Organisational culture

Week 9 HSS 205 Organisational Culture

What are we looking at: - idiosyncrasies
How things are done here,
Focus on the material, not ideational, what is actually being done?

Culture manifestations:

Culture forms: (all of these give the information what employees and employers are thinking and doing)

1. Rituals:- are carefully planned activities that are executed and existing within a social context, There is well defined roles; have the beginning and the end; most importantly, they are repeated.
Such as celebration, and sanctification of the mundane, things we do regularly and routinely, give everyday activity special meaning.
Characteristics of rituals are: - they can be minor but repeated and dramatic.

2. Organizations stories: anecdotes about the organisations

Two types:
1). Narrative what exactly happen. E.g. IBM chairman cannot access an area because he didn’t have the badge,
2). Interpretation, what people think. Everyone should follow the security procedure, even a chairman.

3. Jargon: the special language that only cultural insider seems to understand. Eg. Acronyms.

Two types:
1). Technical: task oriented, emotionally neutral
2). Emotional: concern about feeling, e.g. Silicon Valley, cut-throat industry; “Hamster on the bleeding edge” means a matter of life and death.
Top management as “Uncle Benny” implies the same sect of familiarities.

Function of jargon: standard of large high-tech corporation. MCQ test are ministered to employees after two and eight weeks. Test covered technical and emotional jargon. Technical jargons are easier to learn than emotional ones.
Results: new employees become familiar in cultural manifestations in a predictable order.

General knowledge and culture learned much more slowly than jargon, jargon provides linguistic foundations for others.

Metaphors, source of jargon relies on metaphors, eg. In mergers and acquisition, aggressive take over is often referred as “sharks” predatory expects; “Jaws” refers “extreme” and “Shark repellent” to “strategies employed to ward of take-overs”
Violent Metaphors are using movie language to tap emotional aspects of life in particular kinds of organisations, allude to emotions that may be socially acceptable to express more directly.

4. Humour: tend not to be funny to outsiders, and tends to take the form of ethic jokes and sexual innuendo, attack minorities.
Organisational content
Jokes used to distinguish insiders and outsiders.

5. Physical arrangements
Architecture, interior deco and dress norms, powerful because they are easy to see. Eg, “GM architecture, the building, … the most impressive structure in the midtown of Detroit.”

Office decors standardized, dress norms can be casual, need not be always formal.

Diversity: allowed executives to change decors according to personal taste and personal style within reasonable limits.

Cultured signals: physical arrangements can be used to signal what kind of cultural changes may take place, can also signify dissents among the rank.

Roles of uniformity, depersonalizing social relations with organisations, impersonality is also important. Like bureaucracy.


Formal and Informal Practises

Formal practices have easily controlled by management. There are four types:

1. Structure
2. Task and tech
3. Rules and procedures
4. Financial controls

Informal practices: evolve through interaction, they are not written down, like notices or employee’s handbooks etc.

Example of decision making involves lot parts of formal practices:

In university, for example, there are four types of decision making:
1. Informal discussion among key members of the departments, meeting for verification only (rectify) New professors don’t know how the discussion are being made.
2. Already consensus, meeting, as official consensus, discussion takes place outside the meeting.
3. Discussion and decision happens at the meeting, typically what you would expect.
4. Head of department makes the decision and the decision is announced at the meeting.

Note that:
Organisation vs. social culture
Rise of certain argument and style of management, Japanese management style

Management styles are different from organizations culture
Also, knowing about Singapore culture does not mean Knowing organisation culture. In NTU, vs. Shenton Way’s office

What forms organisation culture?
What function organisation culture fill? to build shared meaning, to socialize employees into members of the organisations