Culture and Behaviour

1. Culture and Behaviour By Dr Amanda Marshall-Ponting – licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution – Non-Commercial – Share Alike License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/

2. Culture and behaviour

3. Structure of the work package

4. Structure of the work package Theoretical models & key debates Tests, reflective questions & problem scenarios Additional reading

5. Culture, what is it? “...the way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time” (Cambridge dictionary, 2011) And “...the set of shared meanings held by the team members that make team work possible” (Thompson, 2000)

6. Culture, why is it important? • Interest in culture increased as studies aimed to understand the success of Japanese companies in the 1970s • Two assumptions were made in 1980s and 90s studies: • Organisational performance depends upon alignment to its strategy • Belief that management can manipulate culture to achieve its goals

7. Culture, why is it important? • Size and contribution construction sector makes to the UK’s GDP: • Over 2.5 million people employed in construction in 2009 • 8% of GDP from construction • Increasing globalisation and the rise of multi-national companies

8. Experiencing culture in the workplace • This section discusses how we can start to explore culture: • The impacts that assumptions and beliefs have upon culture • The objects that illustrate culture • How culture and its artefacts shape behaviour • The Iceberg model will be introduced • You will be able to reflect upon your company’s culture

9. Experiencing culture in the workplace EXERCISE: You can test your cultural awareness using the quiz in section 1 of the Exercises document. The answers can be found in section 1 of the Solutions document.

10. Culture: The iceberg analogy Language Rituals Methods Techniques Laws & customs Doing Norms Roles Beliefs Philosophy Thinking Values Attitudes Myths Expectations Feeling

11. Culture: The iceberg analogy • This has 2 main parts and the latter help us to understand the former: • The visible part – components we come into direct contact with • Language, food, music, architecture, behaviours • The hidden part – behavioural drivers • Motivations, gender differences, attitudes • Culture will affect internal and external relationships and has formal and informal components

12. Experiencing culture in the workplace: culture and behaviour (Schein, 1984)

13. Experiencing culture in the workplace: Your organisation EXERCISE: You can explore your organisation’s culture by completing exercise 2. This exercise asks you to reflect upon the culture of your organisation, how its values are expressed, the assumptions it makes and how the culture is manifested

14. Measuring & managing organisational culture & behaviour • This section discusses how we can describe culture • Models are presented by: • Charles Handy (1985) • GeertHofstede (1980) • Some implications for cross cultural management are presented

15. Measuring culture: Handy’s four cultures In his book Understanding Organizations Charles Handy (1985) argues that there are four main types of culture: • Power • Role • Task • Person They can be represented pictorially.

16. Measuring culture: Handy’s four cultures • Central power source with influence radiating from the centre • A shared understanding of the organisation’s approach is essential • Competition & trust important • Power orientation, risk taking • Low morale & high turnover • Small, entrepreneurial organisations • e.g. property, finance, trading companies The power culture (Handy)

17. Measuring culture: Handy’s four cultures • Bureaucracy stereotype: its strength is its specialities & a focus upon procedures • Coordination by small number of senior management • Emphasis upon role rather than individual performance • Successful in stable, predictable markets – slow response to change • Good security • e.g. Civil service, auto & oil • industries, life insurance The role culture (Handy)

18. Measuring culture: Handy’s four cultures • Flexible, matrix organisation structure • Emphasis upon getting the job done – right people & resources brought together to achieve this • Team culture empowered to make own decisions; agreeable team climate essential • Prevalent in competitive markets • E.g. management consultancies, advertising agencies • Use of political influence causes morale drop and role or power culture The task culture (Handy)

19. Measuring culture: Handy’s four cultures • Rare but many organisations incorporate its values placing individual at centre • Few organisations can exist with this culture – control & management hierarchies are impossible • Any structure exists to assist its members • Expert power • e.g. University professors The person culture (Handy)

20. Measuring culture: Handy’s four cultures EXERCISE 3 asks you to reflect upon Handy’s (1985) model by considering the advantages and disadvantages of working in organisations with each of the four types of culture he identifies and to identify which culture you would prefer to work in.

21. Measuring & managing culture: Hofstede’s cultural dimensions • 116,000 IBM employees from 40 countries completed Hofstede’s questionnaire • The job and procedures were the same: Hofstede concluded variations in responses were due to cultural attitudes & values • Four underlying cultural dimensions were identified: • power distance – acceptance of unequal power distribution • Uncertainty avoidance – tolerance of ambiguity/uncertainty • Individualism – emphasis upon individual vs. collective achievement • Masculinity – tendency towards assertiveness, acquisition

22. Measuring & managing culture: Hofstede’s cultural dimensions Implications of culture on structure, behaviour, expectation & values

23. Measuring & managing culture: Hofstede’s cultural dimensions Example countries for each cultural dimension

24. Measuring & managing culture: Hofstede’s cultural dimensions Exercise 4 uses five scenarios to test your understanding of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions model. A worked example is included in section 4 of the Solutions document.

25. Changing organisational culture • This section focuses on the difficulties of cultural and behavioural change • The McKinsey Group’s 7S model illustrates the interrelatedness of ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ culture components • Communities of practice, informal groups enabled by new technologies, are introduced

26. Changing organisational culture: McKinsey 7S model • This model has been used by academics and practitioners to analyse culture • If organisational change is to be successful changes will be needed to all components • ‘Hard’, tangible components are easier to change than ‘soft’ ones shared values structure systems style staff strategy skills

27. Changing organisational culture: McKinsey 7S model Strategy: organisational plan of action. Focussed upon where the organisation is, where it wants to be, how it will get there Structure: Shape of the business. Dependent upon its objectives & culture, it dictates the way it operates & performs Style/Culture: Distinct, this includes values & norms which develop over time. There is an increasing preference for openness, innovation & smaller command chains Systems: Support daily activities & implement strategy. Technology is allowing processes to become simpler, decisions to be taken more widely with greater customer emphasis Staff: Growing importance of human resources in knowledge economy with much effort placed on hiring, training & mentoring to achieve competitive advantage Shared values: Commonly held fundamental ideas about the company they maintain coherence in teams & focus upon goals Skills: Numbers & types of personnel and their competencies and abilities that help it to be distinctive from its competitors

28. Changing organisational culture: Communities of practice • Self-selecting membership, meeting like-minded people • Creatively share knowledge & expertise, enabled by technology • Community decides structure & protocols • Some organisations more open to their use than others

29. Changing organisational culture: Communities of practice (Wenger & Snyder, 2000)

30. Conclusions This presentation has provided an overview of the culture and behaviour learning package. To deepen your understanding, you should work through: • Background document • Exercises and reflective questions • Additional reading

31. Reading Key texts Handy, C.B. (1985) Understanding organizations (3rd ed.) Penguin Books, London. Hofstede, G. (1991) Cultures and Organisations: software of the mind. McGraw-Hill, London. Schein (1984) Coming to a new awareness of organizational culture, Sloan Management Review. Waterman Jr., R.H., Peters, T.J., and Phillips, J.R. (1980) Structure is not organisation. Business Horizons, 23 (3) pp14-16. Additional reading Gordon, G.G. and DiTomaso, N. (1992) Predicting corporate performance from organizational culture. Journal of Management Studies, 29 (6), pp783-798. Jermier, J.M., Slocum, J.W., Fry, L.W. and Gaines, J. (1991) Organizational subcultures in a soft bureaucracy: Resistance behind the myth and façade of an official culture. Organization Science, 2 (2), pp170-194. Ling, F., Ang, A. and Lim, S. (2007) Encounters between foreigners and Chinese: Perception and management of cultural differences. Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, 14 (6), pp501-18. Ogbonna, E. and Harris, L.C. (2002) Organizational culture: A ten year, two-phase study of change in the UK food retailing sector. Journal of Management Studies, 39 (5), pp673-706.