considered the most
important in any society.
Informal norms, also called folkways and customs,
refer to standards of behavior that are considered
less important but still influence how we behave.
Symbols
Every culture is filled with symbols, of things that
stand for something else and that often suggests
various reactions and emotions.
Some symbols are actually types of nonverbal
communication, while other symbols are in fact
material objects.
Values
Values are a society’s ideas about what is good or
bad, right or wrong – such as the widespread belief
that stealing is immoral and unfair.
Values determine how individuals will probably
respond in any given circumstances
Attitude
Attitude is a persistent tendency to feel and
behave in a particular way.
Actually it is the external displays of underlying
beliefs that people use to signal to other people.
Rituals
Rituals are processes or sets of actions that are
repeated in specific circumstances and with
specific meaning. They may be used in such as rites
of passage, such as when someone is promoted or
retires.
They may be associated with company events such
as the release of a new event. They may also be
associated with a day like Eid day.
Customs and Manners
Customs are common and establish practices.
Manners are behaviors that are regarded as
appropriate in a particular society. These indicate
the rules of behavior which enforce ideas of right
and wrong.
They can be the traditions, rules, written laws, etc.
Material Culture
Another element of culture is the artifacts, or
material objects, that constitute a society’s
material culture. It consists of objects that people
make. Like-
 Economic infrastructure (transportation,
communication and energy capabilities)
 Social infrastructure (Health, housing, and
education systems)
 Financial infrastructure (Banking, insurance
and financial services)
Education
It influences many aspects of culture.
Actually, culture is the entire accumulation of
artificial objects, conditions, tools, techniques,
ideas, symbols and behavior patterns peculiar to a
group of people, possessing a certain consistency
of its own, and capable of transmission from one
generation to another.
Physical Artifacts
These are the tangible manifestations and key
elements of organizational culture.
If you visit different organizations, you’ll notice
that each is unique in terms of its physical layout,
use of facilities, centralization or dispersion of
common utilities, and so on.
This uniqueness is not incidental, instead, they
represent the symbolic expressions of an
underlying meaning, values, and beliefs, which is
shared by people in the organization. The
workplace culture greatly affects the performance
of an organization.
Language, Jargons, and Metaphors
These elements of organizational culture play an
important role in identifying a company’s culture.
While the language is a means of universal
communication, most business houses tend to
develop their own unique terminologies, phrases,
and acronyms.
For instance, in the organizational linguistics code,
“Kremlin” may mean the headquarters; in Goal
India Limited, the acronym. J.I.T. (Just In Time) was
jokingly used to describe all the badly planned fire-
fighting jobs.
Stories, Myths, and Legends
These are, in a way, an extension of organizational
language. They epitomize the unwritten values and
morals of organizational life.
If you collect the various stories, anecdotes, and
jokes that are shared in an organization, they often
read like plots and themes, in which nothing
changes except the characters.
They rationalize the complexity and turbulence of
activities and events to allow for predictable
action-taking.
Ceremonies and Celebrations
These are consciously enacted behavioral artifacts
which help in reinforcing the organization’s cultural
values and assumptions.
For example, every year Tata Steel celebrates
Founder’s Day to commemorate and reiterate its
adherence to the original values of the
organization.
Stating the importance of ceremonies and
celebrations, Deal and Kennedy (1982) say,
“Without expressive events, and culture will die. In
the absence of ceremony, important values have
no impact.”
Behavioral Norms
This is one of the most important elements of
organizational culture. They describe the nature of
expectations which impinge on the members’
behavior.
Behavioral norms determine how the members will
behave, interact and relate with each other.
Shared Beliefs and Values
All organizations have their unique set of basic
beliefs and values (also called moral codes), shared
by most of its members. These are the mental
pictures of organizational reality, and form the
basis of defining the right or wrong in the
organization.
In an organization, for instance, if the predominant
belief is that meeting the customers’ demands is
essential for success, any behavior which
supposedly meets these criteria is acceptable, even
if it violates the established rules and procedures.
Values and beliefs focus organizational energies
toward certain actions while discouraging the
other behavioral patterns.
Factors Affecting the Culture
There are so many ways of examining cultural
differences and their impact on international
management. Culture can affect technology
transfer, managerial attitudes, managerial
ideology, and even business-government relations.
In overall terms, the cultural impact on
international management is reflected by these
basic beliefs and behaviors.
Here are some specific examples where the culture
of a society can directly affect management
approaches:
Centralized vs. Decentralized Decision Making
In some societies, top managers make all-
important organizational decisions.
In others, these decisions are defused throughout
the enterprise; middle and lower-level managers
actively participate and make decisions.
Safety vs. Risk
In some societies, organizational decision-makers
are risk-averse and have great difficulty with
conditions of uncertainty. In others, risk-taking is
encouraged, and decision making under
uncertainty is common.
Individual vs. Group Rewards
In some countries, personnel who do outstanding
work are given individual rewards in the form of
bonuses and commissions. In others, cultural
norms require group rewards, and individual
rewards are frowned on.
Informal vs. Formal Procedures
In some societies, much is accomplished through
informal means. In others, formal procedures are
set forth and followed rigidly.
Cooperation vs. Competition
Some societies encourage cooperation between
their people. Others encourage competition
between their people.
High Vs. Low Organizational Loyalty
In some societies, people identify very strongly
with their organization or employer. In others,
people identify with their occupational groups,
such as an engineer or mechanics.
Short-term vs. Long-term Horizons
Some cultures focus most heavily on short-term
horizons such as short-range goals of profit and
efficiency. Others are more interested in long-
range goals, such as market share and
technological development.
Stability vs. Innovation
The culture of some countries encourages .stability
and resistance to change. The culture of others
puts a high value on innovation and change.
Goals and Objectives
The culture of the organization is also affected by
its goals and objectives. The strategies and
procedures designed to achieve these goals and
objectives of the organization also contribute to its
culture.
Others:
 Language and dialect
 Religion
 Wealth
 Climate and weather
 Dress sense and clothes-fashion
 Level of education and literacy
 General living standards
 Employment regulations
These cultural differences influence the way that
comparative management should be conducted.
Sometimes these factors affect international
business because some international managers are
unknown and unfamiliar about these factors and
day to day business protocol.
The Nature of Organization Culture
Why Study
Culture?
     –It is assumed that organizations with a strong
culture perform at higher levels than those without
a strong culture
Organizational Culture
    –A set of values held by individuals in a firm that
help employees understand acceptability of actions
Culture Values
    –Are often taken for granted (implicit)
    –May not be made explicit (i.e., not written
down)
    –Are communicated through symbolic means
1.3. Organizational Culture: Definition,
Characteristics, Roles, Types
Organizational Culture: Definition, Characteristics,
Roles, Types
Organizational culture is quite complex. Every
company has its own unique personality, just like
people do. The unique personality of an
organization is referred to as its culture.
In groups of people who work together,
organizational culture is an invisible but powerful
force that influences the behavior of the members
of that group.
There seems to be wide agreement that
organizational culture refers to a system of shared
meaning held by members that distinguish the
organization from other organizations.
Organizational culture is a system of shared
assumptions, values, and beliefs, which governs
how people behave in organizations.
Organizational culture includes an organization’s
expectations, experiences, philosophy, and values
that hold it together, and is expressed in its self-
image, inner workings, interactions with the
outside world, and future expectations.
It is based on shared attitudes, beliefs, customs,
and written and unwritten rules that have been
developed over time and are considered valid.
These shared values have a strong influence on the
people in the organization and dictate how they
dress, act, and perform their jobs.
Every organization develops and maintains a
unique culture, which provides guidelines and
boundaries for the behavior of the members of the
organization.
Organizational culture/corporate culture includes-
 The ways the organization conducts its
business, treats its employees, customers,
and the wider community,
 The extent to which freedom is allowed in
decision making, developing new ideas, and
personal expression,
 How power and information flow through
its hierarchy, and
 How committed employees are towards
collective objectives.
Many Scholars had given the definition of
organizational culture. Some of the popular
definitions are given below:
According to Robbie Katanga, “Organizational
Culture is how organizations do things.”
According to Alec Haverstick, “In large part,
Organizational culture is a product of
compensation.”
According to Bruce Perron, “Organizational culture
defines a jointly shared description of an
organization from within.”
According to Richard Perrin, “Organizational
culture is the sum of values and rituals which serve
as a glue to integrate the members of the
organization.”
According to Alan Adler, “Organizational culture is
civilization in the workplace.”
According to Elizabeth Skringar, “Organizational
culture is shaped by the main culture of the society
we live in, albeit with greater emphasis on
particular parts of it.”
According to Abdi Osman Jama, “An organization is
a living culture that can adapt to the reality 4s fast
as possible.”
Organizational, culture affects the organization’s
productivity and performance and provides
guidelines on customer care and service, product
quality and safety, attendance and punctuality, and
concern for the environment.
It also extends to production methods, marketing,
and advertising practices, and to new product
creation.
Organizational culture is unique for every
organization and one of the hardest things to
change. Corporate culture reflects the values,
beliefs, and attitudes that permeate a business.
Corporate culture is often referred to as “the
character of an organization” representing the
collective behavior of people using common
corporate vision, goals, shared values, attitudes,
habits, working language, systems, and symbols.
Corporate culture is interwoven with processes,
technologies, learning, and significant events. It is a
total sum of the values, customs, traditions, and
meanings that make a company unique.

Characteristics of Organizational Culture
As individuals come into contact with
organizations, they come into contact with dress
norms, stories people tell about what goes on, the
organization’s formal rules and procedures, its
formal codes of behavior, rituals, tasks, pay
systems, jargon, and jokes only understood by
insiders and so on.
Organizational culture is composed of seven
characteristics that range in priority from high to
low. Every organization has a distinct value for
each of these characteristics.
Members of organizations make judgments on the
value their organization places on these
characteristics, and then adjust their behavior to
match this perceived set of values.
Characteristics of organizational culture are;
 Innovation (Risk Orientation).
 Attention to Detail (Precision Orientation).
 Emphasis on Outcome (Achievement
Orientation).
 Emphasis on People (Fairness Orientation).
 Teamwork (Collaboration Orientation).
 Aggressiveness (Competitive Orientation).
 Stability (Rule Orientation).
Let’s examine each of these seven characteristics.
Innovation (Risk Orientation)
Companies with cultures that place a high value on
innovation encourage their employees to take risks
and innovate in the performance of their
jobs. Companies with cultures that place a low
value on innovation expect their employees to do
their jobs the same way that they have been
trained to do them, without looking for ways to
improve their performance.
Attention to Detail (Precision Orientation)
This characteristic of organizational culture
dictates the degree to which employees are
expected to be accurate in their work. A culture
that places a high value on attention to detail
expects its employees to perform their work with
precision. A culture that places a low value on this
characteristic does not.
Emphasis on Outcome (Achievement Orientation)
Companies that focus on results, but not on how
the results are achieved, place a high emphasis on
this value of organizational culture. A company
that instructs its sales force to do whatever it takes
to get sales orders has a culture that places a high
value on the emphasis on outcome characteristics.
Emphasis on People (Fairness Orientation)
Companies that place a high value on this
characteristic of organizational culture place a
great deal of importance on how their decisions
will affect the people in their organizations. For
these companies, it is important to treat their
employees with respect and dignity.’
Teamwork (Collaboration Orientation)
Companies that organize work activities around
teams instead of individuals place a high value on
this characteristic of the organizational
culture. People who work for these types of
companies tend to have a positive relationship
with their coworkers and managers.
Aggressiveness (Competitive Orientation)
This characteristic of organizational culture
dictates whether group members are expected to
be assertive or easygoing when dealing with
companies they compete within the
marketplace. Companies with an aggressive culture
place a high value on competitiveness and
outperforming the competition at all costs.
Stability (Rule Orientation)
A company whose culture places a high value on
stability is rule-oriented, predictable, and
bureaucratic in nature. These types of companies
typically provide consistent and predictable levels
of output and operate best in non-changing market
conditions. These are the seven characteristics that
are common in the context of organizational
culture. Of course, it is true that the characteristics
are not the same in all times and spheres.
Roles of Organizational Culture
Culture plays an important role in organizations.
Some organizations which developed a strong
corporate culture, they increased their goodwill
and got a good position in the market.
The various roles of organizational culture are
given below:
 Culture unites (brings together) employees
by providing a sense of identity with the
organization.
 An informal control mechanism.
 Facilitation of open communication.
 Culture enables organizations to
differentiate themselves from one another.
 Culture often generates commitment,
superseding personal interests.
 Culture sets organization norms, rules, and
standards. Thereby, culture enables
employees to function in an organization,
by teaching them how to behave.
 A shared understanding.
 Culture becomes especially important in a
program/project-based organization. In
such an organization, the hierarchy is flat
and decision-making is moved to the
project/program purpose units and
departments. In this context, culture
provides the guiding light towards the
achievement of goals and objectives.
 Enhanced mutual trust and cooperation.
 Fewer disagreements and more efficient
decision-making processes.
 A strong sense of identification.
 Assisting employees in making sense of
their behaviors by providing justification for
behaviors.
Types of Organization Culture
The practices, principles, policies, and values of an
organization form its culture. The culture of an
organization decides the way employees behave
amongst themselves as well as the people outside
the organization.
Let us understand the various types of organization
culture:
 Normative Culture,
 Pragmatic Culture,
 Academy Culture,
 Baseball Team Culture,
 Club Culture,
 Fortress Culture,
 Tough Guy Culture,
 Bet your Company Culture,
 Process Culture,
 Power Culture,
 Role Culture,
 Task Culture,
 Person Culture.
Normative Culture
In such a culture, the norms and procedures of the
organization are predefined and the rules and
regulations are set as per the existing
guidelines. The employees behave in an ideal way
and strictly adhere to the policies of the
organization. No employee dares to break the rules
and sticks to the already laid policies.
Pragmatic Culture
In a pragmatic culture, more emphasis is placed on
the clients and the external parties. Customer
satisfaction is the main motive of the employees in
a pragmatic culture. Such organizations treat their
clients as Gods and do not follow any set rules.
Every employee strives hard to satisfy his clients to
expect maximum business from their
side.                                                                       ‘
Academy Culture
Organizations following academy culture and hire
skilled individuals. The roles and responsibilities
are delegated according to the background,
educational qualification and work experience of
the employees. Organizations following academy
culture are very particular about training the
existing employees. They ensure that various
training programs are being conducted at the
workplace to hone the skills of the employees. The
management makes sincere efforts to upgrade the
knowledge of the employees to improve their
professional competence. The employees in an
academy culture stick to the organization for a
longer duration and also grow within
it. Educational institutions, universities, hospitals,
etc. practice such type of culture.
Baseball Team Culture
A baseball team culture considers the employees
as the most treasured possession of the
organization. The employees are the true assets of
the organization who have a major role in its
successful functioning. In such a culture, the
individuals always have an upper edge and they do
not bother much about their organization.
Advertising agencies, event management
companies, financial institutions follow such a
culture.
Club Culture
Organizations following a club culture are very
particular about the employees they recruit. The
individuals are hired as per their specialization,
educational qualification, and interests. Each one
does what he is the best. The high potential
employees are promoted suitably and appraisals
are a regular feature of such a culture.
Fortress Culture
There are certain organizations where employees
are not very sure about their career and longevity.
Such organizations follow fortress culture. The
employees are terminated if the organization is not
performing well. Individuals suffer the most when
the organization is at a loss. Stockbroking
industries follow such a culture.
Tough Guy Culture
In a tough-guy culture, feedbacks are essential. The
performance of the employees is reviewed from
time to time and their work is thoroughly
monitored. Team managers are appointed to
discuss queries with the team members and guide
them whenever required. The employees are
under constant watch in such a culture.
Bet your Company Culture
Organizations that follow bet your company
culture take decisions that involve a huge amount
of risk and the consequences are also
unforeseen. The principles and policies of such an
organization are formulated to address sensitive
issues and it takes time to get the results.
Process Culture
As the name suggests the employees in such a
culture adhere to the processes and procedures of
the organization. Feedbacks and performance
reviews do not matter much in such organizations.
The employees abide by the rules and regulations
and work according to the ideologies of the
workplace. All government organizations follow
such a culture.
Charles Handy, a leading authority on
organizational culture, defined four different kinds
of culture:
 Power culture
 Role culture
 Task culture
 Person culture
Power Culture
In an organization with a power culture, power is
held by just a few individuals whose influence
spreads throughout the organization. There are
few rules and regulations in a power culture. What
those with power decide is what happens.
Employees are generally judged by what they
achieve rather than how they do things or how
they act. A consequence of this can be quick
decision-making, even if those decisions aren’t in
the best long-term interests of the organization. A
power culture is usually a strong culture, though it
can swiftly turn toxic.
Role Culture
Organizations with a role culture are based on
rules. They are highly controlled, with everyone in
the organization knowing what their roles and
responsibilities are. Power in a role culture is
determined by a person’s position (role) in the
organizational structure. Role cultures are built on
detailed organizational structures that are typically
tall (not flat) with a long chain of command. A
consequence is that decision-making in role
cultures can often be painfully-slow and the
organization is less likely to take risks. In short,
organizations with role cultures tend to be very
bureaucratic.
Task Culture
Task culture forms when teams in an organization
are formed to address specific problems or
progress projects. The task is the important thing,
so power within the team will often shift
depending on the mix of the team members and
the status of the problem or project. Whether the
task culture proves effective will largely be
determined by the team dynamic. With productive
and creative, the right mix of skills, personalities
and leadership, working in teams.
Person Culture
In an organization with person cultures, individuals
very much see themselves as unique and superior
to the organization. The organization simply exists
in order for people to work. An organization with a
person’s culture is really just a collection of
individuals who happen to be working for the same
organization.
How Organizational Cultures Start
Some organizational cultures may be the direct, or
at least indirect, the result of actions taken by the
founders. However, this is not always the
case.Sometimes founders create weak cultures,
and if the organization is to Survive, a new top
manager must be installed who will show the seeds
for the necessary strong culture.
Although organizational cultures can develop in a
number of different ways, the process usually
involves some version of the following steps:
 A single person (founder) has an idea for a
new enterprise.
 The founder brings in one or more other
people and creates a core group that shares
a common vision with the founder. That is,
all in this core group believe that the idea is
a good one, is workable, is worth running
some risks for, and is worth the investment
of time, money, and energy that will be
required.
 The founding core group begins to act in
concert to create an organization by raising
funds, obtaining patents, incorporating,
locating space, building, and so on.
 At this point, others are brought into the
organization, and a common history begins
to be built.
 Most of today’s successful corporate giants
in all industries basically followed these
steps.
High vs. Low-Context Culture
The concept of high- and low-context culture
relates to how an employee’s thoughts, opinions,
feelings, and upbringing affect how they act within
a given culture.
North America and Western Europe are generally
considered to have low-context cultures. Low-
context culture means that businesses in these
places have direct, individualistic employees who
tend to base decisions on facts.
This type of businessperson wants specifies noted
in contracts and may have issues with trust.
High-context cultures are the opposite in that trust
is the most important part of business dealings.
There are areas in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa
that can be considered the high context.
Organizations that have high-context cultures are
collectivist and focus on interpersonal
relationships. Individuals from high-context
cultures might be interested in getting to know the
person they are conducting business with in order
to get a gut feeling on decision making.
They may also be more concerned about business
teams and group success rather than individual
achievement.
2. Organization Culture Versus Climate
Organization Culture
     –The historical context within which a situation
occurs and the impact of this context on the
behaviors of employees
          •Difficult to alter in the short-run
          •Means through which people in the
organization learn and communicate organization
acceptability (values and norms)
Organization Climate
     –The current situations in an organization and
the linkages among work groups, employees, and
work performance
          •Easier for management to manipulate in
order to directly affect the behavior of employees
==========================================
==========================================
==============
Creating the Organization Culture
1.Establish Values
     –Strategic values
         *The basic beliefs about an organization’s
environment that shape its strategy.
     –Cultural values
          *The values that employees need to have
and act on for the organization to act on the
strategic values.
2. Create Vision
     –Create a picture of the organization that
portrays how the strategic and cultural values will
combine to create the future.
3. Initiate Implementation Strategies
     –Take actions founded on the strategic and
cultural values to accomplish the vision.
4. Reinforce Cultural Behaviors
     –Use formal reward systems to encourage
desired employee behaviors
     –Tell stories that epitomizing cultural values
     –Conduct ceremonies and rituals that
emphasize right actions by employees
5 Steps to Building an Organizational Culture
Cross-cultural adaptation occurs when people from
one culture move to a different culture, learning
the rules, societal norms, customs and language of
the new culture.
By bringing their existing thoughts, feelings,
behaviors, and beliefs with them, a person will
integrate that into their new society while
adjusting and accepting to the new standards,
thereby creating a multicultural person.
Person visiting foreign to leave behind barriers to
cultural adaptation knows that being in a new
place can be daunting.
Foreign scenery, as foreigners try to integrate with
the local folk’s number of norms and even other
languages, dialects often intimidate new arrivals to
any foreign land.
For those willing to adapt, however, the rewards of
unifying with a new culture and people are
numerous.
Here discussed the steps to building an
organizational culture;
1. Teach It.
2. Define It.
3. Live It.
4. Measure It.
5. Reward It.
Teach It
The more and more effectively we teach people
what we are looking for in our culture, the more
likely it will become the reality. Whatever
orientation and training work you’re doing, you
should talk about the kind of culture you’re going
after.
Describe the way you’d like things to be working.
Talk about the informal ways in which you envision
the group working together, the way you want the
customer experience to feel, etc.
Define It
If you have a number of leaders running your
organization, you may not, immediately have full
agreement on what your desired culture is. In that
case, there must be a hard discussion amongst the
key decision makers so that you can reach a
consensus.
Putting the vision in writing is an essential element
of making it successful.
When the dialogue stays verbal only, it’s inevitable
that everyone will leave the room with a different
version of what was agreed upon. Documenting it
is far more likely to help you get where you want
to go.
Live It
Culture is very little about what we say, and very
much about what we do. If we don’t live it, it’s
never going to play out as we want.
Organizational culture is built slowly over time, not
with a quick decision or the writing of a big check.
This is especially critical for the leaders in our
organizations; the staff sees everything we do.
I remind myself that every action I take and every
word I speak will have an impact on how our
organizational culture develops. Pretending that
my words, actions, and attitudes don’t impact it
significantly would be to live in denial.
Read more: Organizational Culture: Definition,
Characteristics, Roles, Types
Measure It
Once we’ve identified the key elements of our
desired culture and written them down, we must
measure our success in making them a (cultural)
reality.
Many will argue that you cannot measure things
like fun or supportiveness or camaraderie; I think
you can. If you want to have a results-oriented
organization, you are more likely to succeed if you
measure your success at putting the culture into
place.
If you’re setting out to measure cultural
characteristics like fun, remember that the
judgment will be made by the participants in the
organization. Once you have that mindset, along
with some definition of what fun means, you can
measure it.
Reward It
A common problem in every organization is the
mismatch between what it says it wants and
what’s rewarded. In some cases, the issue is just an
absence of rewards.
Companies say that want people to treat each
other well but those who do receive no
recognition; they say that they want to have fun
but the only reward you get is you’re having fun;
they say that they want people to learn but the
only reward is that they know more than before a
seminar.
The situation can be more extreme—
organizations that actually reward the opposite of
the cultural behavior they say they’re seeking.
They say they want to be generous, but they take
for themselves first. They say that they want
teamwork, but pay bonuses based on individual
performance.
No organization will ever perfectly align every
reward with the behaviors we seek.
But at least being cognizant of the key elements of
the cultural vision we’re going after and then
making sure that we recognize and reward those is
important.
2. Organization Culture Versus Climate
Organization Culture
     –The historical context within which a situation
occurs and the impact of this context on the
behaviors of employees
          •Difficult to alter in the short-run
          •Means through which people in the
organization learn and communicate organization
acceptability (values and norms)
Organization Climate
     –The current situations in an organization and
the linkages among work groups, employees, and
work performance
          •Easier for management to manipulate in
order to directly affect the behavior of employees
==========================================
==========================================
==============
Creating the Organization Culture
1.Establish Values
     –Strategic values
         *The basic beliefs about an organization’s
environment that shape its strategy.
     –Cultural values
          *The values that employees need to have
and act on for the organization to act on the
strategic values.
2. Create Vision
     –Create a picture of the organization that
portrays how the strategic and cultural values will
combine to create the future.
3. Initiate Implementation Strategies
     –Take actions founded on the strategic and
cultural values to accomplish the vision.
4. Reinforce Cultural Behaviors
     –Use formal reward systems to encourage
desired employee behaviors
     –Tell stories that epitomizing cultural values
     –Conduct ceremonies and rituals that
emphasize right actions by employees
5 Steps to Building an Organizational Culture
Cross-cultural adaptation occurs when people from
one culture move to a different culture, learning
the rules, societal norms, customs and language of
the new culture.
By bringing their existing thoughts, feelings,
behaviors, and beliefs with them, a person will
integrate that into their new society while
adjusting and accepting to the new standards,
thereby creating a multicultural person.
Person visiting foreign to leave behind barriers to
cultural adaptation knows that being in a new
place can be daunting.
Foreign scenery, as foreigners try to integrate with
the local folk’s number of norms and even other
languages, dialects often intimidate new arrivals to
any foreign land.
For those willing to adapt, however, the rewards of
unifying with a new culture and people are
numerous.
Here discussed the steps to building an
organizational culture;
1. Teach It.
2. Define It.
3. Live It.
4. Measure It.
5. Reward It.
Teach It
The more and more effectively we teach people
what we are looking for in our culture, the more
likely it will become the reality. Whatever
orientation and training work you’re doing, you
should talk about the kind of culture you’re going
after.
Describe the way you’d like things to be working.
Talk about the informal ways in which you envision
the group working together, the way you want the
customer experience to feel, etc.
Define It
If you have a number of leaders running your
organization, you may not, immediately have full
agreement on what your desired culture is. In that
case, there must be a hard discussion amongst the
key decision makers so that you can reach a
consensus.
Putting the vision in writing is an essential element
of making it successful.
When the dialogue stays verbal only, it’s inevitable
that everyone will leave the room with a different
version of what was agreed upon. Documenting it
is far more likely to help you get where you want
to go.
Live It
Culture is very little about what we say, and very
much about what we do. If we don’t live it, it’s
never going to play out as we want.
Organizational culture is built slowly over time, not
with a quick decision or the writing of a big check.
This is especially critical for the leaders in our
organizations; the staff sees everything we do.
I remind myself that every action I take and every
word I speak will have an impact on how our
organizational culture develops. Pretending that
my words, actions, and attitudes don’t impact it
significantly would be to live in denial.
Read more: Organizational Culture: Definition,
Characteristics, Roles, Types
Measure It
Once we’ve identified the key elements of our
desired culture and written them down, we must
measure our success in making them a (cultural)
reality.
Many will argue that you cannot measure things
like fun or supportiveness or camaraderie; I think
you can. If you want to have a results-oriented
organization, you are more likely to succeed if you
measure your success at putting the culture into
place.
If you’re setting out to measure cultural
characteristics like fun, remember that the
judgment will be made by the participants in the
organization. Once you have that mindset, along
with some definition of what fun means, you can
measure it.
Reward It
A common problem in every organization is the
mismatch between what it says it wants and
what’s rewarded. In some cases, the issue is just an
absence of rewards.
Companies say that want people to treat each
other well but those who do receive no
recognition; they say that they want to have fun
but the only reward you get is you’re having fun;
they say that they want people to learn but the
only reward is that they know more than before a
seminar.
The situation can be more extreme—organizations
that actually reward the opposite of the cultural
behavior they say they’re seeking. They say they
want to be generous, but they take for themselves
first. They say that they want teamwork, but pay
bonuses based on individual performance.
No organization will ever perfectly align every
reward with the behaviors we seek.
But at least being cognizant of the key elements of
the cultural vision we’re going after and then
making sure that we recognize and reward those is
important.
3. Approaches to Organizational Behavior Studies
Approaches to Organizational Behavior Studies
Organizational Behavior relates to the relationship
between employees and the employer in an
organization .Both are working towards the
realization of the goals and objectives of any
organization, and a close and fruitful coordination
between the two is one of the major factors
towards this realization. These experts studied and
attempted to quantify research done about the
actions and reactions of employees, with regard to
their work environments.
There are 4 Approaches to Organizational
Behavior studies;
Organizational behavior approaches are a result of
the research done by experts in this field. It is a
field that has begun developing only recently and
new approaches and results are being expounded
every day.
Human Resources Approach
This approach recognizes the fact that people are
the central resource in any organization and that
they should be developed towards higher levels of
competency, creativity, and fulfillment. People
thus contribute to the success of the
organization. The human resources approach is
also called as the supportive approach in the sense
that the manager’s role changes from control of
employee to active support of their growth and
performance. The supportive approach contrasts
with the traditional management approach. In the
traditional approach, managers decided what
employees should do and closely monitored their
performance to ensure task accomplishment. In
the human resources approach, the role of
managers changes from structuring and controlling
to supporting.
Contingency Approach
The contingency approach (sometimes called the
situational approach) is based on the premise that
methods or behaviors which work effectively in
One situation fail in another. For example;
Organization Development (OD) programs, way
work brilliantly in one situation but fail miserably in
another situation. Results differ because situations
differ, the manager’s task, therefore, is to identify
which method will, in a particular situation, under
particular circumstances, and at a particular time,
best contribute to the attainment of organization’s
goals. The strength of the contingency approach
lies in the fact it encourages analysis of each
situation prior to action while at the same time
discourages the habitual practice of universal
assumptions about methods and people. The
contingency approach is also more
interdisciplinary, more system – oriented and more
research-oriented titan any other approach.
Productivity Approach
Productivity which is the ratio of output to input is
a measure of an organization’s effectiveness. It
also reveals the manager’s efficiency in optimizing
resource utilization. The higher the numerical value
of this ratio, the greater the efficiency.
Productivity is generally measured in terms of
economic inputs and outputs, but human and
social inputs and outputs also are important. For
example, if better organizational behavior can
improve job satisfaction, a human output or
benefit occurs. In the same manner, when
employee development programs lead to better
citizens in a community, a valuable social output
occurs. Organizational behavior decisions typically
involve human, social, and/or economic issues, and
so productivity usually a significant part of these
decisions is recognized and discusses extensively in
the literature on OB.
Systems Approach
The Systems Approach to OB views the
organization as a united, purposeful system
composed of interrelated parts. This approach
gives managers a way of looking at the
organization as a whole, whole, person, whole
group, and the whole social system. In so doing,
the systems approach tells us that the activity of
any segment of an organization affects, in varying
degrees the activity of every other segment. A
systems view should be the concern of every
person in an organization. The clerk at a service
counter, the machinist, and the manager all work
with the people and thereby influence the
behavioral quality of life in an organization and its
inputs. Managers, however, tend to have a larger
responsibility, because they are the ones who
make the majority are people oriented. The role of
managers, then, is to use organizational behavior
to help build an organizational culture in which
talents are utilized and further developed, people
are motivated, teams become productive,
organizations achieve their goals and society reaps
the reward.
Inter-Disciplinary Approach
Organizational behavior is an integration of all
other social sciences and disciplines such as
psychology, sociology, organizational theories
etc. They all are interdependent and influence each
other. The man is studied as a whole and
therefore, all disciplines concerning man are
integrated.
4. Emerging Issues in Organization Culture:
Innovation
Emerging Issues in Organization Culture: 
Innovation
Innovation
     –The process of creating and doing new things
that are introduced into the marketplace as
products, processes, or services
New Ventures
1.Require entrepreneurship and good
management
2.Intrapreneurship
     •Entrepreneurial activity that takes place within
the context of a large organization
3.Entrepreneur’s profile
     •Need for achievement
     •Desire to assume responsibility
     •Willing to take risks
     •Focus on concrete results
Corporate Research
     –Supports existing businesses to provide
incremental innovations and to explore potential
new technology bases
     –Is responsible for keeping the company’s
products and processes technologically advanced
     –Corporate culture can be instrumental in
fostering environment for creativity and innovation
Empowerment
     –Is enabling workers to set their own work
goals, make decisions, solve problems within their
sphere of responsibility and authority
          •Appropriate Cultures (Goffee and Jones)
    –Factors that may determine the appropriate
type of culture appropriate for an organization:
         •The nature of the value chain
        •The dynamism of the environment
Taking Advantage of the Existing Culture
     –Easier and faster to alter employee behaviors
within the existing culture than it is to change
existing history, traditions, and values
     –Managers must be aware and understand the
organization’s values
     –Managers can communicate their
understanding to lower-level individuals
Teaching Organization Culture
     –Organizational socialization
          •Is the process through which employees
learn about the firm’s culture and pass their
knowledge and understanding on to others
     –Organizational mechanisms
         •Are examples of organization culture that
employees see in more experienced employees’
behaviors
     –Corporate pamphlets and formal training
sessions
Changing the Organization Culture
     –Managing symbols
        •Substituting stories and myths that support
the new cultural values for those that support old
ones
    –Culture can be difficult to change when upper
management inadvertently reverts to old
behaviors
       •The Stability of Change
    –New values and beliefs must be seen as stable
and influential as old ones
    –Changing value systems requires enormous
effort because value systems tend to be self-
reinforcing
5. Ways of Managing Organizational Culture
Ways of Managing Organizational Culture
We highlighted in our last post that there are
plenty of frameworks for managing strategy,
talent, leadership, and performance, but not
culture. Culture has been this elusive, mysterious
subject. Survey action plans, engagement events or
programs, and other improvements fall short of
building a strong culture foundation the entire
organization can understand and manage with
clarity and speed. Most leaders of successful
cultures learn from experience and other mentors,
peers, or experts, how to piece together their
improvement approaches because there isn’t a
clear guide to follow. While some guides exist, they
are not broadly known and applied like other
improvement disciplines. Every organization that
excels at the building, reinforcing, and leveraging
their unique culture in support of delivering
sustainable performance has built a strong “culture
foundation.”
Steps of managing organizational culture;
1. Evaluate your current culture and
performance,
2. Clarify your initial vision.
3. Clarify values and expected behaviors.
4. Clarify strategic priorities.
5. Engage your team in defining SMART goals.
6. Clarify and track key measures,
7. Maintain a management system for
priorities and goals.
8. Manage communication habits and
routines.
9. Build motivation throughout the process.
Step 1 – Evaluate your current culture and
performance
1. Define your 1-3 critical performance
priorities – e.g. growth, profitability,
customer satisfaction, etc.;
2. identify your 3-5 value/behavior strengths
and
3. identify no more than 1-3 value/behavior
weaknesses that are holding back your
organization from achieving its full
potential with the performance priorities
you defined.
Step 2 – Clarify your initial vision
Define your vision for improving results with only
one or two of the performance priorities from step
No. 1 and how you will build a culture advantage
by leveraging the value/behavior strengths and
improving the weaknesses.
Clearly, communicate how you will work together
to improve the weak areas since they are holding
your organization back from supporting your
purpose and stakeholders.
Step 3 – Clarify values and expected behaviors
Define supporting expected behaviors for the 1-3
weaknesses that you identified in step #1.
These behaviors would be consistently exhibited in
your organization if you were “living your values.”
People interpret values from their own perspective
so define expected behaviors like Zappos, The
Container Store, and others.
Step 4 – Clarify strategic priorities
Define and clearly share the 3-5 actionable
strategic priorities that your organization will focus
on to support the 1-2 performance priorities
included in your initial vision from the Define steps.
If the performance priority is growth, will it be
achieved through new products or services, revised
sales strategies, growth with current customers, or
other strategies.
Employees want and need to understand the big
picture.
Step 5 – Engage your team in defining SMART
goals
Engage your organization and utilize extensive
feedback and prioritization to define the objectives
that support each strategic priority. These goals
need to define in a way to support the expected
behaviors for the 1-2 weaknesses you identified
from the Define steps.
For example, if accountability is a weakness, goals
should include more disciplined plans, measures,
reviews, recognition, and other approaches to
support the behavior you need.
Goals also need translating to all levels in larger
organizations so people understand how to work
on their goals and measures impacts the broader
organization.
Step 6 – Clarify and track key measures
Identify a small number of overall measures that
support one or two top performance priorities
from the Define steps. It may help to have one
highly visible “unifying metric” even if some
employees don’t directly influence it.
Step 7 – Maintain a management system for
priorities and goals
Most organizations have a system to track or
monitor the status of priorities and goals. These
reviews need adjusting to focus additional time
and attention on the top performance priorities
and value/behavior shifts identified in the Define
steps.
The focus must be on results and supporting the
behavior shift through recognition, coaching,
removing barriers, etc.
Step 8 – Manage communication habits and
routines
Transparent, genuine and consistent
communication is needed about your performance
improvement journey and the role of culture so all
employees feel part of the process.
Regularly scheduled sessions with two-way
communication and extensive informal approaches
are needed to emphasize expected behaviors and
results. Use these sessions to clarify plans, answer
questions, expose rumors and reduce drama.
Step 9 – Build motivation throughout the process
Feedback and recognition are critical to the
process.
Share and celebrate progress in a transparent
manner as a standard part of regular
communication activities. Confront reality when
improvements don’t go as planned and re-engage
your team to prioritize adjustments.
Guidelines for Changing Culture
Despite the significant barriers and resistance to
change, organizational cultures can be managed
and changed over time. This attempt to change the
culture “can take many different forms.
The organizations and managers in the global
relations “must learn to communicate across the
cultural divide; each must understand that the
other perceives and interacts in a fundamentally
different way.
Three-fourths of companies believe their alliances
failed because of an incompatibility of the country
and corporate cultures. Simple guidelines such as
the following can be helpful;
 Assess the current culture.
 Set realistic goals that impact the bottom
line.
 Recruit outside personnel with industry
experience, so that they are able to interact
well with the organizational personnel.
 Make changes from the top down, so that a
consistent message is delivered from all
management team members.
 Include employees in the culture change
process, especially when making changes in
rules and processes.
 Take out all trappings that remind the
personnel of the previous culture.
 Expect to have some problems and find
people who would rather move than
change with the culture and, if possible,
take these losses early.
 Move quickly and decisively to build
momentum and to defuse resistance to the
new culture.
 Stay the course by being persistent.
Also, organizations attempting to change their
culture must be careful not to abandon their roots
and blindly abandon their core, but distinctive,
competencies.
Cultural Variables (Identified by Harris and
Moran)
Culture, therefore, is moral, intellectual and
spiritual discipline for advancement, in accordance
with the norms and values based on accumulated
heritage.
It is a system of learned behavior shared by and
transmitted among the members of the group.
There are so many cultural variables that were
identified by Harris and Moran.
These are;
 Kinship.
 Education.
 Economy.
 Politics.
 Religion.
 Associations.
 Health.
 Recreation.
Kinship
A kinship system is a system adopted by a given
society to guide family relationships.
Education
The formal or informal education of workers in a
foreign firm, received from whatever source,
greatly affects the expectations placed on those
workers in the workplace.  ‘
Economy
Whatever the economic system, the means of
production and distribution (and the resulting
effects on individuals and groups) have a powerful
influence on such organizational processes as
sourcing, distribution, incentives, and repatriation
of capital.
Politics
The system of government in a society, whether
democratic, Communist, or dictatorial, imposes
varying constraints on an organization and its
freedom to do business. ”
Religion
The spiritual beliefs of a society are often so
powerful that they transcend other cultural
aspects.
Associations
Many and various types of associations arise out of
the formal and informal groups that make up a
society.
Health
The system of health care in a country affects
employee productivity, expectations, and attitudes
toward physical fitness and its role in the
workplace.
Recreation
Closely related to other cultural factors, recreation
includes the way in which people use their leisure
time, as well as their attitudes toward leisure and
their choice of whom to socialize with.
Actually it is a Collective heritage learned by
individuals and parsed from one generation to
another.
The individual receives culture as part of the social
heritage and in turn, may reshape the culture and
introduce changes which then become part of the
heritage of succeeding generations.
Ways of Creating Customer Responsive
Organizational Culture
The reason an organization can deliver good or bad
customer service comes down to one thing; what is
happening on the inside of that organization.
To sum it up in one word; culture. The culture
inside of the organization is impacting customer
service.
It’s more than just hiring the right people, and it’s
more than customer service training.
At the same time, it’s simple. It’s just setting an
example of customer service behavior at the top,
and. pushing its way, through all employees,
toward the customer.
Starting at the top means that leadership and
management must set the tone.
Then, they must practice what they preach. They
must treat employees like they want the customer
treated – even better, just, to accentuate the
point.
This is where the customer-focused culture begins.
It starts with people who want to do the right
thing.
From that point, we can layer on customer service
training that focuses on creating an amazing place
to work.
Here are the ways that you can create a customer-
responsive organizational culture:
 Management must make the measurement
of service quality and feedback from the
customer a basic part of everyone’s work
experience. This information must be
available and understood by everyone, no
matter what their level. The entire
organization must become obsessed with
what the customer wants.
 Be very clear about specifying the behavior
that employees are expected to deliver,
both with external customers and their
coworkers.
 Explain why giving excellent customer
service is important not only for the
company but for the world. What does your
company do that makes life easier for
everyone? What does your product or
 service add? Be sure to include this in the
reasons for achieving customer service
excellence.
 Create ways to communicate excellent
examples of customer service both within
and outside the company. Institute
celebrations, recognition ceremonies,
logos, and symbols of the customer service
culture and its values. This is where you
want the mugs, buttons, and banners. Have
a customer service bulletin board to feature
service incidents that were special. Seize
every opportunity to publicize the times
when employees do it right.
 Indoctrinate and train everyone in the
culture as soon as they are hired. It puts all
newcomers through a “traditions” course
that details the company history with
customer relations.
 Encourage a sense of responsibility for
group performance. Help employees see
how their performance affects others.
Emphasize the importance of “internal
customer service.”
 Establish policies that are “customer-
friendly” and that show concern for your
customers. Eliminate all routine and rigid
policies and guidelines. ‘
 Remove any employees who do not show
the behavior necessary to please
customers. Too many companies allow
frontline service representatives to remain
on the job when they are not suited to a
customer service position.
In order for a culture of customer service
excellence to grow and thrive, management must
have a burning desire for it to be that way and the
energy to ensure that this desire spreads
throughout the organization and remains there
permanently.
How to Keep the Culture Alive in your
Organization?
Once a culture is in place, there are practices
within the organization that act to maintain it by
giving employees a set of similar experiences.
Some important practices which help to sustain the
culture strengthening organizational culture are as
depicted in the following diagram:
Selection
The first such practice is the careful selection of
candidates. Standardized procedures should be
used to hire the right people for the right jobs.
Trained personnel interview the candidates and
attempt to screen out those whose personal styles
and values do not fit with the organization’s
culture.By identifying the candidates who can
culturally match the organizational culture,
selection helps sustain culture to a large
extent. Additionally, the selection process provides
to the applicants, information about the
organizational culture. If the applicants perceive a
conflict between their values and values of the
organization, they can themselves decide not to
join the organization.
Top Management
The actions of top management also have a major
impact on the organization’s culture. Through what
they say, how do they behave senior executives
establish norms that filter through the organization
as to whether risk-taking is desirable, how much
freedom managers should give to their
subordinates, what is the appropriate dress code,
what actions will pay off in terms of pay raise,
promotions, and other rewards and the like.
Socialization
The organization may have done a very good job in
the recruitment and selection of the employees,
but sometimes the employees are still not
indoctrinated in the organization’s culture. Since
these persons are not familiar with the
organization’s culture they are most likely to
disturb the existing beliefs and customs of the
organization. Therefore, it is very essential for the
organization to help new employees adapt to its
culture. This adaptation process is called
‘Socialization’.
FINALS
1. Organizational Behavior
Organizational Behavior: Definition, Importance,
Nature
Organizational Behavior (OB) is
the study of human behavior in
organizational settings, the interface
between human behavior and the
organization, and the organization
itself. Organizational Behavior
researchers study the behavior of
individuals primarily in their
organizational roles. One of the main
goals of organizational behavior is to
revitalize organizational theory and
develop a better conceptualization of
organizational life. As a multi-
disciplinary field, organizational
behavior has been influenced by
developments in a number of allied
disciplines including sociology,
psychology, economics, and
engineering as well as by the
experience of practitioners.
Origin of Organizational Behaviour
can trace its roots back to Max Weber
and earlier organizational studies.
The Industrial Revolution is the period
from approximately 1760 when new
technologies resulted in the adoption
of new manufacturing techniques,
including increased mechanization.
The industrial revolution led to
significant social and cultural change,
including new forms of organization.
Analyzing these new organizational
forms, sociologist Max Weber
described bureaucracy as an ideal type
of organization that rested on rational-
legal principles and maximized
technical efficiency.
In the 1890’s; with the arrival of
scientific management and Taylorism,
Organizational Behavior Studies was
forming it as an academic discipline.
Failure of scientific management gave
birth to the human relations
movement which is characterized by a
heavy emphasis on employee
cooperation and morale.
Human Relations Movement from the
1930’s to 1950’s contributed to shaping
the Organizational Behavior studies.
Works of scholars like Elton Mayo,
Chester Barnard, Henri Fayol, Mary
Parker Follett, Frederick Herzberg,
Abraham Mas low, David Mc Cellan
and Victor Vroom contributed to the
growth of Organisational Behaviour as
a discipline.
Works of scholars like Elton Mayo,
Chester Barnard, Henri Fayol, Mary
Parker Follett, Frederick Herzberg,
Abraham Maslow, David Mc Cellan
and Victor Vroom contributed to the
growth of Organisational Behaviour as
a discipline.
Herbert Simon’s Administrative
Behavior introduced a number of
important concepts to the study of
organizational behavior, most notably
decision making.
Simon along with Chester Barnard;
argued that people make decisions
differently in organizations than
outside of them. Simon was awarded
the Nobel Prize in Economics for his
work on organizational decision
making.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the field
became more quantitative and
produced such ideas as the informal
organization, and resource
dependence. Contingency theory,
institutional theory, and organizational
ecology also enraged.
Starting in the 1980s, cultural
explanations of organizations and
organizational change became areas of
study.
Informed by anthropology,
psychology, and sociology, qualitative
research became more acceptable in
OB.
The organizations in which people
work have an effect on their thoughts,
feelings, and actions. These thoughts,
feelings, and actions, in turn, affect the
organization itself.
Organizational behavior studies the
mechanisms governing these
interactions, seeking to identify and
foster behaviors conducive to the
survival and effectiveness of the
organization.
1. Job Satisfaction.
2. Finding the Right People.
3. Organizational Culture.
4. Leadership and Conflict
Resolution.
5. Understanding Employees
Better.
6. Understand how to Develop
Good Leaders.
7. Develop a Good Team.
8. Higher Productivity.
These 8 objectives of organizational
behavior show that OB is concerned
with people within the organization,
how they are interacting, what is the
level of their satisfaction, the level of
motivation, and find ways to improve
it in a way the yields most productivity.
Fundamental Concepts of Organizational Behavior
Organization Behavior is based on a
few fundamental concepts which
revolve around the nature of people
and organizations.
Such basic concepts are not specific to
the field of OB.
The fundamental concepts of
organizational behavior are;
 Individual Differences.
 Perception.
 A Whole Person.
 Motivated Behavior.
 The desire for Involvement.
 The value of the Person.
 Human Dignity.
 Organizations are Social System.
 Mutuality of Interest.
 Holistic Concept.
In every field of social science or even
physical science, has a philosophical
foundation of basic concepts that guide
its development. There are certain
philosophical concepts in
organizational behavior also.
Individual Differences
Every individual in the world is
different from others. Science supports
this idea. Each person is different from
all others, probably in a million ways,
just as each’s DNA profile is
different. The idea of the individual
difference comes originally from
psychology. From the day of birth,
each person is unique, and personal
experiences after birth tend to make
people even more different.
Perception
Peoples’ perceptions are also different
when they see an object. Two people
can differently present the same
object. And this is occurring for their
experiences. A person always organizes
and interprets what he sees according
to his lifetime of experience and
accumulated value. Employees also see
work differently for differ in their
personalities, needs, demographics
factors, past experiences, and social
surroundings.
A Whole Person
An employee’s personal life is not
detached from his working life. As an
example, A women who attend the
office at 9:00 AM is always anxious for
her children’s school time (if her kids
can participate in the school or
not). As a result, its impact falls on her
concentration that means her working
life. For this reason, we cannot
separate it. So the manager should
treat an employee as a whole person.
Motivated Behavior
An employee has so many needs inside
him. So, they want to fulfill those
needs. That’s why; they had to perform
well in the organization. Some
motivations are necessary to enrich the
quality of work. A path toward
increased need fulfillment is the better
way to enhances the quality of work.
Desire for Involvement
Every employee is actively seeking
opportunities to work to involve in
decision-making problems. They
hunger for the chance to share what
they know and to learn from the
experience. So, the organization
should provide them a chance to
express their opinions, ideas, and
suggestions for the decision-making
problem. A meaningful involvement
can bring mutual benefit to both
parties.
Value of the Person
An employee wants to be treated
separately from another factor of
production, (land, capital, labor). They
refuse to accept the old idea that they
are just treated as economic tools
because they are the best creation of
Almighty Allah. For this, reason, they
want to be treated with carrying
respect, dignity and other things from
their employers and society.
Human Dignity
This concept is very philosophical.
Every person needs to be treated with
dignity and respect, whether it’s the
CEO of the company or labor. It
confirms that people are to be treated
differently from other factors of
production because they are of a
higher order in the universe.it
recognizes human dignity because
people are of a higher order; they want
to be treated with respect and dignity
and should be treated this way.
Organizations are Social System
From sociology, we learn that
organizations are social systems;
consequently, activities therein are
governed by social laws as well as
psychological laws. Just as people have
psychological needs, they also have
social roles and status. Their behavior
is influenced by their group as well as
by their drives. In fact, two types of
social systems exist side by side in
organizations. One is a formal system,
and the other is the informal social
system.
Mutuality of Interest
Mutual interest is represented by the
statement that organizations need
people and people also need
organizations. Organizations have a
human purpose. They are formed and
maintained by some mutuality of
interest among their
participants. People see organizations
as a means to help them reach their
goals, while at the same
time, organizations need people to
help achieve organizational
objectives. If mutuality is lacking, it
makes no sense to try to assemble a
group and develop cooperation,
because there is no common base on
which to build. Mutual interest
provides a super-ordinate goal that
unites the variety of needs that people
bring to organizations. The result is
that people are encouraged to attack
organizational problems rather than
each other.
Holistic Concept
When the fundamental concepts of OB
are placed together, a holistic concept
emerges. This concept interprets
people-organization relationships
regarding the whole person, the whole
group, whole organization, and the
whole social system.It takes across the
board view of people in organizations
to understand as many as possible of
the factors that influence their
behavior.  Issues are analyzed in terms
of the total situation affecting them
rather than in terms of an isolated
event or problems.
2. Importance of Organizational
Behavior
Organizations can have a powerful influence
on our lives:
–Most people are born and educated in
organizations
–Most people acquire most of their
material possessions from
organizations
–Most people die as members of
organizations
–Many of our activities are regulated
by governmental organizations
–Most people spend most of their lives
in organizations
Organizational Behavior and Management:
Why Study OB?
1. Studying organizational behavior
can clarify factors that affect how
managers manage by:
     –Describing the complex human
context of organizations
     –Defining the associated
opportunities, problems, challenges,
and issues
     –Isolating important aspects of the
manager’s job
     –Offering specific perspectives on
the human side of management
2. Studying OB helps managers
understand:
     –The behaviors of others in the
organization
          •Personal needs, motives,
behaviors, feelings and career
dynamics
          •Attitudinal processes,
individual differences, group
dynamics, inter group dynamics,
organization culture, power,
and political behavior
      –Interactions with people outside
of the organization and other
organizations
      –The environment, technology, and
global issues
The reason Organizational Behavior
studies are uniquely useful for
succeeding as a leader of a large
business (or other organization). OB
teaches you what makes people make
decisions, why employees are not
motivated to do what you want them to
do and why people are productive or
not productive. Making good decisions
and creating an environment where
people can be creative and motivated,
are very important for a successful
business.
So studying and understanding
Organizational Behavior is one of the
truly important ingredients of business
success. Organizational Behavior
studies power and organizational
politics. If you don’t understand these
topics, you will struggle as an
employee, especially in large
organizations. Stanford professor Jeff
Pfeffer has summarized the status of
the Organizational Behavior approach
to real-world management as a “one-
eighth” situation, and “the knowing-
doing gap”. OB applies the knowledge
gained from individuals, groups, and
the effect of structure on behavior to
make organizations work more
effectively. It is concerned with the
study of what people do in an
organization and how that behavior
affects the performance of the
organization. There is increasing
agreement as to the components of
OB. But there is still considerable
debate as to the relative importance of
each; motivation, leader
behavior and power, interpersonal
communication, group structure and
processes, learning, attitude
development, and perception, change
processes, conflict, work design, and
work stress. It is also important
because it focuses on the following
areas. It is also important because it
focuses on the following areas. OB
draws heavily from behavioral and
social sciences, most importantly from
psychology.
It studies the interrelation between an
individual and an organization in the
following ways:
1. OB helps to learn about thyself
and how to deal with others
2. Organizational Behavior is a way
of thinking.
3. Organizational Behavior is
multidisciplinary and it helps us
multiple ways.
4. There is a distinctly humanistic
orientation with OB.
5. The field of organizational
behavior is performance-
oriented.
6. Organizational Behavior satisfies
the need to understand and
predict.
7. It helps us to test personal
theories.
8. OB helps the managers to
understand the basis of
 motivation and what he should how to predict behavior and
do to motivate his subordinates. apply in some meaningful way to
9. OB helps to maintain cordial make organizations more
industrial relations which help to effective.
increase the overall productivity
of the industry. OB has a great impact on individuals
10. The subject of organizational and also in organizations that cannot
behavior is useful in the field of be ignored. To run the businesses
marketing. effectively and efficiently, the study of
11. This helps greatly in improving organizational behavior is very
bur inter-personal relations in essential.
the organizations. Friendly and
cordial relations between 3. Organizational Behavior and the
employees and management and Manager’s Job
also among the employees create
a congenial work environment in Organizational Behavior and the
organizations. Manager’s Job
12. It helps managers apply
appropriate motivational
techniques by the nature of
individual employees who exhibit
a glaring difference in many
respects. Important Managerial Roles
13. One of the basic characteristics of
Category Role
OB is that it is human. So to say, Interpersonal Figurehead
OB tackles human problems Leader
humanely. It helps understand Liaison
the cause of the problem, Informational Monitor
predicts is the future course of Disseminator
action and controls its evil Spokesperson
consequences. Decision-Making Entrepreneur
14. Another popular reason for Disturbance handler
studying OB is to learn how to Resource allocator
predict human behavior ‘ and, Negotiator
then, apply it in some useful way
to make the organization more
effective. 4. Contemporary Organizational
15. OB implies that the effective Behavior
utilization of people working in
the organization guarantees the Contemporary Organizational
success of the organization. Behavior
16. The most popular reason for
studying organizational behavior Characteristics of the Field
is that the reader is interested in      –Interdisciplinary in focus
pursuing a career in      –Descriptive in nature
management and wants to learn
Basic Concepts of the Field
     1.Individual processes
     2.Interpersonal processes
     3.Organizational
processes/characteristics
The Systems Perspective
System
     –An interrelated set of elements
that function  as a whole—inputs are
combined/transformed  by managers
into outputs from the system
Value of the Systems Perspective
     –Underscores the importance of an
organization’s environment
     –Conceptualizes the flow and
interaction of various elements of the
organization.
The Situational Perspective
The Situational Perspective
     –Recognizes that most
organizational situations and
outcomes are influenced by other
variables
The Universal Model
     –Presumes a direct cause-and-
effect linkage between variables
     –Complexities of human behavior
and organizational settings make
universal conclusions virtually
impossible
Managing for Effectiveness
Managers work toward
accomplishing the various goals
(outcomes) that exist at specific
levels in an organization:
     –Individual-level outcomes
     –Group-level outcomes
     –Organizational-level  outcomes
1. The Nature of Organization Culture
Culture: Definition, Functions, Characteristics,
Elements of Culture
Culture consists of all learned,
normative behavior patterns – that is
all shared ways or patterns of thinking
and feeling as well as doing.
Word ‘culture’ comes from the Latin
word ‘cultura’ which is related to cult
or worship. In its broadest sense, the
term refers to the result of human
interaction.
The culture of society comprises the
shared values, understandings,
assumptions, and goals that are
learned from earlier generations,
imposed by present members of
society, and passed on to succeeding
generations.
Sometimes an individual is described
as a highly cultured person, meaning
thereby that the person in question has
certain features such as his/her
speech, manner, and taste for
literature, music or painting which
distinguish him from others.
Culture, in this sense, refers to certain
personal characteristics of an
individual.
However, this is not the sense in which
the word culture is used and
understood in social sciences.
Sometimes culture is used in popular
discourse to refer to a celebration or an
evening of entertainment, as when one
speaks of a ‘cultural show’. In this
sense, culture is identified with
aesthetics or the fine arts such as
dance, music or drama.
This is also different from the technical
meaning of the word culture.
Culture is used in a special sense in
anthropology and sociology. It refers to
the sum of human beings’ lifeways,
their behavior, beliefs, feelings,
thought; it connotes everything that is
acquired by them as social beings.
Culture has been defined in a number
of ways.
There is no consensus among
sociologists and anthropologists
regarding the definition of culture.
There are some writers who add to
these definitions some of the
important” other capabilities and
habits” such as language and the
techniques for making and using tools.
What is Culture?
Culture has been defined in a number
of ways, but most simply, as the
learned and shared the behavior of a
community of interacting human
beings.
According to British anthropologist
Edward Taylor, “Culture is that
complex whole which includes
knowledge, belief, art, morals, law,
custom and any other capabilities and
habits acquired by man as. a member
of society”.
According to Phatak, Bhagat, and
Kashlak, “Culture is a concept that has
been used in several social science
disciplines to explain variations in
human thought processes in different
parts of the world.”         ‘
According to J.P. Lederach, “Culture is
the shared knowledge and schemes
created by a set of people for
perceiving, interpreting, expressing,
and responding to the social realities
around them”.
According to R. Linton, “A culture is a
configuration of learned behaviors and
results of behavior whose component
elements are shared and transmitted
by the members of a particular
society”.
According to G. Hofstede, “Culture is
the collective programming of the
mind which distinguishes the
members of one category of people
from another.”
According to H.T. Mazumdar, “Culture
is the sum total of human
achievements, material as well as non-
material, capable of transmission,
sociologically, i.e., by tradition and
communication, vertically as well as
horizontally”.
Actually, culture is defined as the
shared patterns of behaviors and
interactions, cognitive constructs, and
affective understanding that are
learned through a process of,
socialization. These shared patterns
identify the members of a cultural
group while also distinguishing those
of another group.
Functions of Culture
We will review the functions that
culture performs and assess whether
culture can be a liability for an
organization. Culture performs a
number of functions within an
organization.
 First, it has a boundary-defining
role; that is, it creates
distinctions between one
organization and another.
  Second, it conveys a sense of
identity for organization
members.
 Third, culture facilitates the
generation of commitment to
something larger than one’s
individual self-interest.
 Fourth, it enhances the stability
of the social system. Culture is
the social glue that helps hold the
organization together by
providing appropriate standards
for what employees should say
and do.
 Finally, culture serves as a sense-
making and control mechanism
that guides and shapes the
attitudes and behavior of
employees. It is this last function,
that is of particular interest to us.
The role of culture in influencing
employee behavior appears to be
increasingly important in today’s
workplace.
As organizations have widened spans
of control, flattened structures
introduced, teams reduced
formalization and empowered
employees. The shared meaning
provided by a strong culture ensures
that everyone is pointed in the same
direction.
1.1. Characteristics of Culture
Characteristics of Culture
All organizations have the culture in
the sense that they are embedded in
specific societal cultures and are part
of them.
Some values create a dominant culture
in the organizations that help guide the
day to day behavior of employees.
There is also evidence that these
dominant cultures can have a positive
impact on desirable outcomes such as
successfully conducting mergers and
acquisitions supporting product
– innovation processes, and helping
firms cope with rapid economic and
technological change.
Culture has various characteristics.
From various definitions, we can
deduce the following characteristics of
culture:
 Learned Behavior.
 Culture is Abstract.
 Culture Includes Attitudes,
Values, and Knowledge.
 Culture also Includes Material
Objects.
 Culture is Shared by the
Members of Society.
 Culture is Super-Organic.
 Culture is Pervasive.
 Culture is a Way of Life.
 Culture is Idealistic.
 Culture is Transmitted among
Members of Society.
 Culture is Continually Changing.
 Language is the Chief Vehicle of
Culture.
 Culture is Integrated.
 Culture is Dynamic.
 Culture is Transmissive.
 Culture Varies from Society to
Society.
 Culture is Gratifying.
Learned Behavior
Not all behavior is learned, but most of
it is learned; combing one’s hair,
standing in line, telling jokes,
criticizing the President and going to
the movie, all constitute behaviors that
had to be learned.
Sometimes the terms conscious
learning and unconscious learning are
used to distinguish the learning.
Some behavior is obvious. People can
be seen going to football games, eating
with forks, or driving automobiles.
Such behavior is called “overt”
behavior. Other behavior is less visible.
Culture is Abstract
Culture exists in the minds or habits of
the members of society. Culture is the
shared ways of doing and thinking.
There are degrees of visibility of
cultural behavior, ranging from the
regularized activities of persons to
their internal reasons for so doing.
In other words, we cannot see culture
as, such we can only see human
behavior. This behavior occurs in
regular, patterned fashion and it is
called culture.
Culture Includes Attitudes, Values, and Knowledge
There is a widespread error in the
thinking of many people who tend to
regard the ideas, attitudes, and notions
which they have as “their own”.
It is easy to overestimate the
uniqueness of one’s own attitudes and
ideas. When there is an agreement
with other people it is largely
Unnoticed, but when there is a
disagreement or difference one is
usually conscious of it.
Your differences, however, may also be
cultural. For example, suppose you are
a Muslim and the other person is a
Christian.
Culture also Includes Material Objects
Man’s behavior results in creating
objects.
Men were behaving when they made
these things. To make these objects
required numerous and various skills
which human beings gradually built up
through the ages. Man has invented
something else and so on.
Occasionally one encounters the view
that man does not really “make” steel
or a battleship.
All these things first existed in a “state
nature”.
The man merely modified their form,
changed them from a state in which
they were to the state in which he now
uses them. The chair was first a tree
which man surely did not make. But
the chair is’ more than trees and the jet
airplane is more than iron ore and so
forth.
Culture is Shared by the Members of Society
The patterns of learned behavior and
the results of behavior are possessed
not by one or a few people, but usually
by a large proportion.
Thus, many millions of persons share
such behavior patterns as the use of
automobiles or the English language.
Persons may share some part of a
culture unequally.
Sometimes the people share different
aspects of culture.
Culture is Super-Organic
Culture is sometimes called super
organic. It implies that “culture” is
somehow superior to “nature”. The
word super-organic is useful when it
implies that what may be quite a
different phenomenon from a cultural
point of view.
For example, a tree means different
things to the botanist who studies it,
the old woman who uses it for shade in
the late summer afternoon, the farmer
who picks its fruit, the motorist who
collides with it and the young lovers
who carve their initials in its trunk.
The same physical objects and physical
characteristics, in other words, may
constitute a variety of quite different
cultural objects and cultural
characteristics.
Culture is Pervasive
Culture is pervasive it touches every
aspect of life. The pervasiveness of
culture is manifest in two ways.
First, culture provides an
unquestioned context within which
individual action and response take
place. Not only emotional action but
relational actions are governed by
cultural norms.
Second, culture pervades social
activities and institutions.
Culture is a Way of Life
Culture means simply the “way of life”
of a people or their “design for a
living.” Kluckhohn and Kelly define it
in his sense”, A culture is a historically
derived system of explicit and implicit
designs for living, which tends to be
shared by all or specially designed
members of a group”.
Explicit culture refers to similarities in
word and action which can be directly
observed.
For example, adolescent cultural
behavior can be generalized from
regularities in dress, mannerism, and
conversation. Implicit culture exists in
abstract forms which are not quite
obvious.
Culture is Idealistic
Culture embodies the ideals and norms
of a group. It is sum-total of the ideal
patterns and norms of behavior of a
group. Culture consists of the
intellectual, artistic and social ideals
and institutions which the members of
the society profess and to which they
strive to confirm.
Culture is Transmitted among Members of Society
The cultural ways are learned by
persons from persons.
Many of them are “handed down” by
one’s elders, by parents, teachers, and
others. Other cultural behaviors are
“handed up” to elders. Some of the
transmission of culture is among
contemporaries.
For example, the styles of dress,
political views, and the use of recent
labor-saving devices. One does not
acquire a behavior pattern
spontaneously.
He learns it. That means that someone
teaches him and he learns. Much of the
learning process both for the teacher
and the learner is quite unconscious,
unintentional, or accidental.
Culture is Continually Changing
There is one fundamental and
inescapable attribute (special quality)
of culture, the fact of unending change.
Some societies sometimes change
slowly, and hence in comparison to
other societies seem not to be changing
at all. But they are changing, even
though not obviously so.
Language is the Chief Vehicle of Culture
Man lives not only in the present but
also in the past and future.
He is able to do this because he
possesses language which transmits to
him what was learned in the past and
enables him to transmit the
accumulated wisdom to the next
generation.
A specialized language pattern serves
as a common bond to the members of
a particular group or subculture.
Although culture is transmitted in a
variety of ways, language is one of the
most important vehicles for
perpetuating cultural patterns.
Culture is Integrated
This is known as holism, or the various
parts of a culture being
interconnected.
All aspects of a culture are related to
one another and to truly understand a
culture, one must learn about all of its
parts, not only a few.
Culture is Dynamic
This simply means that cultures
interact and change.
Because most cultures are in contact
with other cultures, they exchange
ideas and symbols. All cultures change,
otherwise, they would have problems
adapting to changing environments.
And because cultures are integrated, if
one component in the system changes,
it is likely that the entire system must
adjust.
Culture is Transmissive
Culture is transmissive as it is
transmitted front one generation to
another.
Language is the main vehicle of
culture. Language in different forms
makes it possible for the present
generation to understand the
achievement of earlier generations.
Transmission of culture may take place
by imitation as well as by instruction.
Culture Varies from Society to Society
Every society has a culture of its own.
It differs from society to society. The
culture of every society is unique to
itself. Cultures are not uniform.
Cultural elements like customs,
traditions, morals, values, beliefs are
not uniform everywhere. Culture
varies from time to time also.
Culture is Gratifying
Culture provides proper opportunities
for the satisfaction of our needs and
desires.
Our needs both biological and social
are fulfilled in cultural ways. Culture
determines and guides various
activities of man. Thus, culture is
defined as the process through which
human beings satisfy their wants.
So we can easily say that culture has
various features which embodied it in
an important position in organizations
and other aspects too.
1.2. Elements of Culture
Elements of Culture
Culture is transmitted to employees in
a number of ways. The most significant
are stories, rituals, material symbols,
and language.
The culture of society also comprises
the shared values, understandings,
assumptions, and goals that are
learned from earlier generations,
imposed by present members of
society, and passed on to succeeding
generations.
There are some elements of culture
about which the managers of
international operation should be
aware of.
 Languages,
 Norms,
 Symbols,
 Values,
 Attitude,
 Rituals,
 Customs and Manners,
 Material Culture,
 Education,
 Physical Artifacts,
 Language, Jargons, and
Metaphors,
 Stories, Myths, and Legends,
 Ceremonies and Celebrations,
 Behavioral Norms, and
 Shared Beliefs and Values.
Languages
It is a primary means used to transmit
information and ideas. Knowledge of
local language can help because-
 It permits a clearer
understanding of the situation.
 It provides direct access to local
people.
 Understanding of implied
meanings.
Religion: The spiritual beliefs of a
society are often so powerful that they
transcend other cultural aspects.
Religion affect-
 The work habit of people
 Work and social customs
 Politics and business
Norms
Cultures differ widely in their norms,
or standards and expectations for
behaving. Norms are often divided into
two types, formal norms, and informal
norms.
Formal norms, also called mores and
laws, refer to the standards of behavior
considered the most important in any
society.
Informal norms, also called folkways
and customs, refer to standards of
behavior that are considered less
important but still influence how we
behave.
Symbols
Every culture is filled with symbols, of
things that stand for something else
and that often suggests various
reactions and emotions.
Some symbols are actually types of
nonverbal communication, while other
symbols are in fact material objects.
Values
Values are a society’s ideas about what
is good or bad, right or wrong – such
as the widespread belief that stealing is
immoral and unfair.
Values determine how individuals will
probably respond in any given
circumstances
Attitude
Attitude is a persistent tendency to feel
and behave in a particular way.
Actually it is the external displays of
underlying beliefs that people use to
signal to other people.
Rituals
Rituals are processes or sets of actions
that are repeated in specific
circumstances and with specific
meaning. They may be used in such as
rites of passage, such as when someone
is promoted or retires.
They may be associated with company
events such as the release of a new
event. They may also be associated
with a day like Eid day.
Customs and Manners
Customs are common and establish
practices. Manners are behaviors that
are regarded as appropriate in a
particular society. These indicate the
rules of behavior which enforce ideas
of right and wrong.
They can be the traditions, rules,
written laws, etc.
Material Culture
Another element of culture is the
artifacts, or material objects, that
constitute a society’s material culture.
It consists of objects that people make.
Like-
 Economic infrastructure
(transportation, communication
and energy capabilities)
 Social infrastructure (Health,
housing, and education systems)
 Financial infrastructure
(Banking, insurance and
financial services)
Education
It influences many aspects of culture.
Actually, culture is the entire
accumulation of artificial objects,
conditions, tools, techniques, ideas,
symbols and behavior patterns
peculiar to a group of people,
possessing a certain consistency of its
own, and capable of transmission from
one generation to another.
Physical Artifacts
These are the tangible manifestations
and key elements of organizational
culture.
If you visit different organizations,
you’ll notice that each is unique in
terms of its physical layout, use of
facilities, centralization or dispersion
of common utilities, and so on.
This uniqueness is not incidental,
instead, they represent the symbolic
expressions of an underlying meaning,
values, and beliefs, which is shared by
people in the organization. The
workplace culture greatly affects the
performance of an organization.
Language, Jargons, and Metaphors
These elements of organizational
culture play an important role in
identifying a company’s culture.
While the language is a means of
universal communication, most
business houses tend to develop their
own unique terminologies, phrases,
and acronyms.
For instance, in the organizational
linguistics code, “Kremlin” may mean
the headquarters; in Goal India
Limited, the acronym. J.I.T. (Just In
Time) was jokingly used to describe all
the badly planned fire-fighting jobs.
Stories, Myths, and Legends
These are, in a way, an extension of
organizational language. They
epitomize the unwritten values and
morals of organizational life.
If you collect the various stories,
anecdotes, and jokes that are shared in
an organization, they often read like
plots and themes, in which nothing
changes except the characters.
They rationalize the complexity and
turbulence of activities and events to
allow for predictable action-taking.
Ceremonies and Celebrations
These are consciously enacted
behavioral artifacts which help in
reinforcing the organization’s cultural
values and assumptions.
For example, every year Tata Steel
celebrates Founder’s Day to
commemorate and reiterate its
adherence to the original values of the
organization.
Stating the importance of ceremonies
and celebrations, Deal and Kennedy
(1982) say, “Without expressive
events, and culture will die. In the
absence of ceremony, important values
have no impact.”
Behavioral Norms
This is one of the most important
elements of organizational culture.
They describe the nature of
expectations which impinge on the
members’ behavior.
Behavioral norms determine how the
members will behave, interact and
relate with each other.
Shared Beliefs and Values
All organizations have their unique set
of basic beliefs and values (also called
moral codes), shared by most of its
members. These are the mental
pictures of organizational reality, and
form the basis of defining the right or
wrong in the organization.
In an organization, for instance, if the
predominant belief is that meeting the
customers’ demands is essential for
success, any behavior which
supposedly meets these criteria is
acceptable, even if it violates the
established rules and procedures.
Values and beliefs focus organizational
energies toward certain actions while
discouraging the other behavioral
patterns.
Factors Affecting the Culture
There are so many ways of examining
cultural differences and their impact
on international management. Culture
can affect technology transfer,
managerial attitudes, managerial
ideology, and even business-
government relations.
In overall terms, the cultural impact on
international management is reflected
by these basic beliefs and behaviors.
Here are some specific examples where
the culture of a society can directly
affect management approaches:
Centralized vs. Decentralized Decision Making
In some societies, top managers make
all-important organizational decisions.
In others, these decisions are defused
throughout the enterprise; middle and
lower-level managers actively
participate and make decisions.
Safety vs. Risk
In some societies, organizational
decision-makers are risk-averse and
have great difficulty with conditions of
uncertainty. In others, risk-taking is
encouraged, and decision making
under uncertainty is common.
Individual vs. Group Rewards
In some countries, personnel who do
outstanding work are given individual
rewards in the form of bonuses and
commissions. In others, cultural
norms require group rewards, and
individual rewards are frowned on.
Informal vs. Formal Procedures
In some societies, much is
accomplished through informal
means. In others, formal procedures
are set forth and followed rigidly.
Cooperation vs. Competition
Some societies encourage cooperation
between their people. Others
encourage competition between their
people.
High Vs. Low Organizational Loyalty
In some societies, people identify very
strongly with their organization or
employer. In others, people identify
with their occupational groups, such as
an engineer or mechanics.
Short-term vs. Long-term Horizons
Some cultures focus most heavily on
short-term horizons such as short-
range goals of profit and efficiency.
Others are more interested in long-
range goals, such as market share and
technological development.
Stability vs. Innovation
The culture of some countries
encourages .stability and resistance to
change. The culture of others puts a
high value on innovation and change.
Goals and Objectives
The culture of the organization is also
affected by its goals and objectives.
The strategies and procedures
designed to achieve these goals and
objectives of the organization also
contribute to its culture.
Others:
 Language and dialect
 Religion
 Wealth
 Climate and weather
 Dress sense and clothes-fashion
 Level of education and literacy
 General living standards
 Employment regulations
These cultural differences influence
the way that comparative management
should be conducted.
Sometimes these factors affect
international business because some
international managers are unknown
and unfamiliar about these factors and
day to day business protocol.
The Nature of Organization
Culture
Why
Study Culture?
     –It is assumed that organizations
with a strong culture perform at
higher levels than those without a
strong culture
Organizational Culture
    –A set of values held by individuals
in a firm that help employees
understand acceptability of actions
Culture Values
    –Are often taken for granted
(implicit)
    –May not be made explicit (i.e., not
written down)
    –Are communicated through
symbolic means
1.3. Organizational Culture: Definition,
Characteristics, Roles, Types
Organizational Culture: Definition,
Characteristics, Roles, Types
Organizational culture is quite
complex. Every company has its own
unique personality, just like people do.
The unique personality of an
organization is referred to as its
culture.
In groups of people who work together,
organizational culture is an invisible
but powerful force that influences the
behavior of the members of that group.
There seems to be wide agreement that
organizational culture refers to a
system of shared meaning held by
members that distinguish the
organization from other organizations.
Organizational culture is a system of
shared assumptions, values, and
beliefs, which governs how people
behave in organizations.
Organizational culture includes an
organization’s expectations,
experiences, philosophy, and values
that hold it together, and is expressed
in its self-image, inner workings,
interactions with the outside world,
and future expectations.
It is based on shared attitudes, beliefs,
customs, and written and unwritten
rules that have been developed over
time and are considered valid.
These shared values have a strong
influence on the people in the
organization and dictate how they
dress, act, and perform their jobs.
Every organization develops and
maintains a unique culture, which
provides guidelines and boundaries for
the behavior of the members of the
organization.
Organizational culture/corporate
culture includes-
 The ways the organization
conducts its business, treats its
employees, customers, and the
wider community,
 The extent to which freedom is
allowed in decision making,
developing new ideas, and
personal expression,
 How power and information flow
through its hierarchy, and
 How committed employees are
towards collective objectives.
Many Scholars had given the definition
of organizational culture. Some of the
popular definitions are given below:
According to Robbie Katanga,
“Organizational Culture is how
organizations do things.”
According to Alec Haverstick, “In large
part, Organizational culture is a
product of compensation.”
According to Bruce Perron,
“Organizational culture defines a
jointly shared description of an
organization from within.”
According to Richard Perrin,
“Organizational culture is the sum of
values and rituals which serve as a glue
to integrate the members of the
organization.”
According to Alan Adler,
“Organizational culture is civilization
in the workplace.”
According to Elizabeth Skringar,
“Organizational culture is shaped by
the main culture of the society we live
in, albeit with greater emphasis on
particular parts of it.”
According to Abdi Osman Jama, “An
organization is a living culture that can
adapt to the reality 4s fast as possible.”
Organizational, culture affects the
organization’s productivity and
performance and provides guidelines
on customer care and service, product
quality and safety, attendance and
punctuality, and concern for the
environment.
It also extends to production methods,
marketing, and advertising practices,
and to new product creation.
Organizational culture is unique for
every organization and one of the
hardest things to change. Corporate
culture reflects the values, beliefs, and
attitudes that permeate a business.
Corporate culture is often referred to
as “the character of an organization”
representing the collective behavior of
people using common corporate
vision, goals, shared values, attitudes,
habits, working language, systems, and
symbols.
Corporate culture is interwoven with
processes, technologies, learning, and
significant events. It is a total sum of
the values, customs, traditions, and
meanings that make a company
unique.
Characteristics of
Organizational Culture
As individuals come into contact with
organizations, they come into contact
with dress norms, stories people tell
about what goes on, the organization’s
formal rules and procedures, its formal
codes of behavior, rituals, tasks, pay
systems, jargon, and jokes only
understood by insiders and so on.
Organizational culture is composed of
seven characteristics that range in
priority from high to low. Every
organization has a distinct value for
each of these characteristics.
Members of organizations make
judgments on the value their
organization places on these
characteristics, and then adjust their
behavior to match this perceived set of
values.
Characteristics of organizational
culture are;
 Innovation (Risk Orientation).
 Attention to Detail (Precision
Orientation).
 Emphasis on Outcome
(Achievement Orientation).
 Emphasis on People (Fairness
Orientation).
 Teamwork (Collaboration
Orientation).
 Aggressiveness (Competitive
Orientation).
 Stability (Rule Orientation).
Let’s examine each of these seven
characteristics.
Innovation (Risk Orientation)
Companies with cultures that place a
high value on innovation encourage
their employees to take risks and
innovate in the performance of their
jobs. Companies with cultures that
place a low value on innovation expect
their employees to do their jobs the
same way that they have been trained
to do them, without looking for ways to
improve their performance.
Attention to Detail (Precision
Orientation)
This characteristic of organizational
culture dictates the degree to which
employees are expected to be accurate
in their work. A culture that places a
high value on attention to detail
expects its employees to perform their
work with precision. A culture that
places a low value on this
characteristic does not.
Emphasis on Outcome
(Achievement Orientation)
Companies that focus on results, but
not on how the results are achieved,
place a high emphasis on this value of
organizational culture. A company that
instructs its sales force to do whatever
it takes to get sales orders has a culture
that places a high value on the
emphasis on outcome characteristics.
Emphasis on People (Fairness
Orientation)
Companies that place a high value on
this characteristic of organizational
culture place a great deal of
importance on how their decisions will
affect the people in their
organizations. For these companies, it
is important to treat their employees
with respect and dignity.’
Teamwork (Collaboration
Orientation)
Companies that organize work
activities around teams instead of
individuals place a high value on this
characteristic of the organizational
culture. People who work for these
types of companies tend to have a
positive relationship with their
coworkers and managers.
Aggressiveness (Competitive
Orientation)
This characteristic of organizational
culture dictates whether group
members are expected to be assertive
or easygoing when dealing with
companies they compete within the
marketplace. Companies with an
aggressive culture place a high value
on competitiveness and outperforming
the competition at all costs.
Stability (Rule Orientation)
A company whose culture places a high
value on stability is rule-oriented,
predictable, and bureaucratic in
nature. These types of companies
typically provide consistent and
predictable levels of output and
operate best in non-changing market
conditions. These are the seven
characteristics that are common in the
context of organizational culture. Of
course, it is true that the
characteristics are not the same in all
times and spheres.
Roles of Organizational Culture
Culture plays an important role in
organizations. Some organizations
which developed a strong corporate
culture, they increased their goodwill
and got a good position in the market.
The various roles of organizational
culture are given below:
 Culture unites (brings together)
employees by providing a sense
of identity with the organization.
 An informal control mechanism.
 Facilitation of open
communication.
 Culture enables organizations to
differentiate themselves from
one another.
 Culture often generates
commitment, superseding
personal interests.
 Culture sets organization norms,
rules, and standards. Thereby,
culture enables employees to
function in an organization, by
teaching them how to behave.
 A shared understanding.
 Culture becomes especially
important in a program/project-
based organization. In such an
organization, the hierarchy is flat
and decision-making is moved to
the project/program purpose
units and departments. In this
context, culture provides the
guiding light towards the
achievement of goals and
objectives.
 Enhanced mutual trust and
cooperation.
 Fewer disagreements and more
efficient decision-making
processes.
 A strong sense of identification.
 Assisting employees in making
sense of their behaviors by
providing justification for
behaviors.
Types of Organization Culture
The practices, principles, policies, and
values of an organization form its
culture. The culture of an organization
decides the way employees behave
amongst themselves as well as the
people outside the organization.
Let us understand the various types of
organization culture:
 Normative Culture,
 Pragmatic Culture,
 Academy Culture,
 Baseball Team Culture,
 Club Culture,
 Fortress Culture,
 Tough Guy Culture,
 Bet your Company Culture,
 Process Culture,
 Power Culture,
 Role Culture,
 Task Culture,
 Person Culture.
Normative Culture
In such a culture, the norms and
procedures of the organization are
predefined and the rules and
regulations are set as per the existing
guidelines. The employees behave in
an ideal way and strictly adhere to the
policies of the organization. No
employee dares to break the rules and
sticks to the already laid policies.
Pragmatic Culture
In a pragmatic culture, more emphasis
is placed on the clients and the
external parties. Customer satisfaction
is the main motive of the employees in
a pragmatic culture. Such
organizations treat their clients as
Gods and do not follow any set rules.
Every employee strives hard to satisfy
his clients to expect maximum
business from their
side.                                                                
       ‘
Academy Culture
Organizations following academy
culture and hire skilled
individuals. The roles and
responsibilities are delegated
according to the background,
educational qualification and work
experience of the employees.
Organizations following academy
culture are very particular about
training the existing employees. They
ensure that various training programs
are being conducted at the workplace
to hone the skills of the
employees. The management makes
sincere efforts to upgrade the
knowledge of the employees to
improve their professional
competence. The employees in an
academy culture stick to the
organization for a longer duration and
also grow within it. Educational
institutions, universities, hospitals, etc.
practice such type of culture.
Baseball Team Culture
A baseball team culture considers the
employees as the most treasured
possession of the organization. The
employees are the true assets of the
organization who have a major role in
its successful functioning. In such a
culture, the individuals always have an
upper edge and they do not bother
much about their organization.
Advertising agencies, event
management companies, financial
institutions follow such a culture.
Club Culture
Organizations following a club culture
are very particular about the
employees they recruit. The
individuals are hired as per their
specialization, educational
qualification, and interests. Each one
does what he is the best. The high
potential employees are promoted
suitably and appraisals are a regular
feature of such a culture.
Fortress Culture
There are certain organizations where
employees are not very sure about
their career and longevity. Such
organizations follow fortress
culture. The employees are terminated
if the organization is not performing
well. Individuals suffer the most when
the organization is at a loss.
Stockbroking industries follow such a
culture.
Tough Guy Culture
In a tough-guy culture, feedbacks are
essential. The performance of the
employees is reviewed from time to
time and their work is thoroughly
monitored. Team managers are
appointed to discuss queries with the
team members and guide them
whenever required. The employees are
under constant watch in such a
culture.
Bet your Company Culture
Organizations that follow bet your
company culture take decisions that
involve a huge amount of risk and the
consequences are also unforeseen. The
principles and policies of such an
organization are formulated to address
sensitive issues and it takes time to get
the results.
Process Culture
As the name suggests the employees in
such a culture adhere to the processes
and procedures of the
organization. Feedbacks and
performance reviews do not matter
much in such organizations. The
employees abide by the rules and
regulations and work according to the
ideologies of the workplace. All
government organizations follow such
a culture.
Charles Handy, a leading authority on
organizational culture, defined four
different kinds of culture:
 Power culture
 Role culture
 Task culture
 Person culture
Power Culture
In an organization with a power
culture, power is held by just a few
individuals whose influence spreads
throughout the organization. There are
few rules and regulations in a power
culture. What those with power decide
is what happens. Employees are
generally judged by what they achieve
rather than how they do things or how
they act. A consequence of this can be
quick decision-making, even if those
decisions aren’t in the best long-term
interests of the organization. A power
culture is usually a strong culture,
though it can swiftly turn toxic.
Role Culture
Organizations with a role culture are
based on rules. They are highly
controlled, with everyone in the
organization knowing what their roles
and responsibilities are. Power in a
role culture is determined by a
person’s position (role) in the
organizational structure. Role cultures
are built on detailed organizational
structures that are typically tall (not
flat) with a long chain of command. A
consequence is that decision-making
in role cultures can often be painfully-
slow and the organization is less likely
to take risks. In short, organizations
with role cultures tend to be very
bureaucratic.
Task Culture
Task culture forms when teams in an
organization are formed to address
specific problems or progress
projects. The task is the important
thing, so power within the team will
often shift depending on the mix of the
team members and the status of the
problem or project. Whether the task
culture proves effective will largely be
determined by the team dynamic. With
productive and creative, the right mix
of skills, personalities and leadership,
working in teams.
Person Culture
In an organization with person
cultures, individuals very much see
themselves as unique and superior to
the organization. The organization
simply exists in order for people to
work. An organization with a person’s
culture is really just a collection of
individuals who happen to be working
for the same organization.
How Organizational Cultures
Start
Some organizational cultures may be
the direct, or at least indirect, the
result of actions taken by the
founders. However, this is not always
the case.Sometimes founders create
weak cultures, and if the organization
is to Survive, a new top manager must
be installed who will show the seeds
for the necessary strong culture.
Although organizational cultures can
develop in a number of different ways,
the process usually involves some
version of the following steps:
 A single person (founder) has an
idea for a new enterprise.
 The founder brings in one or
more other people and creates a
core group that shares a common
vision with the founder. That is,
all in this core group believe that
the idea is a good one, is
workable, is worth running some
risks for, and is worth the
investment of time, money, and
energy that will be required.
 The founding core group begins
to act in concert to create an
organization by raising funds,
obtaining patents, incorporating,
locating space, building, and so
on.
 At this point, others are brought
into the organization, and a
common history begins to be
built.
  Most of today’s successful
corporate giants in all industries
basically followed these steps.
High vs. Low-Context Culture
The concept of high- and low-context
culture relates to how an employee’s
thoughts, opinions, feelings, and
upbringing affect how they act within a
given culture.
North America and Western Europe
are generally considered to have low-
context cultures. Low-context culture
means that businesses in these places
have direct, individualistic employees
who tend to base decisions on facts.
This type of businessperson wants
specifies noted in contracts and may
have issues with trust.
High-context cultures are the opposite
in that trust is the most important part
of business dealings. There are areas in
the Middle East, Asia, and Africa that
can be considered the high context.
Organizations that have high-context
cultures are collectivist and focus on
interpersonal relationships.
Individuals from high-context cultures
might be interested in getting to know
the person they are conducting
business with in order to get a gut
feeling on decision making.
They may also be more concerned
about business teams and group
success rather than individual
achievement.
2. Organization Culture Versus Climate
Organization Culture
     –The historical context within
which a situation occurs and the
impact of this context on the behaviors
of employees
          •Difficult to alter in the short-run
          •Means through which people in
the organization learn and
communicate organization
acceptability (values and norms)
Organization Climate
     –The current situations in an
organization and the linkages among
work groups, employees, and work
performance
          •Easier for management to
manipulate in order to directly affect
the behavior of employees
==========================
==========================
==========================
====================
Creating the Organization
Culture
1.Establish Values
     –Strategic values
         *The basic beliefs about an
organization’s environment that
shape its strategy.
     –Cultural values
          *The values that employees
need to have and act on for the
organization to act on the strategic
values.
2. Create Vision
     –Create a picture of the
organization that portrays how the
strategic and cultural values will
combine to create
3. Initiate Implementation
Strategies
     –Take actions founded on the
strategic and cultural values to
accomplish the vision.
4. Reinforce Cultural Behaviors
     –Use formal reward systems to
encourage desired employee
behaviors
     –Tell stories that epitomizing
cultural values
     –Conduct ceremonies and rituals
that emphasize right actions by
employees
5 Steps to Building an
Organizational
Culture
Cross-cultural adaptation occurs when people from
one culture move to a different culture, learning the
rules, societal norms, customs and language of the
new culture.
By bringing their existing thoughts, feelings,
behaviors, and beliefs with them, a person will
integrate that into their new society while adjusting
and accepting to the new standards, thereby
creating a multicultural person.
Person visiting foreign to leave behind barriers to
cultural adaptation knows that being in a new place
can be daunting.
Foreign scenery, as foreigners try to integrate with
the local folk’s number of norms and even other
languages, dialects often intimidate new arrivals to
any foreign land.
For those willing to adapt, however, the rewards of
unifying with a new culture and people are
numerous.
Here discussed the steps to building an
organizational culture;
1. Teach It.
2. Define It.
3. Live It.
4. Measure It.
5. Reward It.
Teach It
The more and more effectively we
teach people what we are looking for in
our culture, the more likely it will
become the reality. Whatever
orientation and training work you’re
doing, you should talk about the kind
of culture you’re going after.
Describe the way you’d like things to
be working. Talk about the informal
ways in which you envision the group
working together, the way you want
the customer experience to feel, etc.
Define It
If you have a number of leaders
running your organization, you may
not, immediately have full agreement
on what your desired culture is. In that
case, there must be a hard discussion
amongst the key decision makers so
that you can reach a consensus.
Putting the vision in writing is an
essential element of making it
successful.
When the dialogue stays verbal only,
it’s inevitable that everyone will leave
the room with a different version of
what was agreed upon. Documenting it
is far more likely to help you get where
you want to go.
Live It
Culture is very little about what we say,
and very much about what we do. If we
don’t live it, it’s never going to play out
as we want.
Organizational culture is built slowly
over time, not with a quick decision or
the writing of a big check. This is
especially critical for the leaders in our
organizations; the staff sees everything
we do.
I remind myself that every action I
take and every word I speak will have
an impact on how our organizational
culture develops. Pretending that my
words, actions, and attitudes don’t
impact it significantly would be to live
in denial.
Read more: Organizational
Culture: Definition,
Characteristics, Roles, Types
Measure It
Once we’ve identified the key elements
of our desired culture and written
them down, we must measure our
success in making them a (cultural)
reality.
Many will argue that you cannot
measure things like fun or
supportiveness or camaraderie; I think
you can. If you want to have a results-
oriented organization, you are more
likely to succeed if you measure your
success at putting the culture into
place.
If you’re setting out to
measure cultural characteristics like
fun, remember that the judgment will
be made by the participants in the
organization. Once you have that
mindset, along with some definition of
what fun means, you can measure it.
Reward It
A common problem in every
organization is the mismatch between
what it says it wants and what’s
rewarded. In some cases, the issue is
just an absence of rewards.
Companies say that want people to
treat each other well but those who do
receive no recognition; they say that
they want to have fun but the only
reward you get is you’re having fun;
they say that they want people to learn
but the only reward is that they know
more than before a seminar.
The situation can be more extreme—
organizations that actually reward the
opposite of the cultural behavior they
say they’re seeking. They say they want
to be generous, but they take for
themselves first. They say that they
want teamwork, but pay bonuses based
on individual performance.
No organization will ever perfectly
align every reward with the behaviors
we seek.
But at least being cognizant of the key
elements of the cultural vision we’re
going after and then making sure that
we recognize and reward those is
important.
3. Approaches to Organizational
Behavior Studies
Approaches to Organizational
Behavior Studies
Organizational Behavior relates to the
relationship between employees and
the employer in an organization .Both
are working towards the realization of
the goals and objectives of any
organization, and a close and fruitful
coordination between the two is one of
the major factors towards this
realization. These experts studied and
attempted to quantify research done
about the actions and reactions of
employees, with regard to their work
environments.
There are 4 Approaches to
Organizational Behavior studies;
Organizational behavior approaches
are a result of the research done by
experts in this field. It is a field that
has begun developing only recently
and new approaches and results are
being expounded every day.
Human Resources Approach
This approach recognizes the fact that
people are the central resource in any
organization and that they should be
developed towards higher levels of
competency, creativity, and
fulfillment. People thus contribute to
the success of the organization. The
human resources approach is also
called as the supportive approach in
the sense that the manager’s role
changes from control of employee to
active support of their growth and
performance. The supportive approach
contrasts with the traditional
management approach. In the
traditional approach, managers
decided what employees should do and
closely monitored their performance to
ensure task accomplishment. In the
human resources approach, the role of
managers changes from structuring
and controlling to supporting.
Contingency Approach
The contingency approach (sometimes
called the situational approach) is
based on the premise that methods or
behaviors which work effectively in
One situation fail in another. For
example; Organization Development
(OD) programs, way work brilliantly in
one situation but fail miserably in
another situation. Results differ
because situations differ, the
manager’s task, therefore, is to identify
which method will, in a particular
situation, under particular
circumstances, and at a particular
time, best contribute to the attainment
of organization’s goals. The strength of
the contingency approach lies in the
fact it encourages analysis of each
situation prior to action while at the
same time discourages the habitual
practice of universal assumptions
about methods and people. The
contingency approach is also more
interdisciplinary, more system –
oriented and more research-oriented
titan any other approach.
Productivity Approach
Productivity which is the ratio of
output to input is a measure of an
organization’s effectiveness. It also
reveals the manager’s efficiency in
optimizing resource utilization. The
higher the numerical value of this
ratio, the greater the efficiency.
Productivity is generally measured in
terms of economic inputs and outputs,
but human and social inputs and
outputs also are important. For
example, if better organizational
behavior can improve job satisfaction,
a human output or benefit occurs. In
the same manner, when employee
development programs lead to better
citizens in a community, a valuable
social output occurs. Organizational
behavior decisions typically involve
human, social, and/or economic
issues, and so productivity usually a
significant part of these decisions is
recognized and discusses extensively in
the literature on OB.
Systems Approach
The Systems Approach to OB views the
organization as a united, purposeful
system composed of interrelated
parts. This approach gives managers a
way of looking at the organization as a
whole, whole, person, whole group,
and the whole social system. In so
doing, the systems approach tells us
that the activity of any segment of an
organization affects, in varying degrees
the activity of every other segment. A
systems view should be the concern of
every person in an organization. The
clerk at a service counter, the
machinist, and the manager all work
with the people and thereby influence
the behavioral quality of life in an
organization and its inputs. Managers,
however, tend to have a larger
responsibility, because they are the
ones who make the majority are people
oriented. The role of managers, then, is
to use organizational behavior to help
build an organizational culture in
which talents are utilized and further
developed, people are motivated,
teams become productive,
organizations achieve their goals and
society reaps the reward.
Inter-Disciplinary Approach
Organizational behavior is an
integration of all other social sciences
and disciplines such as psychology,
sociology, organizational theories
etc. They all are interdependent and
influence each other. The man is
studied as a whole and therefore, all
disciplines concerning man are
integrated.
4. Emerging Issues in Organization
Culture: Innovation
Emerging Issues in Organization
Culture:  Innovation
Innovation
     –The process of creating and doing
new things that are introduced into the
marketplace as products, processes, or
services
New Ventures
1.Require entrepreneurship and
good management
2.Intrapreneurship
     •Entrepreneurial activity that takes
place within the context of a large
organization
3.Entrepreneur’s profile
     •Need for achievement
     •Desire to assume responsibility
     •Willing to take risks
     •Focus on concrete results
Corporate Research
     –Supports existing businesses to
provide incremental innovations and
to explore potential new technology
bases
     –Is responsible for keeping the
company’s products and processes
technologically advanced
     –Corporate culture can be
instrumental in fostering
environment for creativity and
innovation
Empowerment
     –Is enabling workers to set their
own work goals, make decisions, solve
problems within their sphere of
responsibility and authority
          •Appropriate Cultures (Goffee
and Jones)
    –Factors that may determine the
appropriate type of culture appropriate
for an organization:
         •The nature of the value chain
        •The dynamism of the
environment
Taking Advantage of the Existing
Culture
     –Easier and faster to alter employee
behaviors within the existing culture
than it is to change existing history,
traditions, and values
     –Managers must be aware and
understand the organization’s values
     –Managers can communicate their
understanding to lower-level
individuals
Teaching Organization Culture
     –Organizational socialization
          •Is the process through which
employees learn about the firm’s
culture and pass their knowledge and
understanding on to others
     –Organizational mechanisms
         •Are examples of organization
culture that employees see in more
experienced employees’ behaviors
     –Corporate pamphlets and formal
training sessions
Changing the Organization
Culture
     –Managing symbols
        •Substituting stories and myths
that support the new cultural values
for those that support old ones
    –Culture can be difficult to change
when upper management
inadvertently reverts to old behaviors
       •The Stability of Change
    –New values and beliefs must be
seen as stable and influential as old
ones
    –Changing value systems requires
enormous effort because value systems
tend to be self-reinforcin
5. Ways of Managing Organizational
Culture
Ways of Managing
Organizational Culture
We highlighted in our last post that
there are plenty of frameworks for
managing strategy, talent, leadership,
and performance, but not
culture. Culture has been this elusive,
mysterious subject. Survey action
plans, engagement events or programs,
and other improvements fall short of
building a strong culture foundation
the entire organization can understand
and manage with clarity and
speed. Most leaders of successful
cultures learn from experience and
other mentors, peers, or experts, how
to piece together their improvement
approaches because there isn’t a clear
guide to follow. While some guides
exist, they are not broadly known and
applied like other improvement
disciplines. Every organization that
excels at the building, reinforcing, and
leveraging their unique culture in
support of delivering sustainable
performance has built a strong “culture
foundation.”
Steps of managing organizational
culture;
1. Evaluate your current culture
and performance,
2. Clarify your initial vision.
 3. Clarify values and expected
behaviors.
4. Clarify strategic priorities.
5. Engage your team in defining
SMART goals.
6. Clarify and track key measures,
7. Maintain a management system
for priorities and goals.
8. Manage communication habits
and routines.
9. Build motivation throughout the
process.
Step 1 – Evaluate your current culture
and performance
1. Define your 1-3 critical
performance priorities – e.g.
growth, profitability, customer
satisfaction, etc.;
2. identify your 3-5 value/behavior
strengths and
3. identify no more than 1-3
value/behavior weaknesses that
are holding back your
organization from achieving its
full potential with the
performance priorities you
defined.
Step 2 – Clarify your initial vision
Define your vision for improving
results with only one or two of the
performance priorities from step No. 1
and how you will build a culture
advantage by leveraging the
value/behavior strengths and
improving the weaknesses.
Clearly, communicate how you will
work together to improve the weak
areas since they are holding your
organization back from supporting
your purpose and stakeholders.
Step 3 – Clarify values and expected
behaviors
Define supporting expected behaviors
for the 1-3 weaknesses that you
identified in step #1.
These behaviors would be consistently
exhibited in your organization if you
were “living your values.” People
interpret values from their own
perspective so define expected
behaviors like Zappos, The Container
Store, and others.
Step 4 – Clarify strategic priorities
Define and clearly share the 3-5
actionable strategic priorities that your
organization will focus on to support
the 1-2 performance priorities included
in your initial vision from the Define
steps.
If the performance priority is growth,
will it be achieved through new
products or services, revised sales
strategies, growth with current
customers, or other strategies.
Employees want and need to
understand the big picture.
Step 5 – Engage your team in defining
SMART goals
Engage your organization and utilize
extensive feedback and prioritization
to define the objectives that support
each strategic priority. These goals
need to define in a way to support the
expected behaviors for the 1-2
weaknesses you identified from the
Define steps.
For example, if accountability is a
weakness, goals should include more
disciplined plans, measures, reviews,
recognition, and other approaches to
support the behavior you need.
Goals also need translating to all levels
in larger organizations so people
understand how to work on their goals
and measures impacts the broader
organization.
Step 6 – Clarify and track key measures
Identify a small number of overall
measures that support one or two top
performance priorities from the Define
steps. It may help to have one highly
visible “unifying metric” even if some
employees don’t directly influence it.
Step 7 – Maintain a management
system for priorities and goals
Most organizations have a system to
track or monitor the status of priorities
and goals. These reviews need
adjusting to focus additional time and
attention on the top performance
priorities and value/behavior shifts
identified in the Define steps.
The focus must be on results and
supporting the behavior shift through
recognition, coaching, removing
barriers, etc.
Step 8 – Manage communication habits
and routines
Transparent, genuine and consistent
communication is needed about your
performance improvement journey
and the role of culture so all employees
feel part of the process.
Regularly scheduled sessions with two-
way communication and extensive
informal approaches are needed to
emphasize expected behaviors and
results. Use these sessions to clarify
plans, answer questions, expose
rumors and reduce drama.
Step 9 – Build motivation throughout
the process
Feedback and recognition are critical
to the process.
Share and celebrate progress in a
transparent manner as a standard part
of regular communication activities.
Confront reality when improvements
don’t go as planned and re-engage
your team to prioritize adjustments.
Guidelines for Changing
Culture
Despite the significant barriers and
resistance to change, organizational
cultures can be managed and changed
over time. This attempt to change the
culture “can take many different
forms.
The organizations and managers in the
global relations “must learn to
communicate across the cultural
divide; each must understand that the
other perceives and interacts in a
fundamentally different way.
Three-fourths of companies believe
their alliances failed because of an
incompatibility of the country and
corporate cultures. Simple guidelines
such as the following can be helpful;
 Assess the current culture.
  Set realistic goals that impact the
bottom line.
 Recruit outside personnel with
industry experience, so that they
are able to interact well with the
organizational personnel.
 Make changes from the top
down, so that a consistent
message is delivered from all
management team members.
 Include employees in the culture
change process, especially when
making changes in rules and
processes.
 Take out all trappings that
remind the personnel of the
previous culture.
 Expect to have some problems
and find people who would
rather move than change with
the culture and, if possible, take
these losses early.
 Move quickly and decisively to
build momentum and to defuse
resistance to the new culture.
 Stay the course by being
persistent.
Also, organizations attempting to
change their culture must be careful
not to abandon their roots and blindly
abandon their core, but distinctive,
competencies.
Cultural Variables (Identified
by Harris and Moran)
Culture, therefore, is moral,
intellectual and spiritual discipline for
advancement, in accordance with the
norms and values based on
accumulated heritage.
It is a system of learned behavior
shared by and transmitted among the
members of the group. There are so
many cultural variables that were
identified by Harris and Moran.
These are;
 Kinship.
 Education.
 Economy.
 Politics.
 Religion.
 Associations.
 Health.
 Recreation.
Kinship
A kinship system is a system adopted
by a given society to guide family
relationships.
Education
The formal or informal education of
workers in a foreign firm, received
from whatever source, greatly affects
the expectations placed on those
workers in the workplace.  ‘
Economy
Whatever the economic system, the
means of production and distribution
(and the resulting effects on
individuals and groups) have a
powerful influence on such
organizational processes as sourcing,
distribution, incentives, and
repatriation of capital.
Politics
The system of government in a society,
whether democratic, Communist, or
dictatorial, imposes varying
constraints on an organization and its
freedom to do business. ”
Religion
The spiritual beliefs of a society are
often so powerful that they transcend
other cultural aspects.
Associations
Many and various types of associations
arise out of the formal and informal
groups that make up a society.
Health
The system of health care in a country
affects employee productivity,
expectations, and attitudes toward
physical fitness and its role in the
workplace.
Recreation
Closely related to other cultural
factors, recreation includes the way in
which people use their leisure time, as
well as their attitudes toward leisure
and their choice of whom to socialize
with.
Actually it is a Collective heritage
learned by individuals and parsed from
one generation to another.
The individual receives culture as part
of the social heritage and in turn, may
reshape the culture and introduce
changes which then become part of the
heritage of succeeding generations.
Ways of Creating Customer
Responsive Organizational
Culture
The reason an organization can deliver
good or bad customer service comes
down to one thing; what is happening
on the inside of that organization.
To sum it up in one word; culture. The
culture inside of the organization is
impacting customer service.
It’s more than just hiring the right
people, and it’s more than customer
service training.
At the same time, it’s simple. It’s just
setting an example of customer service
behavior at the top, and. pushing its
way, through all employees, toward the
customer.
Starting at the top means that
leadership and management must set
the tone.
Then, they must practice what they
preach. They must treat employees like
they want the customer treated – even
better, just, to accentuate the point.
This is where the customer-focused
culture begins. It starts with people
who want to do the right thing.
From that point, we can layer on
customer service training that focuses
on creating an amazing place to work.
Here are the ways that you can create a
customer-responsive organizational
culture:
 Management must make the
measurement of service quality
and feedback from the customer
a basic part of everyone’s work
experience. This information
must be available and
understood by everyone, no
matter what their level. The
 entire organization must become
obsessed with what the customer
wants.
 Be very clear about specifying the
behavior that employees are
expected to deliver, both with
external customers and their
coworkers.
 Explain why giving excellent
customer service is important not
only for the company but for the
world. What does your company
do that makes life easier for
everyone? What does your
product or service add? Be sure
to include this in the reasons for
achieving customer service
excellence.
 Create ways to communicate
excellent examples of customer
service both within and outside
the company. Institute
celebrations, recognition
ceremonies, logos, and symbols
of the customer service culture
and its values. This is where you
want the mugs, buttons, and
banners. Have a customer service
bulletin board to feature service
incidents that were special. Seize
every opportunity to publicize
the times when employees do it
right.
 Indoctrinate and train everyone
in the culture as soon as they are
hired. It puts all newcomers
through a “traditions” course
that details the company history
with customer relations.
 Encourage a sense of
responsibility for group
performance. Help employees
see how their performance
affects others. Emphasize the
importance of “internal customer
service.”
 Establish policies that are
“customer-friendly” and that
show concern for your
customers. Eliminate all routine
and rigid policies and guidelines.
‘
 Remove any employees who do
not show the behavior necessary
to please customers. Too many
companies allow frontline service
representatives to remain on the
job when they are not suited to a
customer service position.
In order for a culture of customer
service excellence to grow and thrive,
management must have a burning
desire for it to be that way and the
energy to ensure that this desire
spreads throughout the organization
and remains there permanently.
How to Keep the Culture
Alive in your Organization?
Once a culture is in place, there are
practices within the organization that
act to maintain it by giving employees
a set of similar experiences.
Some important practices which help
to sustain the culture strengthening
organizational culture are as depicted
in the following diagram:
Selection
The first such practice is the careful
selection of candidates. Standardized
procedures should be used to hire the
right people for the right jobs. Trained
personnel interview the candidates
and attempt to screen out those whose
personal styles and values do not fit
with the organization’s culture.By
identifying the candidates who can
culturally match the organizational
culture, selection helps sustain culture
to a large extent. Additionally, the
selection process provides to the
applicants, information about the
organizational culture. If the
applicants perceive a conflict between
their values and values of the
organization, they can themselves
decide not to join the organization.

Top Management
The actions of top management also
have a major impact on the
organization’s culture. Through what
they say, how do they behave senior
executives establish norms that filter
through the organization as to whether
risk-taking is desirable, how much
freedom managers should give to their
subordinates, what is the appropriate
dress code, what actions will pay off in
terms of pay raise, promotions, and
other rewards and the like.

Socialization
The organization may have done a very
good job in the recruitment and
selection of the employees, but
sometimes the employees are still not
indoctrinated in the organization’s
culture. Since these persons are not
familiar with the organization’s culture
they are most likely to disturb the
existing beliefs and customs of the
organization. Therefore, it is very
essential for the organization to help
new employees adapt to its culture.
This adaptation process is called
‘Socialization’.

Source: https://www.iedunote.com/or
ganizational-culture