Organizational Culture

 Represents a shared way of being, acting and interpreting life in the company

o Basically, values and norms in the workplace.

o Culture is the way of being that everyone agrees is important (by

actions) and should be taught to all members of the organization.

 Edgar Schein: that created a model of organizational culture

Include:

 Artifacts:

o Personal enactments: behavior that reflects the organizations

values

o Ceremonies & rites: activities enacted on important occasions

 Ex: Rite of integration= annual office party

o Stories & rituals: give meaning & identity to organizations to help

new employees

 Mention Hollister example

 Ex: stories about the boss, promotions, getting fired etc.

o Symbols: communicated culture through unspoken messages

 Company logos, colors

 Values: deeper level of culture that reflect underlying beliefs

 Underlying assumptions: deeply held beliefs that guide the behavior and

tell members how to perceive and think about things

P-O fit/ASA Framework-

  P-O fit: represents the extent how ones values, personalities, and work needs

are aligned with the organizations culture

 Attraction-selection-attrition (ASA)- suggests that individuals and

organizations are attracted to each other based on similar values and goals

o Ex: We have 3 different organizations: Harvard Medical School, United

States Army, and Google.

 Think about yourself, which would you choose? Would a friend

of yours choose the same? Probably not.

 Applicants for these 3 organizations are pretty different groups

of people because have their own self-selected organizations

they identify and want to be associated with.

 People don’t join the army to “see if they like it”

 If they find values in the army similar to their values

and skill set, they’ll consider joining. If the values are

opposite, very unlikely that you would enlist.

Employee Socialization-

 Process of helping employees quickly adjust to and reinforce the central

values the organizations supports

o When employees join an organization, they are often overwhelmed by

uncertainty of their job, worried if they’ll succeed, and worried about

being socially accepted by fellow employees.

o Create successful employee socialization-

 Programs: new employee orientation

  Con: unfortunately are given a large 3 ring binder with

things to read

 From beginning, set expectations with employee about

performance and behavior, and provide them with challenging

goals, build their networks through mentoring and other

opportunities to network inside the organization.

 Something to avoid: Stand aside and let your employees “get

used to things” and ease them into the culture.

Abercrombie scenario

How can everyone understand and agree on the culture if the company itself

does not follow their own communicated culture?