Management, Eleventh Edition by Stephen P. Robbins & Mary Coulter ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

publishing as Prentice Hall

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• Discuss the characteristics and importance of organizational
culture
• Contrast the actions of managers according to the
omnipotent and symbolic views
• Describe the constraints and challenges facing managers in
today’s external environment
• Describe current issues in organizational culture

Management, Eleventh Edition by Stephen P. Robbins & Mary Coulter ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
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Management, Eleventh Edition by Stephen P. Robbins & Mary Coulter ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
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The Organization’s Culture

Management, Eleventh Edition by Stephen P. Robbins & Mary Coulter ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
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 The Manager: Omnipotent or
Symbolic?
• Omnipotent View of Management
– Managers are directly responsible for an organization’s success or failure.
– The quality of the organization is determined by the quality of its managers.
– When profits are up managers are rewarded with bonuses and when profits
are down managers are often fired ,in belief that new blood will bring
improved results.
– For example sport coaches are considered managers of their teams, coaches
who lose more games than they win are fired and replaced by new coaches
who are expected to correct the poor performance.

Management, Eleventh Edition by Stephen P. Robbins & Mary Coulter ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
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The Manager: Omnipotent or
Symbolic?
• Symbolic View of Management
– Much of an organization’s success or failure is due to
external forces outside of managers’ control.
– The ability of managers to affect outcomes is influenced
and controlled by external factors.
• The economy, customers, governmental policies,
competitors, industry conditions,
technology, and the actions of previous managers.
In reality, managers are neither all-powerful nor helpless.
But their decisions and actions are constrained

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The Environment

Management, Eleventh Edition by Stephen P. Robbins & Mary Coulter ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
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Defining the External Environment
• External Environment: Those factors and forces
outside the organization that affect the organization’s
performance.
– Components of the External Environment
• Specific environment
• General environment

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The External Environment

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Specific enviorment
• Specific environment: external forces that have a
direct and immediate impact on the organization.
an organization specific environment is unique to
it.
– The main forces that make up specific environment:
• Customers
• Suppliers
• Competitors
• Pressure groups.

Management, Eleventh Edition by Stephen P. Robbins & Mary Coulter ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
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Specific enviorment
• Customers: an organization exists to meet the needs
of customers who uses its output. Customers
represents potential uncertainty to an organization
as their taste changes and they became dissatisfied
with the organization's product or services.
• Reactive customer monitoring​: responding to
problems, trends, and events​
• Proactive customer monitoring​: anticipating
problems, trends, and events​actions.

Management, Eleventh Edition by Stephen P. Robbins & Mary Coulter ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
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Specific enviorment
• Suppliers: managers seek to ensure a steady flow of
needed input(supplies) at the lowest price possible.
An organization’s supplies being limited or delayed in
delivery can constraint managers decisions and
actions.
• Competitors: all organizations have competitors.
managers can not afford to ignore the competition.
• Deciding who your competitors are
• Anticipating competitors’ moves
• Determining competitors’ strengths and weaknesses

Management, Eleventh Edition by Stephen P. Robbins & Mary Coulter ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
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Specific enviorment
• Pressure groups: managers must recognize the
special interest groups that influence the actions of
an organizations. For e.g pressure by PETA(people
for the ethical treatment of animals) on McDonalds
over its handling of animals during the slaughter
process led the company to stop buying beef from
one supplier until it met high standards for
processing cattle’s.
• Trade Unions, Human Rights, Medical Associations
etc are different pressure groups.

Management, Eleventh Edition by Stephen P. Robbins & Mary Coulter ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
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General environment
• General environment: economic, socio-cultural,
political/legal, demographic, technological, and
global conditions that may affect the organization.
• All these external factors pose potential constraints
on manager’s decisions and actions.

Management, Eleventh Edition by Stephen P. Robbins & Mary Coulter ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
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General environment
• Economic conditions: interest rates, inflation, changes in
disposable income, stock market fluctuations, commodity (raw
material) cost are economic factors that can affect management
practices in an organization.
• Political/legal conditions: federal state, and local laws as well as
global and other country laws and regulations, influence what
organizations can and cannot do.
• Employment legislations, environmental legislations, consumers
laws, competition laws, information and reporting laws, PEMRA
laws.
• Political stability affects the mangers decisions.

Management, Eleventh Edition by Stephen P. Robbins & Mary Coulter ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
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Socio-cultural conditions:
• The socio-cultural component is concerned with culture of
society such as values, attitudes, trends, traditions, lifestyles,
beliefs, tastes and behavior.
• Managers must adapt their practices to the changing
expectations of the society in which they operate .as these
values, customs, and taste changes and managers must also
change. Pepsi has responded to customers changing attitudes
about food by offering customers healthier versions of their
favorite snacks.
• Expectations within the society about employment and working
conditions affect organizations
• Increasing trend towards home working or flexible working
hours
Management, Eleventh Edition by Stephen P. Robbins & Mary Coulter ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
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General environment
• Demographic conditions: demographic conditions
encompass trends in population characteristics such
as gender, age, level of education, geographic
location, income and family composition. Changes in
these constraint how managers plan, organize, lead
and control.
• Technological conditions: in terms of the general
environment, the most rapid changes have occurred
in technology like chat gpt, big data, AI, drone
technology etc.

Management, Eleventh Edition by Stephen P. Robbins & Mary Coulter ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
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Stakeholder Relationships
Stakeholders
• Any constituencies in the organization’s environment that are
affected by the organization’s decisions and actions.
• These groups have a stake in or are significantly influenced by
what the organization does. In turn, these groups can influence
the organization.
• An organization depends on these external groups as sources
of inputs (resources) and as outlets for outputs (goods and
services), managers need to consider their interests as they
make decisions.

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Organizational Stakeholders

Management, Eleventh Edition by Stephen P. Robbins & Mary Coulter ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved 2-19
Managing Stakeholder Relationships

1. Identify the organization’s external

stakeholders.
2. Determine the particular interests and
concerns of external stakeholders.
3. Decide how critical each external stakeholder
is to the organization.
4. Determine how to manage each individual
external stakeholder relationship.
Management, Eleventh Edition by Stephen P. Robbins & Mary Coulter ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
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Task

How the external environment affects

managers?

Management, Eleventh Edition by Stephen P. Robbins & Mary Coulter ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
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The Organization’s Culture
• The customs, rituals, and values shared by the
members of an organization that have to be
accepted by new members.
• The shared values, principles, traditions and ways of
doing things that influence the way organizational
members act.
• An organization's prevailing ideas, values, attitudes, and
beliefs guide the way in which its employees think, feel,
and act.

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The Organization’s Culture
• The culture decides the way employees interact
at their workplace
• Example: Virgin Group, headquarter in London, own
variety of businesses. Its founder Sir Richard Branson,
known for his entrepreneurial spirit and sense of
adventure.
• Set a positive workplace where individual initiative is
valued and employees are encouraged.
• He once staged a “Corporate Day”
• Another “Digital Detox”
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 Establishing and Maintaining Culture

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Philosophy and Selection criteria
• The original source of the culture usually reflects the
vision of the founders.
• Once the culture is in place, however, certain
organizational practices help maintain it. For
instance, during the employee selection process,
managers typically judge job candidates not only on
the job requirements, but also on how well they
might fit into the organization.
• At the same time, job candidates find out
information about the organization and determine
whether they are comfortable with what they see
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Action of top management
• The actions of top managers also have a major
impact on the organization’s culture.
• CEO of CarMax, is very focused on listening.
• He visits numerous stores every year, connecting
with associates and answering questions and asking
feedback. CarMax has grown to be the nation’s
largest retailer of used vehicles by keeping associates
happy, leading to happy customers. The company has
been on Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work
For” list since 2006.

Management, Eleventh Edition by Stephen P. Robbins & Mary Coulter ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
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• For instance, IKEA’s leaders have set ambitious
goals for protecting the planet.
• When employees see managers recycling
leftover packaging or watch their workplace
switch to solar panels, they understand that
IKEA’s managers are truly committed to
sustainability. Consumers are getting the
message, too, and their purchases are helping
IKEA continue to expand profitably
Management, Eleventh Edition by Stephen P. Robbins & Mary Coulter ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
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Socialization
• Finally, organizations help employees adapt to the culture
through socialization, a process that helps new employees
learn the organization’s way of doing things.
• For instance, new employees at Starbucks stores go through
24 hours of intensive training. They learn company
philosophy, company jargon, and even how to assist
customers with decisions about beans, grind, and espresso
machines.
• One benefit of socialization is that employees understand the
culture and are enthusiastic and knowledgeable with
customers. Another benefit is that it minimizes the chance
that new employees who are unfamiliar with the
organization’s culture might disrupt current beliefs and
customs
Management, Eleventh Edition by Stephen P. Robbins & Mary Coulter
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 Strong Culture

•Cultures in which key values are deeply and

widely held.

•Have a strong influence on organizational

members.

Management, Eleventh Edition by Stephen P. Robbins & Mary Coulter ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 29
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 Strong Culture

Factors Influencing the Strength of Culture

•Size of the organization
•Age of the organization
•Rate of employee turnover
•Strength of the original culture

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Strong versus Weak Organizational Cultures

Management, Eleventh Edition by Stephen P. Robbins & Mary Coulter ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved 2-31
Benefits of a Strong Culture

• Creates a stronger employee commitment to

the organization
• Helps in the recruitment and socialization of
new employees
• Fosters higher organizational performance by
instilling and promoting employee initiative

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Assignment (oral quiz)
• TASKS
• “How Employees Learn Culture” Page 266 to
268
• How Culture Affects Managers?
• “Current issues in organizational culture” 271-
272

Management, Eleventh Edition by Stephen P. Robbins & Mary Coulter ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
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Dimensions of Organizational Culture

Management, Eleventh Edition by Stephen P. Robbins & Mary Coulter ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
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• Detail-Oriented Cultures
Organizations with detail-oriented cultures are
characterized as emphasizing accuracy and paying
attention to details. Such a culture gives a competitive
advantage to companies in the hospitality industry by
helping them differentiate themselves from others. For
example, McDonald’s Corporation is the company that
specifies in detail how employees should perform their
jobs by including photos of exactly how French fries and
hamburgers should look when prepared properly.
Four seasons hotel Ltd. And Ritz Carlton Company

Management, Eleventh Edition by Stephen P. Robbins & Mary Coulter ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
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• Outcome-Oriented Cultures
Outcome-oriented cultures as those that emphasize
achievement, results, and action as important values. A
good example of an outcome-oriented culture may be
Best Buy Co. Inc. Having a culture emphasizing sales
performance. Employees are trained to sell company
products effectively, and they learn how much money
their department made every day. In these companies, it
is more common to see rewards tied to performance
indicators as opposed to seniority or loyalty. Insurance
companies etc..

Management, Eleventh Edition by Stephen P. Robbins & Mary Coulter ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
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• People-Oriented Cultures
People-oriented cultures value fairness, supportiveness, and
respect for individual rights. These organizations truly live the
mantra that “people are their greatest asset.” In addition to
having fair procedures and management styles, these
companies create an atmosphere where work is fun and
employees do not feel required to choose between work and
other aspects of their lives. Starbucks is an example of a
people-oriented culture. The company pays employees above
minimum wage, offers health care and tuition reimbursement
benefits to its part-time as well as full-time employees, and
has creative perks such as weekly free coffee for all
associates.
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• Team-Oriented Cultures
Companies with team-oriented cultures are collaborative and
emphasize cooperation among employees. For example,
Southwest Airlines Company facilitates a team-oriented
culture by cross-training its employees so that they are
capable of helping each other when needed. Employees
participate in twice daily meetings named “morning overview
meetings” and daily afternoon discussions (DAD) where they
collaborate to understand sources of problems and determine
future courses of action. In team-oriented organizations,
members tend to have more positive relationships with their
coworkers and particularly with their managers. Zong etc …

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Dimensions of Organizational Culture
• Aggressive Cultures
Companies with aggressive cultures value competitiveness and
outperforming competitors: By emphasizing this, they may
fall short in the area of corporate social responsibility. In
aggressive companies, people may use language such as
“We will kill our competition.” For example, Microsoft
Corporation is often identified as a company with an
aggressive culture. In the past, Microsoft executives often
made statements such as “We are going to cut off
Netscape’s air supply. Everything they are selling, we are
going to give away.”
They strive to outperform their competitors.

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• Stable Cultures
Stable cultures are predictable, rule-oriented, and
bureaucratic. Stable culture is blamed for killing good
ideas in early stages and preventing the company from
innovating. When the environment is stable and certain,
these cultures may help the organization be effective by
providing stable and constant levels of output. These
cultures prevent quick action, and as a result may be a
misfit to a changing and dynamic environment. Public
sector institutions may be viewed as stable cultures.

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Dimensions of Organizational Culture

• Innovative Cultures
Companies that have innovative cultures are flexible and
adaptable, and experiment with new ideas. Innovative
Cultures consistently manages to innovate and capture
the majority of market share in a wide variety of
industries, in large part due to its unique culture. In
these companies, employees do not have bosses in the
traditional sense, and risk taking is encouraged by
celebrating failures as well as successes, e.g., Google
encourages their employees to take risks by allowing
engineers to devote 20% of their time to projects of their
own choosing.
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Terms to Know

• Omnipotent View of • External Environment

Management • Specific Environment
• Symbolic View of • General Environment
Management • Stakeholders
• Organizational Culture
• Strong Cultures
• Weak Cultures
• Socialization

Management, Eleventh Edition by Stephen P. Robbins & Mary Coulter ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
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Team Exercise (Assignment)
• Get into a small group with three to four other
class members and choose one organization.
Describe the external components for selected
organization.
• Now, using the same organization, identify the
important stakeholders for organizations. Contrast
with at least one of the competitor.
• As a group, be prepared to share your information
with the class and to explain your choices.

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