Normative Control, Power and Commitment in Organisational Culture Studies - Literature review Example

Normative control, power and commitment in organisational culture studies BY YOU YOUR SCHOOL INFO HERE HERE Normative control, power and commitment in organisational culture studies Introduction Traditionally, the most viable method of controlling worker activity was through the establishment of bureaucratic policies and regulations which governed highly centralised organisations in which consultation with low-level support employees was discouraged and uncommon. By the 1970s, however, the domains of sociology and anthropology led management researchers to recognise the phenomenon of corporate culture, defined as behaviours of workers who are contributors to the organisation and the shared meanings which guide people’s responses to actions. Culture is inclusive of the shared values, norms, symbols and beliefs which are influential in determining how organisational members behave, feel and think. Kunda (1992) views culture as a set of common symbols and meanings which construct shared rules which govern emotional and cognitive perceptions of group membership. Peters and Waterman (1982) and Ouchi (1981) were some of the first contemporary scholars which attempted to convince managers of organisations to work diligently in the pursuit of cultivating cohesive corporate cultures which facilitate worker commitment, loyalty and conscientiousness. Ethnographic research on the organisation began to recognise that traditional command-and-control hierarchies virtually eliminate positive employee attributes such as flexibility and commitment which are absolutely critical for improving business productivity and performance in rapidly-changing organisational environments (Barley and Kunda 1992). It became argued, based on sound empirical research findings, that the development of a corporate culture focusing on motivation, autonomy, team-working and commitment are the key predictors of long-run organisational success. This essay explores the concept of organisational culture as defined by Kunda (1992) who views organisational culture as a form of normative control, as a dynamic influencing employee commitment, the relevancy of peer reference group sentiment and judgments, and a forum by which to exhibit political behaviours as a means of enhancing one’s professional status in an organisational context. The essay interprets Kunda’s view of culture, making further comparisons to literature that has referred to Kunda’s findings to either support or criticise the aforementioned dimensions of what constitutes culture whilst also providing a critical analysis of this contemporary view of organisational culture. Kunda’s arguments regarding culture Kunda (1992) iterates that there is a rather universal human trait which dictates one’s behaviours: a form of cultural bias which makes individuals want to control everything. However, when an organisation adopts a hierarchical management structure in an effort to control employee behaviours, it contributes to inter-organisational conflict because this structure is founded on the presumption that the management must monitor the activities of others rather than attempt to create shared decision-making. Hierarchical structures degrade quality and frequency of communications and deplete group performance (Kunda). Now, Kunda certainly emphasises the importance of building a cohesive culture with shared norms in which consultation between leaders and members occurs and where shared values and beliefs determine this cohesiveness. The problem, however, as identified by Kunda’s ethnographic study of a relevant tech firm, is that there is ambiguity between real practice toward culture development and legitimate efforts at decentralising a firm to make it more collaborative. Kunda (1992) revealed that the tech firm being studied is working toward becoming an informal, non-authoritarian and flexible working environment which provides rewards for performance and commitment, allows opportunities for creative expression and promotes professional growth. However, Kunda found this activity to actually be a persistent effort to mask what was actually an elaborate and rather cunning method to build a type of normative control which was still aligned with the universal cultural bias to establish some form of control over employee attitudes, behaviours and job role activities. For example, Kunda found that the tech firm under investigation instructed employees that they were responsible, individually, for their own career growth and development. This injected a socio-psychological perception that the organisation would provide for autonomous working environments, which is recognised to increase motivation and organisational commitment (Ferris, Frink, Bhawuk and Zhou 1996). The goal of the managers of the tech firm was to ensure that employees were committed to achieving strategic goals which would ultimately lead to higher organisational performance and productivity. In reality, however, it seemed a clever methodology of establishing a set of norms which essentially fooled employees into believing that the business was building a more laissez-faire culture. In truth, management still controlled the rewards received by employees for achieving performance targets and enhancing autonomous skills development. As a result of this extrinsic reinforcement, workers were actually complying with what management actually wanted rather than actually expressing their own ingenuity and creativity (Kunda). Hence, Kunda saw the development of organisational culture as a means of expressing managerial political power. Kunda found that lower-level members of the tech firm began working much later hours than their managers as a means of expressing their organisational commitment and ability to outperform their peers. These political performances served to influence managers to assign workers to particular desired projects and deliver certain rewards for this commitment. The shared cultural norm in this case was one of top performance which essentially caused employees to compete with one another (productively) to achieve further extrinsic rewards that were still managed and disseminated by a dominant management team. Normative control and political agendas Fullan (2001, p.166) describes culture quite simplistically: it is “how the organisation does things around here”. At the tech firm, management was generating top level performance from employees and motivating their dedication and commitment by establishing a culture in which all members recognised they would be commended and applauded for these achievements. It established a set of politically-motivated professional norms in which all members expected top performance from peers. In truth, employees were actually succumbing to normative control ideology which governed productive behavioural outputs. Alvesson (2002) calls this organisational enculturation and described how one firm taught its newest recruited employees about the imperative of building a culture of diversity which was actually a strategy to induce commitment to working overtime. Employees embraced this social norm as members of the organisational culture to drive higher productive outputs when in reality managers were the beneficiaries of top performance by using the pretence of diversity as a motivational tool. Feldman (1999) explores the work of Kunda, reinforcing that organisational culture development can actually be manipulated as a political tool to ensure that employee actions and behaviours are controlled. The author argues that by setting the norm that employees can achieve independence in their job roles, they have opportunities to be self-interested and become motivated to achieve important targets. In truth, workers are actually clinging to this type of delusion as it provides a psychological mechanism by which a worker can sustain their personal dignity in an environment which demands inter-group dependency (Knights and Collinson 1987). Hence, in reference to Kunda’s ethnographic study of the tech firm, the author is attempting to iterate that organisational culture can actually be a methodology of monitoring employee job activities whilst still maintaining a managerial hegemony that manipulates emotions and psycho-social needs of employees in order to bring a business competitive human capital advantages. James and Connolly (2009, p.390) iterates Kunda’s definition of organisational culture as the agreed-upon rules which serve as governance of emotional and cognitive perceptions of organisational membership. The tech firm explored in Kunda’s work appealed to employees to be cohesive members of a performance-oriented culture, using the facade of independence and through the utilisation of rewards methodology to ensure commitment, loyalty and motivation. What was actually occurring, it would appear, was that managers were still adhering to rather autocratic management in a way that was subtle and moderately covert. Hence, culture at the firm was a type of normative control system that not only enhanced commitment (though rather fraudulently), but gave employees a perception of holding some level of power in the organisation when, in fact, such power was still maintained by the management team. Kunda asserts that in an organisation that develops organisational culture in this fashion establish what is referred to as agents of control which are prevalent throughout the organisational model. Though the culture is dictated by an emphasis on decentralisation and consensus, which serves as the corporate philosophy, theatrics symbolized by power and control are still prevalent and legitimate. What really occurs in firms such as the tech organisation investigated by Kunda is a collapse between the ideology of cohesive culture and politics which ensure the main beneficiary of behavioural norms related to top performance is the organisation itself; rather than actually dedicating leadership to build legitimate human development and enhancing career capacities. Organisations that purport themselves as having looseness in rigid management structures construct ceremonial and symbolic ritualised business activity which produces employee acceptance of their membership role in the established culture and a type of cognitive legitimacy regarding the organisation’s mission and internal practise (Kocsynski, Hodson and Edwards 2006). Over time, it becomes difficult for employees to conceive that the organisation could be configured in any type of different fashion. As a result, the prevailing corporate cultural norm of autonomy and extrinsic reward for contingent performance and achievement becomes a standardised set of beliefs that drive high quality job performance. Social systems and reference group influence Kunda further views the importance of social systems and reference groups as being an influence in what drives attitudes and behaviours related to a set of common shared values and beliefs. Though Kunda reinforces that not all employees were effectively brainwashed to accept the prevailing culture ideology continuously reinforced by a controlling managerial team, the ideology effectively became part of all members’ social beliefs in the pursuit of attaining individual rewards for performance. Those who were effectively indoctrinated to genuinely believe in this set of norms began to serve as important reference group figures that would openly express their satisfaction versus dissatisfaction for other employees who did not illustrate the ideology in their job role activities and team-working. Hence, the organisational leadership was again able to establish more conformity to being part of a top performing organisational culture by imposing a rigorous set of peer judgments that had significant socio-psychological impact on other peer members’ behaviours and motivation. Weiten and Lloyd (2010) reinforce this, stating that one of the most fundamental and universal needs of humans is to achieve social belonging. Many of the members of the tech firm investigated by Kunda actually did buy into the ideology of autonomy, decentralisation and achievement of superior job role performance that were rapidly becoming established corporate norms. As a result, members of the organisation that did not meet these expectations were going to be theoretically subjected to negative critiques and evaluations by peer reference groups that had been coerced to adopt the firm’s coercive and oftentimes counterfeit ideologies. This too served as a type of normative control system whereby social evaluations and judgments served as motivation to achieve high performance targets and ultimately embrace the culture of performance. Hence, there was the potentiality for conflict between peer group members to evolve if those who had not been effectively programmed to adopt the prevailing cultural norms of productivity defied membership in the corporate culture. Tjosvold (2005) iterates that cooperative conflict resolution serves to strengthen relationships and builds a sense of trust among team members. Therefore, in order to sustain a legitimate membership role and gain respect of others (who did accept the convoluted ideology of autonomy and performance), it was crucial to conform to the socially-driven expectations of employee reference groups to minimise conflict and build cohesive trusting relationships. Again, the genuine recipient of rewards was the tech firm organisation studies by Kunda by effectively using established norms as a tool for driving collaboration and team productivity by making appeals to human social needs. Dissonance, therefore, was harmonised through organisational culture development underpinned by an agenda for control in which the prevailing culture norm was achievement, autonomy and consensus. Difficulties in culture change as advantage to Kunda’s tech firm Schein (2010) points out that once a culture is established, it is very difficult to change and will tend to outlast even services, products and leaders. Kunda’s assertions about the normative control capabilities of organisational culture shows how Kunda’s studies fit into the prevailing literature regarding culture in the organisation. Management at the tech firm persistently reiterated the importance of high performance and opportunities for autonomous career self-development as predominant organisational vision and set of beliefs. This set of beliefs became an important artefact that served to motivate, build commitment and give organisational members a perception of power as a member (though largely distorted). With the knowledge that changing a set culture is problematic, this is why the tech firm under investigation in Kunda’s ethnographic work continued to achieve top performance and expression of political objectives pertaining to employees working overtime to illustrate their performance-oriented commitment to the organisation. Even though the legitimacy of these constant reiterations about being a performance-oriented organisation is questionable in terms of the genuine desire to build shared decision-making, Kunda’s explored tech firm clearly illustrated that once a culture has been built, it is problematic to attempt to change it. In the case of the ethnographic study on the tech firm, this clearly had long-run advantages for the management team at this organisation. Conclusion As illustrated by the research, Kunda’s work justifies the assertions and empirical evidence about the nature of organisational culture and how it becomes a normative tool for control by management team members. Due to the socio-psychological dimensions that influence behaviour and attitude in a cultural context, managers can effectively indoctrinate organisational members to accept a prevailing norm (both social and professional) and incorporate this norm into their own individual belief and value systems. Organisational culture as product of politically-motivated control agendas, though somewhat corrupt, is still a legitimate methodology to ensure an organisation has committed, loyal, high performing and contented employees that work diligently to satisfy the needs of the organisational leadership. Though legitimate power is still retained by management who control rewards that further motivate dedication and hard-working ideology, employees believe they have power and influence and, therefore, achieve important targets and job role outputs. Kunda, as well as many other supporting researchers and practitioners illustrated in this essay, saw the many opportunities of using cultural development as a control methodology in the contemporary organisational environment based on many human behavioural tendencies that are universal amongst disparate members of the culture in many different organisations and industries. This essay explored Kunda’s evaluations of organisational culture and illustrated how these evaluations fit into existing literature on organisational culture and its contemporary dynamics. The most important findings illustrate that culture as a normative control mechanism enhances worker motivations and productivity whether a legitimate effort to build a consensus-based culture or whether as a somewhat misleading methodology to ensure that managers still dominate worker efficiency to gain organisational advantages. As illustrated, the prevalence of shared meanings, values and attitudes, symbolically, determine the type of culture that prevails within an organisation. Kunda agreed with this definition of organisational culture which is a predominant theme in contemporary organisational literature describing culture and its impact on business productivity and strategy outcomes. References Alvesson, M. (2002). Understanding organizational culture. London: Sage. 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Team effectiveness in China: cooperative conflict for relationship building, Human Relations, 58(3), pp.341-365. Weiten, W. and Lloyd, M.A. (2010). Psychology applied to modern life: adjustment in the 21st Century, 8th edn. London: Wadsworth Publishing. Read More