Chapter Fourteen

1. Chapter Fourteen Culture, Change, And Organization Development Thomson South-Western Wagner & Hollenbeck 5e

2. Chapter Overview • This chapter examines the following topics: • Organization Culture • Elements of Organization Culture • Managing Organization Culture • Change and Organization Development • Resistance to Change • Action Research • Organization Development Interventions • Interpersonal Interventions • Group Interventions • Intergroup Interventions • Organizational Interventions • Evaluating Change and Development

3. Chapter Introduction • Managing an organization, as an organization, is an extremely complex task • Managers must consider and actively shape the culture of norms, values, and ways of thinking that influence behavior throughout the firm

4. Organization Culture • Every formal organization of prescribed jobs and structural relationships includes an informal organization characterized by unofficial rules, procedures, and interconnections • An organization’s culture is an informal, shared way of perceiving life and membership in the organization that binds members together and influences what they think about themselves and their work

5. Organization Culture • Organizational culture fulfills four basic functions: • Gives members an organizational identity • Facilitates collective commitment • Promotes organizational stability • Helps members make sense of their surroundings

6. Elements of Organization Culture • Deep within the culture of every organization is a collection of fundamental norms and values that shapes members’ behaviors and helps them understand the surrounding organization • Such fundamental norms and values serve as the ultimate source of the shared perceptions, thoughts, and feelings constituting the culture of an organization

7. The fundamental norms and values are expressed and passed from one person to another through surface elements such as: Ceremonies: special events in which members of a company celebrate the myths, heroes, and symbols of their culture Rites: ceremonial activities meant to send particular messages or accomplish specific purposes Rites of passage Rites of degradation Rites of enhancement Rites of integration Rituals: ceremonial events that continually reinforces key norms and values Stories: accounts of past events with which all employees are familiar and that serve as reminders of cultural values Elements of Organization Culture

8. Elements of Organization Culture • Other surface elements include: • Myths: special type of story that provides a fictional but plausible explanation for an event or thing that might otherwise seem puzzling or mysterious • Heroes: people who embody the values of an organization and its culture

9. Elements of Organization Culture • The final two surface elements include: • Symbols: objects, actions, or events to which people have assigned special meanings • Language: another means of sharing cultural ideas and understandings

10. Managing Organization Culture • Organizational culture grows out of informal, unofficial ways of doing things • Cultural norms and values provide social information, which helps employees determine the meaning of their work and the organization around them • Many experts argue that organizational cultures can be managed by using either of two approaches: • Symbolic management: managers attempt to influence deep cultural norms and values by shaping the surface cultural elements that people use • Organization development (OD) interventions: contributes to cultural management by helping the members of an organization progress through a series of steps

11. Besides stimulating and solidifying cultural change, organization development (OD) entails the more general process of planning, implementing, and stabilizing the results of any type of organizational change The OD field of research specializes in developing and assessing specific interventions or change techniques OD is characterized by five important features: Emphasizes planned change Has a pronounced social-psychological orientation Focuses primary attention on comprehensive change Characterized by a long-range time orientation Guided by a change agent or individual who serves as both a catalyst for change and a source of information about the OD process Change and Organization Development

12. Resistance to Change • Change means to alter, vary, or modify existing ways of thinking or behaving • Setting change in motion requires identifying and overcoming sources of resistance and encouraging and strengthening sources of support • Force field analysis is a diagnostic method that diagrams the array of forces acting for and against a particular change in a graphic analysis

13. Resistance to Change • There is no universal, fail-safe way to overcome the resistant factors identified in a force field analysis, but there are six, most often used options, available: • Education and communication • Participation and involvement • Facilitation and support • Bargaining and negotiation • Hidden persuasion • Explicit and implicit coercion

14. Action Research • Organization development is a structured, multi-step process • The action research model is a detailed variation of this process that promotes adherence to the scientific method and places particular emphasis on postchange evaluation

15. Action Research • The action research model depicts seven stages, with the latter four forming a recurrent cycle • Problem identification • Consultation • Data gathering and provisional diagnosis • Feedback to the client organization • Joint diagnosis and action planning • Activating the plan • Post-action data gathering and evaluation

16. Organization Development Interventions • The target of an OD intervention is the aspect on which an intervention focuses • An intervention’s depth reflects the degree or intensity of change that the intervention is designed to stimulate • Shallow • Deep

17. Interpersonal Interventions • Interpersonal interventions focus on solving problems with interpersonal relations • Depending on the particular intervention, the organization may attempt to redefine personal roles, clarify social expectations, or strengthen sensitivity to others’ needs and interests

18. The role negotiation technique (RNT), an interpersonal intervention of moderately shallow depth, is intended to help people form and maintain effective working relationships As a deep interpersonal intervention, sensitivity training focuses on developing greater sensitivity to oneself, to others, and to one’s relations with others Designed to promote emotional growth and development, it typically takes place in a closed session away from work Role Negotiation TechniqueSensitivity Training

19. Group Interventions • Group interventions are designed to solve problems with group or team performance and leadership • In general, these interventions focus on helping the members of a group learn how to work together to fulfill the group’s task and maintenance requirements

20. Process consultation is a relatively shallow, group-level OD intervention In a process consultation intervention, a change agent meets with a work group and helps its members examine group processes such as communication, leadership and followership, problem-solving, and cooperation Team development is a deep, group-level extension of interpersonal sensitivity training In a team development intervention, a group of people who work together on a daily basis meet over an extended period of time to assess and modify group processes Process ConsultationTeam Development

21. Intergroup Interventions • Intergroup interventions focus on solving many intergroup problems • In general, these problems concern conflict and associated breakdowns in intergroup coordination

22. Third-party peace making is a relatively shallow intervention in which a change agent seeks to resolve intergroup misunderstandings by encouraging communication between or among groups The change agent is not a member of any of the groups and is referred to as a third party who guides the meeting between the groups Intergroup team building is a deep intervention that has three primary aims: To improve communication and interaction between work-related groups To decrease counterproductive competition between the groups To replace group-centered perspectives with an orientation that recognizes the necessity for various groups to work together Third-Party PeacemakingIntergroup Team Building

23. Organizational Interventions • Organizational interventions are intended to deal with structural and cultural problems • Some of these interventions are directed at improving communication and coordination within the organization • Others focus on diagnosing and strengthening relations between the organization and its external environment

24. The main purpose of survey feedback is to stimulate information sharing throughout the entire organization; planning and implementing change are of secondary importance This technique is a relatively shallow organization-level intervention The survey feedback normally proceeds in four stages Open system planning is a fairly deep, organization-level intervention that is distinguished by its focus on the organization as a system open to its surrounding environment The primary purpose of open system planning is to help the members of an organization devise ways to accomplish their firm’s mission The intervention involves five steps Survey FeedbackOpen System Planning

25. Evaluating Change and Development • No matter what type of organization development intervention is used, the concluding stage of the OD process always consists of an evaluation of the technique’s effectiveness