Managing culture is a complex and vital part of the work of general manager. It can be one of the most powerful tools that a manager can employ in their efforts to get the diverse and dispersed set of people that comprise most organizations to work together in a coherent, consistent, and purposeful way. Culture can also be one of the most vexing barriers to managing change in an organization. An increasing number of people in the worlds of management and academia have found Edgar Schein’s model of culture- what it is and where it comes from- to be a managerially useful, intellectually consistent way to frame their work. Schein discusses four specific instances in which it is extremely important for a manager to understand an organization’s culture in a rigorous, detailed way, include: 1)when he or she first jouns a new organization as a manager; 2) when one company acquires another; 3)when the manager is confronting the need to fundamentally change the company’s strategic direction.
National Cultures and Work Related Values: The Hofstede Study
Hofstede defined culture as the collective mental programming of people in different social environments. He found that culture could be broken down into four dimensions that explained many observed differences in organizational systems and managerial behavior, such as: 1. Power Distance the extent to which a national culture accepts and reinforces the fact that power in institutions and organizations is distributed unequally. In business organizations, power distance is most explicitly reflected in the nature of the superior- subordinate relationship. 2. Uncertainty Avoidance the degree to which a national culture values the reduction of uncertainty and ambiguity. In managerial practice, this dimension is manifest in the use of detailed job descriptions and instructions, and in the distate for ambiguous matrix organizational structures where subordinates may have two direct bosses. 3. Individualism-Collectivism in high collectivism culture, management is the management of groups; in individualistic cultures, it is the management of individuals. Employees in cultures that score high on individualism are expected to act according to their self interest. In cultures high on collectivism, an employer does not hire an individual, but a member of an in-group, who is expected to act according to the interest of his/her group. 4. Masculinity-Femininity the masculinity represents the culture’s dominant value conform to a traditional view of male sex-role characteristics assertiveness and the acquisition of material goods. The femininity reflects on dominant values that conform to a traditional view of female sex-role characteristics, which is an emphasis on caring for others and quality of life.
A Process for Changing Organizational Culture
In every organization, develop a dominant type of organizational culture over time. There are seven step culture change process in organization, such as: 1)clarifying meaning, 2)Identifying stories, 3)determining strategic initiatives, 4)identifying small wins, 5)craft metrics, measures, and milestones, 6)communication and symbols, 7)leadership development
(Modeling and Simulation in Science, Engineering and Technology) Luca D'Acci - The Mathematics of Urban Morphology-Springer International Publishing - Birkhäuser (2019) PDF