Organizational Culture & Change
Lecture 1: What is Organizational culture?
Different types of culture:
- Consumer culture: the culture of what we consume, an example of this is food. Some
consumer culture made its way around the world (Netflix, starbucks) but also coffee
beans made it around the world (they don’t grow everywhere, but we can consume it
in at most every country.)
- Regional culture: language, modes of transportation (countryside vs cityside) there is
a difference in terms of behavior. In some regions people all greet each other, but in
other regions this is not the same. Also, the paths for the bike are a example of this
type of culture, in some countries they don’t have paths for only bikes. There is a
difference in how we get from A to B.
Culture is a fuzzy concept
- Culture is studied across many disciplines
- Enormous variation in the definition of the term
- The concept is used to cover everything and nothing
Shared assumptions about organizational culture
- Related to history/ tradition
- Collectively shared by members of a group
- To do with meanings, understandings, beliefs
- Some depth
- Difficult to grasp and must be interpreted
- Emotional rather than strictly rational
- Helps to understand richness of organizational change.
Culture is broadly seen as a shared and learned world of experiences, meanings, values, and
understandings which are expressed and reproduces partly in symbolic form.
Most significant concepts of organizational culture
Symbols:
- Words, actions, material items that stand for something else
- Rich in meaning – calls for interpretation
- Collective (vs. private) symbolism of interest
Meanings:
- How an object or utterance is interpreted
- Makes interpretations more homogeneous
- Socially shared meanings are of interest
Culture as social and taken-for-granted
- Culture is “done” without anyone really thinking about it
- Not “inside” people’s heads, but “between” people
- It is not fixed, but situationally adaptive
- Shared interpretations reduce uncertainties
,Organizational Culture & Change
Call for analytical depth
Often culture refers to little more than a social pattern/ surface phenomena à there is need
to dig deeper into it.
Edgar Schein’s model of organizational culture
Artifacts = psychical. Behavioral, verbal = what we see
Espoused values = strategies, goals, philosophies = what we can talk about
Basic assuptions = unconscious beliefs, how we perceive, think, feel = what we take for
granted
à iceberg model
Why do people study organizational culture?
- In the 1980s, US industry was facing a crisis
- At the same time, book of Japanese companies
- Focus on ‘shared values’, commitment and high-quality output
- Pop-management authors/ consultants suggested that western countries learn the
“art of Japanese management”
- The culture hype did not live up to its promises
- Ongoing interest: in organizational scandals/ failure: blame the culture!
- Considerable attention during periods of change
- Shift from mass production to the service and knowledge economy (remote ‘brain
work’ more difficult to control)
Three interests for studying a phenomenon
The technical interest = “improve efficiency and performance”
- Control organizational culture
- Improve organizational performance and effectiveness
The practical-hermeneutic interest = “knowledge for the sake of knowledge”
- Understand how shared meaning is created in organizational communities
- What the ‘natives’ think they are up to
The emancipatory interest = “protect from negative effects”
- Targets taken-for-granted beliefs and instrumentality
- Not interested in dis-advantages for organizations, but for employees
How to study organizational culture?
- Culture: complex, inaccessible, fuzzy phenomena
- Alvesson suggests: balance between rigor/flexibility
o Rigor: be focused and precise, analyze specific cultural phenomena, seek
interpretive depth, examine motives and objectives
o Flexibility: no formula or model for studying culture, causal links lead to
oversimplification
- Requires careful reflection of one’s own cultural bias
,Organizational Culture & Change
Lecture 2: How to study organizational culture?
Metaphor as a literary device
- Metaphor known as a literary device, useful in poetry and rhetoric
- Evokes powerful images
- Describes an object or person in a way that is not literally true: “the black sheep of
the family”
- States that one thing is (like) another thing
- When taken literally, it becomes absurd
- It transfers a term from one system of meaning to another
- But how is this useful for studying organizations?
Images of organization (morgan, 1986)
- Develops the art of reading organizational life
- Premise: all organizational theories are based on images/ metaphors
- Metaphor leads to a particular way of seeing/ interpreting things
- Brings valuable insights, but is also one-sided, incomplete, biased, and potentially
misleading
- No right or wrong perspective, each metaphor illuminated and hides
- Solution: we need multiple metaphors/ perspectives
The more metaphors we have, the more perspectives we must understand organizations
with
8 metaphors
- Machine = that it functions smoothly, and good that it functions like a machine
- Organism = organization as living organism, it is like a living system
- Brain = Organization like a learning organization, always learning and developing
- Culture = seeing the organization as if it was a culture, one of the most powerful
metaphors but difficult to grasp
- Political system = political area, power games, conflict of interest in organizations
- Psychic prison = people are trapped in certain cultural thinking, if a scandal happens
people are blind
- Change/ flux = organizations are constantly In change, be adaptable be changeable
- Domination = people being exploited, resources are exploited, modernalisation etc
Organization as a pyramid
- Organization viewed as similar to the Egyptian buildings
- Characterized by a broad base, linear reduction in volume for every layer, ends in a
sharp point at the top
- Person at the top (CEO) in command over those at the bottom
- In-between the middle-level managers
- People can move upwards, downwards or sideways
, Organizational Culture & Change
The pyramid suggests strongly asymmetrical relations
- Language reinforces this asymmetry: top and bottom or high and low
- Material arrangements support this image: top management is often on the top floor
Culture: critical variable vs root metaphor
Culture as metaphor, metaphors for culture
How does Alvesson think about this?
Lecture 1: What is Organizational culture?
Different types of culture:
- Consumer culture: the culture of what we consume, an example of this is food. Some
consumer culture made its way around the world (Netflix, starbucks) but also coffee
beans made it around the world (they don’t grow everywhere, but we can consume it
in at most every country.)
- Regional culture: language, modes of transportation (countryside vs cityside) there is
a difference in terms of behavior. In some regions people all greet each other, but in
other regions this is not the same. Also, the paths for the bike are a example of this
type of culture, in some countries they don’t have paths for only bikes. There is a
difference in how we get from A to B.
Culture is a fuzzy concept
- Culture is studied across many disciplines
- Enormous variation in the definition of the term
- The concept is used to cover everything and nothing
Shared assumptions about organizational culture
- Related to history/ tradition
- Collectively shared by members of a group
- To do with meanings, understandings, beliefs
- Some depth
- Difficult to grasp and must be interpreted
- Emotional rather than strictly rational
- Helps to understand richness of organizational change.
Culture is broadly seen as a shared and learned world of experiences, meanings, values, and
understandings which are expressed and reproduces partly in symbolic form.
Most significant concepts of organizational culture
Symbols:
- Words, actions, material items that stand for something else
- Rich in meaning – calls for interpretation
- Collective (vs. private) symbolism of interest
Meanings:
- How an object or utterance is interpreted
- Makes interpretations more homogeneous
- Socially shared meanings are of interest
Culture as social and taken-for-granted
- Culture is “done” without anyone really thinking about it
- Not “inside” people’s heads, but “between” people
- It is not fixed, but situationally adaptive
- Shared interpretations reduce uncertainties
,Organizational Culture & Change
Call for analytical depth
Often culture refers to little more than a social pattern/ surface phenomena à there is need
to dig deeper into it.
Edgar Schein’s model of organizational culture
Artifacts = psychical. Behavioral, verbal = what we see
Espoused values = strategies, goals, philosophies = what we can talk about
Basic assuptions = unconscious beliefs, how we perceive, think, feel = what we take for
granted
à iceberg model
Why do people study organizational culture?
- In the 1980s, US industry was facing a crisis
- At the same time, book of Japanese companies
- Focus on ‘shared values’, commitment and high-quality output
- Pop-management authors/ consultants suggested that western countries learn the
“art of Japanese management”
- The culture hype did not live up to its promises
- Ongoing interest: in organizational scandals/ failure: blame the culture!
- Considerable attention during periods of change
- Shift from mass production to the service and knowledge economy (remote ‘brain
work’ more difficult to control)
Three interests for studying a phenomenon
The technical interest = “improve efficiency and performance”
- Control organizational culture
- Improve organizational performance and effectiveness
The practical-hermeneutic interest = “knowledge for the sake of knowledge”
- Understand how shared meaning is created in organizational communities
- What the ‘natives’ think they are up to
The emancipatory interest = “protect from negative effects”
- Targets taken-for-granted beliefs and instrumentality
- Not interested in dis-advantages for organizations, but for employees
How to study organizational culture?
- Culture: complex, inaccessible, fuzzy phenomena
- Alvesson suggests: balance between rigor/flexibility
o Rigor: be focused and precise, analyze specific cultural phenomena, seek
interpretive depth, examine motives and objectives
o Flexibility: no formula or model for studying culture, causal links lead to
oversimplification
- Requires careful reflection of one’s own cultural bias
,Organizational Culture & Change
Lecture 2: How to study organizational culture?
Metaphor as a literary device
- Metaphor known as a literary device, useful in poetry and rhetoric
- Evokes powerful images
- Describes an object or person in a way that is not literally true: “the black sheep of
the family”
- States that one thing is (like) another thing
- When taken literally, it becomes absurd
- It transfers a term from one system of meaning to another
- But how is this useful for studying organizations?
Images of organization (morgan, 1986)
- Develops the art of reading organizational life
- Premise: all organizational theories are based on images/ metaphors
- Metaphor leads to a particular way of seeing/ interpreting things
- Brings valuable insights, but is also one-sided, incomplete, biased, and potentially
misleading
- No right or wrong perspective, each metaphor illuminated and hides
- Solution: we need multiple metaphors/ perspectives
The more metaphors we have, the more perspectives we must understand organizations
with
8 metaphors
- Machine = that it functions smoothly, and good that it functions like a machine
- Organism = organization as living organism, it is like a living system
- Brain = Organization like a learning organization, always learning and developing
- Culture = seeing the organization as if it was a culture, one of the most powerful
metaphors but difficult to grasp
- Political system = political area, power games, conflict of interest in organizations
- Psychic prison = people are trapped in certain cultural thinking, if a scandal happens
people are blind
- Change/ flux = organizations are constantly In change, be adaptable be changeable
- Domination = people being exploited, resources are exploited, modernalisation etc
Organization as a pyramid
- Organization viewed as similar to the Egyptian buildings
- Characterized by a broad base, linear reduction in volume for every layer, ends in a
sharp point at the top
- Person at the top (CEO) in command over those at the bottom
- In-between the middle-level managers
- People can move upwards, downwards or sideways
, Organizational Culture & Change
The pyramid suggests strongly asymmetrical relations
- Language reinforces this asymmetry: top and bottom or high and low
- Material arrangements support this image: top management is often on the top floor
Culture: critical variable vs root metaphor
Culture as metaphor, metaphors for culture
How does Alvesson think about this?
