Leaders, Technology and Organizational Culture

Tara Kissel

University of North Texas

 A company’s culture can be its defining quality even if there is not a generally accepted

designation for this term. Overall we can say in the simplest terms that an organizations culture refers

to the beliefs held that drive specific behaviors, not what people actually do, but what makes them do it

(Alvesson & Sveningsson 2008). This can include visible and inviable items like dress code, office design,

aesthetics, leadership styles, decision making policies, assumptions, and expressed values. But can all of

these issues be address in a rushed culture change?

The change in the culture of an organization takes much more time than many people want to

give credence to. A management team cannot just introduce Tutu Tuesdays and flexible work space and

expect large changes in morale and productivity. When planning for a grand change a scheme can be

upwards of 7 steps each requiring evolution and analysis (Alvesson & Sveningsson 2008). These process’

are slow and if rushed and may miss key elements that will effect culture. When moving away from

grand projects and look at local then lack of forethought and planning can also have a possible negative

effect. When working on local culture change the team is working on reframing every day, creating

change through typical interaction and nature language (Alvesson & Sveningsson 2008). Even in these

situations leaders need to know the past and present history of the groups they lead (Warrick 2017).

These insights can provide valuable information about the traditions and dynamics that should be

sustained and show what needs to be changed. A leader’s role is to guide the team to a new way of

thinking and a new perspective on the organization, leading to new behaviors aligned with the goals of

the culture shift.

A lot of cultural change focuses on how to change ‘it’ (the organizational culture) or ‘them’ (the

masses), but rarely asks the question of how top management and staff should change. This is evident

in K-12 school culture. Many districts are implementing 1:1 programs and adding technology

requirements to feedback evaluations for teachers and student objective standards. But as this culture

shift happens in the classroom and in society as a whole, I have not seen a culture shift in top leadership
at schools. I interact with administrators who will not take the time to change their attitudes and beliefs

toward technology. This leadership does not reflect the change and causes a breakdown in the trust. A

ineffective leader or a leader who does not embodied the desired cultures can teardown or damage a

culture that took decades to build (Warrick 2017). Part of this can be a lack of preparation for the

change in the first place which may be inventible if rushed. People’s attitudes toward change and

beliefs about the change are very important to their acceptance of that change (Jones, Jimmison &

Griffths 2005). When there is a lack in belief in the change suspicions and a lack of trustworthiness can

take hold, which can lead to a failing of the culture change. These ideas are tied to a person’s

assumptions and values created with in the work environment, so these must be addressed.

A company’s cultural change is also tied now to its emphasis on technology and its reputation in

the global world. Today social media and internet access has given everyone access to a company’s

cultural and their member’s beliefs and insights into their organizations. As technology became an

important factor in industry three areas were being directly affected by its presence: organization

communication, standard human resources processes, and organization development (Church, Gilbert,

Oliver Paquet & Surfance 2002). When these elements were first introduced into the work environment

they were sparse and novel, company policies needed to reflect the change but they were not a cultural

shift. But when you look at technology usage in current industries you have to see that technology

ubiquitous with working in general. Technology has even forced cultural change in organizations. An

example of the swift cultural change in organizations due to technology would be the Blackberry.

Organizations started with just the top executives in the early 2000s utilizing this tool and it became part

of the social cultural as a symbol of a manger in the tech world (BBC 2016). Soon copies were creating

plans to manage blackberries for all of the managerial teams creating a brand new culture in a variety of

professions that had an expectation of always being connected but business. Now many company
solutions are to find a way to securely mange personal devices on the same network while encouraging

company culture and norm on personal devices (BBC 2016).

The health industry has entered in the world social media, looking to bring knowledge and

communication across the industry (Alber, Paige, Brenhardt & Stellefson 2016). Society has embrace

social media and its usage and many people entering a variety of fields may have an understanding from

personal use but this innovation requires plan targeted cultural change in industry to utilize it

effectively. Younger health education specialists may have more experience using social media for

personal use, which may explain higher levels of confidence in using social for work-related purposes.

While previous data show that younger generations are using social media more frequently, this does

not necessarily equate to better actual performance using social media for health education purposes

(Alber, Paige, Brenhardt & Stellefson 2016). Technology has also afforded organizations the ability to

fundamentally change their work environment, thus their culture. These changes can create open,

flexible, virtual, and paperless offices, which contrasted with the conventional fixed and cellular office

spaces of pervious organizations (Kingma 2018). Technology also opens organizations to at home

remote work and mobile offices. The offices of today do not for the most part look like the offices of 20

years ago, laptops and personal computers are everywhere and the exception of e-mail

communications, conference calls, virtual project management, and online processes cannot be

escaped. These innovations have changed how offices work and look, lounge spaces for collaboration,

cafeterias for multitasking, and furniture directly designed with this cultural shift in mind (Kingma 2018).

With this shift the doors are open to create teams and collaboration across the world, this

potentially could cause issues a company culture. Would a culture like Zappos’ work with a company

from India or Iran? Can a successful work culture be exported (Steers & Shim 2013)? We cross

international boundaries with all of our technology today we have to think about the quality of our
culture and the quality of our leadership within that culture. There needs to be an ability to transfer

those skills to a new audience.

References

The rise and fall of the Blackberry in popular culture - BBC Newsbeat. (2016, September 28).
Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/37500230/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-
blackberry-in-popular-culture
Alber, J. M., Paige, S., Stellefson, M., & Bernhardt, J. M. (2016). Social media self-efficacy of
health education specialists: training and organizational development
implications. Health promotion practice, 17(6), 915-921.
Alvesson, M., & Sveningsson, S. (2015). Changing organizational culture: Cultural change work
in progress. Routledge.
Church, A. H., Gilbert, M., Oliver, D. H., Paquet, K., & Surface, C. (2002). The role of technology
in organization development and change. Advances in Developing Human
Resources, 4(4), 493-511.
Jones, R. A., Jimmieson, N. L., & Griffiths, A. (2005). The impact of organizational culture and
reshaping capabilities on change implementation success: The mediating role of
readiness for change. Journal of Management Studies, 42(2), 361-386.
Kingma, S. (2018). New ways of working (NWW): work space and cultural change in virtualizing
organizations. Culture and Organization, 1-24.
Steers, R. M., & Shim, W. S. (2013). Strong leaders, strong cultures: Global management
lessons from Toyota and Hyundai. Organizational Dynamics, 42(3), 217—227
Warrick, D. D. (2017). What leaders need to know about organizational culture. Business
Horizons, 60(3), 395-404.