organizational culture

54: Measuring Organizational Cultures – Hofstede

May 2, 2019 Tom Galvin
Geert Hofstede

Fresh off a study that identified key factors for comparing national cultures, organizational psychologist Geert Hofstede and his team set off to determine whether similar constructs could be deduced for organizational cultures. The success of this research is detailed in Hofstede’s classic 1990 paper, “Measuring Organizational Cultures: A Qualitative and Quantitative Study Across Twenty Cases,” published in Administrative Science Quarterly. Through surveys and interviews among members of twenty units within ten large organizations, Hofstede’s team proposed six distinct determinants of organizational culture that could be compared and contrasted across all organizations.

In Part 1 of this episode, veteran TAOP podcasters Tom and Ralph welcome two of our newest cast members Jarryd and Frithjof. Together they review the article, its methodology and results, and its significant in the study of organizational behavior. Then in Part 2, the podcasters look at how much has changed in organizations from 1980s to the present day. To what extent do Hofstede’s six factors still hold up? How salient is his model of socializing cultures between societies (“nations”) and organizations? To what extent is the construct of organizational culture being misused, such as suggested in our Episode 49 where we explored Gideon Kunda’s study of “tech culture?” Are there dangers to conflating organizational culture with climate?

Part 1. Studying Culture — From Societies to Organizations (released 2 May 2019)

 

Part 2. Value and Pitfalls of Treating Culture Like a Rheostat (released 8 May 2019)

Read With Us:

Hofstede, G., Neuijen, B., Ohayv, D.D. and Sanders, G., 1990. Measuring organizational cultures: A qualitative and quantitative study across twenty cases. Administrative science quarterly 35(2), pp. 286-316.

Related Episodes in Tom’s podcast Reflections on Management

Episode 3-6. Can One Really Plan Culture Change?

To Know More:

Schein, E. H. (2010) Organizational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Kunda, G. (2006). Engineering culture: Control and commitment in a high-tech corporation, Revised Edition. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

49: Engineered Culture and Normative Control – Gideon Kunda

October 30, 2018 Ralph Soule

Gideon Kunda

Originally published in 1992, Gideon Kunda’s ethnographic study of a high-tech corporation altered the discourse on organizational culture. “Tech,” the firm being studied, was a firm on the rise and saw itself as a leader and ground breaker in the rapidly growing high-tech industries of the 1980s. But as the firm grew from a modest couple hundred to tens of thousands of employees and multiple sites, Tech undertook an effort to indoctrinate its members with its tried-and-true formula for success — hard work, sacrifice, and belief in the company. The degree to which this indoctrination occurred was extensive, from the choreographed leader messages, trained cultural experts and internal publications to the highly competitive and cut-throat nature of project work. Kunda captured it all in gripping detail.

The centerpiece of Kunda’s thesis was Tech’s exercise of normative control. This was ironic in a way given how Tech’s professed culture valued self-determination and autonomy. But, the rewards and sanctions were constructed to enforce a particular form of autonomy, one in which Tech extracted the most out of its people while breaking their lives in the process.
Does this mean ‘normative control’ as a mechanism for mission accomplishment is bad? As we dove into the text and applied its lessons to present-day matters, the question is actually difficult to answer as there are many factors to consider. Listen as we wrestle with this extraordinary and provocative text!

You may also download the audio files here: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Read with us:

Kunda, G. (2006). Engineering culture: Control and commitment in a high-tech corporation, Revised Edition. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

Related episodes from Tom’s podcast Reflections on Management:

Episode 1-3. Is ‘Competitive Advantage’ a Real Thing?

Episode 3-6. Can One Really Plan Culture Change?

To know more:

Rivera, L. A. (2012). Hiring as cultural matching: The case of elite professional service firms. American sociological review, 77(6), 999-1022.

Rivera, L. A. (2016). Pedigree: How elite students get elite jobs. Princeton University Press.

Turco, C. J. (2016). The conversational firm: Rethinking bureaucracy in the age of social media. Columbia University Press.

47: Organizational Identity — Albert & Whetten

September 18, 2018 Ralph Soule

Stuart Albert

David Whetten

“Who are we?”

The pursuit of an answer to this tantalizingly simple question began with a book chapter written in 1985 by organization theorists Stuart Albert and David Whetten. “Organizational Identity” established the construct of identity at the organizational level and described it as the sum of three types of claims — claims of an organization’s central character, claims of its distinctiveness from other organizations, and claims of temporal continuity that tie the present organization to its history. The chapter also raised the idea that organizations can have multiple identities, which each being more salient at different times. With seven key research questions and thirty-three hypothesis, the chapter also laid out a far-reaching research agenda.

But as we discuss in this episode, the twenty years that followed saw much of the research yield lots of confusion and consternation. David Whetten would prepare a follow-up commentary in 2006 to clarify and update the construct while addressing the conflicts.

So how useful is it? Listen in as we grapple with answering questions like, “Who are we as the Talking About Organizations Podcast?” using Albert & Whetten’s construct as a starting point. We then follow with examples, case studies, and uses of organizational identity in both scholarship and practice. We hope you enjoy the discussion and find it useful for understanding the deep culture of organizations.

You may also download the audio files here: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Read with us:

Albert, S., & Whetten, D. A. (1985). Organizational identity. Research in organizational behavior, 7, 263-285.

Whetten, D. A. (2006). Albert and Whetten revisited: Strengthening the concept of organizational identity. Journal of management inquiry, 15(3), 219-234.

To Learn More:

Whetten, D. A., Godfrey, P. C., & Godfrey, P. (Eds.). (1998). Identity in organizations: Building theory through conversations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Galvin, T. (forthcoming, about Dec 2018). Two case studies of successful strategic communication campaigns. Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute.

30: Corporate Culturalism

August 2, 2017 Dmitrijs Kravcenko
Hugh Willmott Strength is Ignorance; Slavery is Freedom: Managing Culture in Modern Organizations was Hugh Willmott’s critique of corporate culturalism, a dominant theme in management studies in the 1980s. In 1993, when the paper appeared in the Journal of Management Studies, strengthening corporate culture was seen as a way to improve organizational performance. But instead of an academic response, Willmott used George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four to explain his objections.

11: Culture and High Reliability – Bierly and Spender

May 31, 2016 Dmitrijs Kravcenko

Paul Bierly and J. C. Spencer

In Episode 11 we are joined by our resident expert, Dr. Ralph Soule (retired US Navy Captain), to discuss Culture and High Reliability Organizing (HRO). While not universally known within management and organization studies, High Reliability is concerned with formal structure and process, as well as informal commitment, motivation and trust. HRO describes a subset of hazardous organizations that enjoy a high level of safety over long periods of time. What distinguishes types of high-risk systems is the source of risk, whether it is the technical or social factors that the system must control or whether the environment, itself, constantly changes. This latter can be controversial to observers as environments change within a range of expected extremes. It is the surprise of the change, its unexpected presentation that influences the level of reliability.

High reliability organization theory and HROs are often contrasted against Charles Perrow’s Normal Accident Theory (NAT), but where Perrow believed in the inevitability of accidents in the face of ever more complex technology, HRO scholars believe that accidents can, and are avoided by means of appropriate culture and training of the workforce. The term “high reliability organization” (HRO) was coined by Rochlin, La Porte, and Roberts (1987) to describe organizations that achieve superb safety performance  under difficult circumstances and perform highly complex technical tasks in unforgiving environments. HRO scholarship has sought to resolve the organizational structure paradox between the need for centralization of knowledge to manage highly complex technical systems (systems that are too complex for any small group to understand) and the need for decentralized decision-making to prevent failure of tightly coupled parts of the system. Prior to the theory, there was no way to describe how to reconcile the paradox between technological and organizational complexity in high risk systems.

Paul Bierly and J.C. Spender’s 1995 article, “Culture and high reliability organizations: The case of the nuclear submarine,” is about the culture that underpins the reliability of nuclear submarines. They argued that culture and organizational structure are mutually reinforcing in producing high reliability. Drawing from their personal experience, the authors “argue for a multi-level model in which culture interacts with and supports formal structure and thereby produces high reliability.”

We decided to read Culture and High Reliability Organization: A Case of the Nuclear Submarine in order to get ourselves acquainted with the ideas behind the concept. The Authors, both of whom are qualified nuclear officers with the U.S. Navy, describe how certain characteristics of the culture instilled into that organization by its founder – Admiral Rickover – facilitate a safety-centred high reliability approach to operations. Fascinating stuff!

You may also download the audio files here:  Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 

Read with us:

Bierly, P.E. and Spender, J.C., 1995. Culture and high reliability organizations: The case of the nuclear submarine. Journal of Management, 21(4), 639-656.

To Learn More:

High Reliability: A review of the literature (get PDF here)

Todd Conklin’s podcast – The PreAccident Investigation – Episode 40 (can be found here)