Professional Documents
Culture Documents
CULTURE
CULTURE
CULTURE
Set of values, guiding beliefs, understandings,
and ways of thinking that is shared by
members of an organisation and is taught to
new members as correct.
UNWRITTEN, FEELING
CULTIVATE
CLOSE OPEN-ENDED CONTEXT
Routines
MUNDANE AS WELL AS DISTINCT
CULTURE AS MEANINGFUL
ACTION: SILVERMAN
ORGNS. AS STRUCTURES OF ACTION
Explanations of human action must take
account of the meanings which those
concerned assign to their acts.
DRAMA
SOME DECIDE THE LEGITIMATE
Larger Context has a Significant Role
Source of meaning
Consensus is Crucial
LEVELS OF ORGN. CULTURE
OBSERVABLE
Symbols: setting, dress
Rites and Ceremonies
Stories
Language: slogans
UNDERLYING
Values, Beliefs and Assumptions
Attitudes and Feelings
FUNCTIONS OF CULTURE
HOMOGENISING
Subtle Glue
LEAVE THINGS FOR THE OPERATIONAL
UNITS
SERVICE SECTOR
INSTITUTIONALSING AND
PERPETUATING CULTURE
LEADERSHIP
SOCIALISATION
HR POLICIES
ORGANIC STRUCTURES
TOYOTA
Problems will inevitably arise that
cannot be anticipated
Complex subtle interactions among people,
process, products, places
Problems would become evident close
to their occurrence and quickly
addressed
Focus on teamwork
SOCIALISATION OF SMITH AT
TOYOTA
Smith had managed 2000 people in an
overseas plant of the big three.
Orientation – more like 3-month
apprenticeship
Help a group of 19 improve their productivity,
Changes like relocating a m/c switch
Japan: target for problem solving and
experimenting
DYSFUNCTIONS
INWARD LOOKING
INFLEXIBLE
OPPRESSIVE
ENGINEERING CULTURE by
Gideon Kunda
Ethnographic study of Tech’s culture
Symbolic rewards
Normative control
Culture replaces structure at Tech, orgn.
charts are hard to make
Embed control inside members
“the new man wants your soul”
CUTURE PROVIDES
IDEOLOGY
‘I LOVE TECH’
Managerial authority as ideology
Catch phrases, abstract principles,
expectations
Social attributes of co. and member role
200 newsletters
“this shit is everywhere”
RITUALS
Rule governed activity of a symbolic
nature
Mechanism of normative control
Face to face interaction
Meetings, discussions, training camps,
seminars
“you have to do a lot of bull shitting in
groups”
CULTURE’S CONSEQUENCES
Agents of control are everywhere
Symbolic power – subtle control
Mgmt. sets the stage, provides the
rhetoric, and reserves the right to the
final word in these interpretive
struggles
Polarisation of central and marginal
members
CONSEQUENCES CONTD.
Higher status at the cost of loss of autonomy
and increasing normative control
Induce people to become at first they merely
sought to appear
“Deep acting”
“Corpn. does not necessarily capture the soul,
but systematically undermines its foundation”
Tyranny of the mind and heart versus tyranny
of the body
REFERENCES
Jones, Chapter 5
Schein, 1996 Culture… ASQ, 41, 229-40
Peters & Waterman, In search of
excellence.
Trice & Beyer, 1984 Studying orgn.
culture. AMR, 9, 653-669.
Ouchi, W 1980 Mkts., bureaucracies
and clans. ASQ, 25, 129-41.