Organizational culture

About: Organizational culture is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 31507 publications have been published within this topic receiving 926787 citations. The topic is also known as: corporate culture & organisational culture.

Transformational Leadership and Organizational Culture

Abstract: The organization's culture develops in large part from its leadership while the culture of an organization can also affect the development of its leadership. For example, transactional leaders work within their organizational cultures following existing rules, procedures, and norms; transformational leaders change their culture by first understanding it and then realigning the organization's culture with a new vision and a revision of its shared assumptions, values, and norms (Bass, 1985). Effective organizations require both tactical and strategic thinking as well as culture building by its leaders. Strategic thinking helps to create and build the vision of an agency's future. The vision can emerge and move forward as the leader constructs a culture that is dedicated to supporting that vision. The culture is the setting within which the vision takes hold. In turn, the vision may also determine the characteristics of the organization's culture. Transformational leaders have been characterized by four separate components or characteristics denoted as the 4 Is of transformational leadership (Avolio, Waldman, and Yammarino (1991). These four factors include idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration. Transformational leaders integrate creative insight, persistence and energy, intuition and sensitivity to the needs of others to "forge the strategy-culture alloy" for their organizations. In contrast, transactional leaders are characterized by contingent reward and management-by-exception styles of leadership. Essentially, transactional leaders develop exchanges or agreements with their followers, pointing out what the followers will receive if they do something right as well as wrong. They work within the existing culture, framing their decisions and action based on the operative norms and procedures characterizing their respective organizations. In a highly innovative and satisfying organizational culture we are likely to see transformational leaders who build on assumptions such as: people are trustworthy and purposeful; everyone has a unique contribution to make; and complex problems are handled at the lowest level possible. Leaders who build such cultures and articulate them to followers typically exhibit a sense of vision and purpose. They align others around the vision and empower others to take greater responsibility for achieving the vision. Such leaders facilitate and teach followers. They foster a culture of creative change and growth rather than one which maintains the status quo. They take personal responsibility for the development of their followers. Their followers operate under the assumption that all organizational members should be developed to their full potential. There is a constant interplay between culture and leadership. Leaders create mechanisms for cultural development and the reinforcement of norms and behaviors expressed within the boundaries of the culture. Cultural norms arise and change because of what leaders focus their attention on, how they react to crises, the behaviors they role model, and whom they attract to their organizations. The characteristics and qualities of an organization's culture are taught by its leadership and eventually adopted by its followers. At one extreme a leader accepts no deviation from standard operating procedures, managing-by exception in a highly transactional fashion while at the other extreme another leader rewards followers when they apply rules in creative ways or if they break them when the overall mission of the organization is best served. How leaders react to problems, resolve crises, reward and punish followers are all relevant to an organization's culture as well as how the leader is viewed both internally by followers and externally by clients/customers. To reiterate, the culture affects leadership as much as leadership affects culture. For instance, a strong organizational culture, with values and internal guides for more autonomy at lower levels, can prevent top administration from increasing its personal power at the expense of middle-level administration. …

Assessing the Relationship between Industry Characteristics and Organizational Culture: How Different can You Be?

Abstract: This study investigated the relationship between two industry characteristics, technology and growth, and organizational culture. We examined this relationship by comparing the cultures of organizations within and across industries. Using 15 firms representing four industries in the service sector, we found that stable organizational culture dimensions existed and varied more across industries than within them. Specific cultural values were associated with levels of industry technology and growth. One implication of this finding is that the use of organizational culture as a competitive advantage may be more constrained than researchers and practitioners have suggested.

Applicant personality, organizational culture, and organization attraction

Abstract: This study examined the dispositional basis of job seekers' organizational culture preferences and how these preferences interact with recruiting organizations' cultures in their relation to organization attraction. Data were collected from 182 business, engineering, and industrial relations students who were seeking positions at the time of the study. Results obtained from multiple sources suggested that the Big Five personality traits (neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness) generally were related to hypothesized dimensions of culture preferences. Results also suggested that both objective person-organization fit (congruence between applicant culture preferences and recruiting organization's reputed culture) and subjective fit (applicant's direct perception of fit) were related to organization attraction. Further, subjective fit mediated the relationship between objective fit and organization attraction.

Being Different Yet Feeling Similar: The Influence Of Demographic Composition And Organizational Culture On Work Processes And Outcomes

Abstract: This research was supported by a Center for Creative Leadership grant to the first author. We thank Dan Brass, Ben Hermalin, Rod Kramer, and three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier drafts of the paper, and Linda Johanson for working her usual editorial magic. We also thank Zoe Barsness, Joe Baumann, Mary Cusack, Brenda Ellington, Tiffany Galvin, Anne Lytle, Ann Tenbrunsel, Melissa Thomas-Hunt, and Kim Wade-Benzoni for help in administering the study. Drawing from self-categorization theory, we tested hypotheses on the effects of an organization's demographic composition and cultural emphasis on work processes and outcomes. Using an organizational simulation, we found that the extent to which an organization emphasized individualistic or collectivistic values interacted with demographic composition to influence social interaction, conflict, productivity, and perceptions of creativity among 258 MBA students. Our findings suggest that the purported benefits of demographic diversity are more likely to emerge in organizations that, through their culture, make organizational membership salient and encourage people to categorize one another as having the organization's interests in common, rather than those that emphasize individualism and distinctiveness among members..

Accounting for the Contradictory Organizational Consequences of Information Technology: Theoretical Directions and Methodological Implications

Abstract: Although much contemporary thought considers advanced information technologies as either determinants or enablers of radical organizational change, empirical studies have revealed inconsistent findings to support the deterministic logic implicit in such arguments. This paper reviews the contradictory empirical findings both across studies and within studies, and proposes the use of theories employing a logic of opposition to study the organizational consequences of information technology. In contrast to a logic of determination, a logic of opposition explains organizational change by identifying forces both promoting change and impeding change. Four specific theories are considered: organizational politics, organizational culture, institutional theory, and organizational learning. Each theory is briefly described to illustrate its usefulness to the problem of explaining information technology's role in organizational change. Four methodological implications of using these theories are also discussed: empirical identification of opposing forces, statement of opposing hypotheses, process research, and employing multiple interpretations.