...Strategic Leadership and Decision Making 16 ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE One of the primary responsibilities of strategic leaders is to create and maintain the organizational characteristics that reward and encourage collective effort. Perhaps the most fundamental of these is organizational culture. But what do we really mean by organizational culture? What influence does it have on an organization? How does one go about building, influencing or changing an organization's culture? THE IMPACT OF CULTURE Why is culture so important to an organization? Edgar Schein, an MIT Professor of Management and author of Organizational Culture and Leadership: A Dynamic View, suggests that an organization's culture develops to help it cope with its environment. Today, organizational leaders are confronted with many complex issues during their attempts to generate organizational achievement in VUCA environments. A leader's success will depend, to a great extent, upon understanding organizational culture. Schein contends that many of the problems confronting leaders can be traced to their inability to analyze and evaluate organizational cultures. Many leaders, when trying to implement new strategies or a strategic plan leading to a new vision, will discover that their strategies will fail if they are inconsistent with the organization's culture. A CEO, SES, political appointee, or flag officer who comes into an organization prepared to "shake the place up" and institute sweeping changes...
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...Chapter 5: Culture and history The Chapter 2, 3 and 4 have considered the important influences of the environment, internal capabilities and stakeholder expectations on the development of an organization’s strategic. However, it is danger that mangers only take into account relatively recent phenomena without understanding how those phenomena have come about or how the past influences current and future strategy. Many well-established organizations such as Mitsui Group are strongly influenced by their historical legacies that have become embedded in their cultures (JSW, 2008). The business environment cannot be understood without considering how it has developed over time. The capabilities of an organization, especially those that provide organizations with competitive advantage may have historical roots and hove built up over time in ways unique to that organization. Therefore, such capabilities may become part of the culture of an organization which is difficult for other organizations to copy. However, they may also be difficult to change. So understanding the historical and cultural base of such capabilities also informs the challenges of strategic change. The powers and influence of different stakeholders are also likely to have historical origins that are important to understand. Thus, this chapter will explain the importance of history and culture in relation to strategy development in section 5.1 and 5.2; then followed by section 5.3 to address the challenges...
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...2.1 STUDIES ON ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE Baker, (1980) accessible that it can complete the modify by aggressively overriding, using a diversity of strategy to promote the preferred culture and close the cultural gaps. Nevertheless, the management of culture must be suspiciously measured and cautiously undertaken because it may engage some risk since some of the consequences are often surprising. Deal and Kennedy (1982) recommend that the require to modify a culture arises when the organization's advance changes. Culture change is a must when introducing quality principles into an organization because quality represents a new culture, which frequently contradicts the traditional culture that exists within that organization. Bookbinder (1984)...
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...AMERICAN PUBLIC UNIVERSITY KEMISHA N WARE A CHANGE IN LEADERSHIP AT THE LOCAL EDUCATION AUTHORITY PADM520 JUNE 2014 Introduction An organization’s culture forms over years of interaction between the persons involved in that organization. Those in the leadership positions set the tone and standards that will be followed by others involved. But what happens when that leadership fails to lead? How does an organization tackle the issues of poor communication, no defined or set policies, an inadequate administrative system and lack of leadership? This is the problem that Local Education Authority (LEA) was faced with when its new leader, Ales Rakovich, took over the organization as the LEA head when the organization had a negative culture already in place. Rakovich failed to make changes within the organization, which resulted in multiple mistakes. Mistakes made included failing to communicate with one another and failure of the secretary to handle correspondence and effectively perform her job functions. Rakovich reported to the head of the Regional Education Authority (REA). More than once, the REA expressed their dissatisfaction with the job performance and working habits of the LEA staff. As the head of the LEA, Rakovich was responsible for organizing and monitoring the organizations work. But after failing to effectively lead the organization, not only was the LEA’s reputation damaged but so...
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...ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE LTC. Tirtan Catalin Army Academy “Nicolae Bălcescu”/ Sibiu/ Romania Abstract: This article examines the existing literature on relationships between an organization and its culture, processes and approaches, individual efforts of those involved from leaders to employee. The paper further argues that certain organizational cultural attributes contribute to the shaping of future courses of action, failure or not in achieving change, and considerate the goals and strategies of the business. Next, this article focuses on vision, values, and mission as core descriptive of an organization and the climate required for successful achievement of the mission statement and vision statement. Basically, organizational culture is the personality of the organization, and will drive the employee’s efficiency and company performance levels. Culture is comprised of the assumptions, values, norms and tangible signs (artifacts) of organization members and their behaviors, and leadership. Keywords: Organizational, vision, mission, culture, performance, culture of forgiveness, and leadership 1. Introduction Organizational culture can be described as “the personality of an organization”, or simply as “how things are done around here”. It shows how employees think, act, and feel. Organization culture is a key aspect to the organization's success or failure. Organizational culture “shapes the way people act and interact and strongly influences how things get done”. Culture can also...
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...revolutionary - Reshaping organization's design elements • Change demands a new organizing paradigm (gamma change) • Change is driven by senior executives and line management (envisioning, energizing, and enabling) • Change involves significant learning - Must learn how to enact the new behaviors Intergrated Strategic Change - Extends traditional OD process into content oriented discipline of strategic management • Key Features: - Strategic Orientation - Stratic change capability - Individual and organizations are integrated into the process • Applications Stages (Strategic analysis, strategic choice, and design and implement the strategic change plan) Organization Design - Configures the organizations structure, work design, HR practice, and management to guide members' behavior • Conceptual Framework ( Strategy, Structure, Work Design, HR Practices, and Management / Information Systems) • Application Stages (Clarify design focus, designing the organization, and implementing the design Culture Change • Concept of Organization Culture (artifacts, norms, values, basic assumptions) • Organization culture and organization effectiveness - Culture affects performance through its influence on the organization's ability to implement change • Diagnosing Organization Culture - Requires uncovering and understanding what characterize an organizations culture • The Behavioral Approach - Emphasizes surface level of organization cultures (Pattern of behaviors that...
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...Bringing Strategy to Life: Aligning your corporate culture with business goals Leaders of high-performance companies understand that a corporate culture that is aligned with its strategic priorities helps the organization achieve business success. The challenge: achieving alignment and sustaining it over the long term. High Performance: As Unique as a Company Itself One of the most striking characteristics of highperformance organizations is the level of harmony between business strategy and organization culture that they manage to achieve and sustain over time. A manufacturer competing chiefly on cost and efficiency, for instance, requires a culture very different from that of a luxury goods retailer for which personalized customer attention is the ultimate differentiator. “High performance” means different things in companies competing on different strategic priorities across industry sectors. In short, the right high-performance environment is one that helps a company achieve a specific set of business requirements. In a high-performance organization, workplace practices must actively influence the employee behaviors needed to execute its strategy and reinforce its market focus. behaviors of leaders are critical in establishing a culture that aligns with the business strategy. But, certainly, this is easier said than done. In fact, many companies’ cultures are not aligned with their business objectives, because their leaders, who by and large focus on the financial and...
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...and how to enhance those factors. Job performance is a critical subject that has been assessed for many years as it determines an organization’s overall success. The articles discussed in this paper demonstrate that there is an apparent need for an extensive review of factors affecting job performance. It further emphasizes the need for employers to understand and consider those factors that affect job performance when making strategic decisions. Employers can significantly improve job performance by understanding how to enhance and improve the contributing factors. Keywords: job performance, how to improve job performance, importance of job performance, what affects job performance The Key to Improving Job Performance Job performance is a critical subject that has been assessed for many years. Job performance is based on how well one performs their job. An organization’s overall success is dependent upon the performance of its employees. Thus, it is imperative that employers understand and consider those factors that affect job performance and how. This will allow employers to implement strategies that will improve job performance. The following factors have been known to affect job performance: job satisfaction, organizational culture, performance evaluation programs, employee participation, and goal-setting. Therefore, understanding how to enhance and improve these factors will serve to significantly improve job performance. The Issue Measuring job performance...
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...rewarding employees; communicating and making effective decisions; evaluating group and team behavior; assessing their organizational structure and determining its effectiveness, assessing its leadership and determining its effectiveness; and evaluating alternative methods to managing change in the newly designed organization. Successful managers must learn the importance of creating functional and effective structures, processes, and understanding and managing the human side of the organization as this will enable people to effectively work together to achieve agreed upon goals. Therefore, this integrated term-long case is designed to give you an opportunity to design an effective organization. After reading and responding to the case questions, students should be able to: * Assess an organization’s mission statement and tie said mission to the organization’s goals. * Evaluate an organization’s culture and suggest a culture that promotes creativity. * Identify the factors responsible for creating and transmitting organizational culture and for getting it to change. * Identify and suggest effective techniques for motivating employees. * Suggest and describe some of the steps needed to manage diversity in the workforce and their effectiveness. * Explain the basic characteristics of organizational structure (i.e. hierarchy of authority, division of labor, span of control, line versus staff, and decentralization). * Evaluate the different approaches...
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...Understanding, why change is frequently difficult for people, can help building in methods for easing the process and increasing the likelihood that it will succeed. Being very clear about what changes are required and being very intentional about building a culture, that supports the new mission, goals, strategies and practices, increases the probability of success exponentially. This necessarily involves a large cross section of the organization in assessing the current system of norms and beliefs, determining what changes are needed, and designing an implementation plan. These new beliefs and resulting behaviors needed to be elevated to a conscious level so that the company could choose how it needed to modify its practices. New assumptions and values should be articulated and systematically communicated through every channel and should be reinforced at every opportunity. It is true that changes in organizational culture are brought about through employees, so the employees play a major role. But role of the leader cannot be overruled because they influence the organizational culture very deeply. Culture is deep seated and difficult to change, but they can influence or manage an organization's culture. It isn't easy, and it cannot be done rapidly, but leaders can have an effect on culture. Productive cultural change will occur if leaders correctly analyze the organization's existing culture, and evaluate it against the cultural attributes needed to achieve strategic objectives...
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...TEACHING NOTE ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AND CHANGE By Romuald Stone, DBA The construct of organizational culture has raised considerable interest of both academics and practitioners in the field of change management. Organizational culture is “derived from the anthropological concept of culture that attempts to explain why people in societies believe and behave as they do.” It has “become a common way of thinking about and describing an organization’s internal world—a way of differentiating one organization’s ‘personality’ from another.” This organizational self-image develops over a period of time with the core elements typically coalescing during the organization’s formative years. In many organizations we find a strong dominant culture that is pervasive not only in the headquarters element but across divisions and geographic regions. However, in large organizations this culture is not uniform but instead is composed of many subcultures. Subcultures may share certain characteristics, norms, and values yet they can be totally different with some functioning collaboratively and others in conflict with each other. Definition Organizational culture is defined as a complex set of shared beliefs, guiding values, behavioral norms, and basic assumptions acquired over time that shape our thinking and behavior; they are part of the social fabric of the organization—its genetic code. As such, culture drives the organization and guides the behavior of everyone in that...
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...phenomena of how a company creates value for societies and the environment. The contextualization of material commercial, social, and environmental factors to an organization’s strategy, governance, performance, and potential, and future earnings best demonstrates its value creation process and commitment to sustainability. The consideration of how a broad set of interdependent and relevant financial and nonfinancial factors affect an organization’s accountability, stewardship, and performance is the basis for integrated thinking and is the key element in integrated reporting. Integrated reporting (IR) principles are global in nature applicable to all organizations across multitude of industries and sectors and are becoming a fundamental practice towards a more cohesive and efficient approach in demonstrating to internal and external stakeholders how the business creates value in the short, medium, and long-term (Tilley, 2014). An integrated report should identify and communicate how relevant and interdependent, financial and non-financial factors affect an organization’s value creation process across organizational and geographical boundaries. This connectivity fosters a more efficient allocation of capital within the organization by breaking down communication barriers to engender a more collaborative and positive culture and outside of the organization by attracting investors through a more relevant assessment of risk and explanation of non-financial value. Other stakeholders...
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...Group 2 CHAPTER 15: ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE Just as individuals have personalities, so do organizations. The origin of culture as an independent variable affecting an employee’s attitudes and behavior can be traced back more than 50 years to the notion of institutionalization. When an organization becomes institutionalized, it takes on a life of its own, apart from its founders or any of its members. In addition, it becomes valued for itself, not merely for the goods or services it produces. Institutionalization operates to produce common understandings among members about what is appropriate and meaningful behavior. It’s best to describe Organizational culture as a system of shared meaning held by members that distinguishes the organization from other organizations. Organizational culture may be characterized according to seven primary characteristics: innovation and risk taking, attention to detail, outcome orientation, people orientation, team orientation, aggressiveness, and stability. A dominant culture expresses the core values that are shared by a majority of the organization’s members. Subcultures tend to develop in large organizations to reflect common problems, situations, or experiences that members face. These subcultures are likely to be defined by departmental designations and geographic separations. In a strong culture, the organization’s core values are both intensely held and widely shared. A strong culture can substitute for formalization, which also...
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...1.) Yes. Understanding human behavior in organization is very relevant and important. Whether we like it or not, someday we will be part of corporate world; means that we will get involved in business and part of any organization. As part of an organization, we will belong to certain department, we are responsible to align our interest to the organization's interest. It is somehow kind of submission of some of ones interests, in order to adjust and meet the organization's target (ORGANIZATION'S GOAL). Let me give an example; In workplace, we will be meeting variety of personalities, and all those personalities are really far different from each other. It is guaranteed that you will be blending with someone that seems that will not fit with your personality, you might encounter contradictions with that someone due to personality differences, in this case where understanding human behavior will come out, considering the organization's goals (to achieve sales and sales volumes in some parameters). Let say you will be grouped to certain department where your mortal enemy was assigned too, here, you will consider the organization's goal, you will put aside your personal interest which is to snob your enemy, and instead, you will adjust and adapt to that personality's differences, and you will now prioritize to do your job as professional; looking after achieving the organization's goal. It is "GOAL" which motivates professionals to set aside some of ones personal interests, and...
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...situation, determining organizational direction, understanding culture of the organization, leveraging that culture, and planning out the actions needed to make the change. Being successful in implementing change also is directly related to the leadership style of the organization's top leaders. It is also important to assess the costs of change as well as the cost of not changing. Leaders are trained, educated, and rewarded to make things happen in organizations. What leaders routinely fail to recognize is the link between change and human behavior. The link between change and human behavior either supports or impedes successful implementations of change. To become an implementer of change, you must understand what the environment is like, who you are, what your organization is, and reconcile the differences. You will be more successful if you can adjust your leadership style to one that supports the leader performance demands at the strategic level. Culture is deeply seated within organizations and challenging to change, but leaders can influence an organization's culture. It is difficult and timely, but leaders can have an effect on culture. Edgar Schein, Organizational Culture & Leadership, outlines some specific steps leaders can employ: * Culture follows what leaders pay attention to, measure and control. Something as simple as what is emphasized or measured, over time, can have an effect on an organization's culture. * Leader reactions to critical incidents...
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