The Importance of Cultural Web to HR Strategy - Research Proposal Example

THE IMPORTANCE OF CULTURAL WEB TO HR STRATEGY AND PRACTICE IN ORGANISATIONS TODAY Introduction 3 Organizational Culture 3 Qualities and Assumptions of Organizational Culture 5 Levels of Culture 6 Creation and Management of Organizational Culture 7 Cultural Web 7 Importance of Cultural to HR Strategy 9 Culture and HRM Policy: Empirical Evidence 10 Conclusion 11 References 12 Introduction On the wake of globalization with ever increasing competition and diverse cultures for globalized organizations, the importance of organizational analysis is increasing to develop a sound understanding of the organizational structure and culture in which the company is operating. It helps not only in developing an effective strategy but also determines the ease or difficulty with which the strategy will be adopted. Organizations do cultural mapping to assess its ability to adapt and change according to the changes in policy and environment. Organizations faced with similar environment may respond differently. The collective behaviour of the managers and employees and their ability to respond to human resource (HR) policies and practices is determined by the culture of the organization. This cultural web is an important determinant in the effectiveness of strategy. This paper aims at analyzing the various aspects of cultural web. What are its major constituents? It will also analyze the role of cultural web in the HR strategy, policies and practices. It will also analyze the extent to which organizations today are using cultural web in devising and implementing their HR strategy. Organizational Culture Organizational culture is “The collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one organisation from another” (Hofstede 1991). Organizational culture plays a very important role in the growth, performance and success of the organizations. Its importance today has increased manifold as compared to the past. Traditional sources of success or competitive advantage such as product, technology, economies of scale etc are becoming less important in today’s world. Organizational culture and human resource management capabilities are becoming more vital for sustained growth these days (Alvesson, 2002). Culture is a dynamic phenomenon constantly in the process of evolution with our interactions and it is shaped by leadership, structures, rules and regulations and principles that guide our behaviour. When culture is brought into the organizations one can observe not only its creation, evolution and embodiment in daily routine and practices within the organization but also as a guiding force that stabilizes, constraints and provide organizational structure and meaning to the employees. Although culture is an abstract term but the forces that create this culture in the society and organization are very important. Hence culture should not only be understood but given the deserved importance as well (Schein, 2004). Culture in any society is guided by collective programming of the society developed over time. The guidelines defined by culture are based on certain assumptions which reflect in the attitudes, behaviour and values of the individuals and groups and organizations at large. These learned assumptions assume a pattern and passed down to generations. There are two types of culture formal and informal or structured and unstructured. The informal culture is formed without conscious effort with the interaction of people. However structured or formal culture in organizations is formed by leaders. Successful leaders develop an understanding of the organizational culture and conform to existing one just enough to gain authenticity. If a leader fails to make necessary adjustments he fails to gain trust and authenticity and hence conformity of the organisational members. However too much conformity is also dangerous and can lead to loss of authenticity. Hence a balance is required for success (Goffee et al. 2006). Organizations are independent entities and hence the difference between the goal of employees and organizations may occur. Organizational culture defines a set of values and determines the acceptable and unacceptable behaviour in the organization. These values of culture are represented by a series of factors collectively called cultural web. Strength of culture determines its influence on employee behaviour. Core values of the organization are represented in the dominant organizational culture which in turn is shaped by the majority of the organizational members. It helps in finding the best fit for external and internal environment (Griffin and Moorhead, 2011). Qualities and Assumptions of Organizational Culture The idea of organizational culture is not new. It has been present in the history for a long time and in other disciplines such as sociology and anthropology. Organizational culture is a shared pattern based on many assumptions, beliefs, values, myths, stories and rituals developed by organizational members over the years. The main features of organizational culture are the artefacts, language, collective behaviour which takes the form of ritualistic expression.(Schein, 2004) Culture acts as a unifying force, a binding mechanism or glue which not only integrate various variables in the organization but also the human resource. It provides guideline to the employees so that every employee can give attention to only what matters. Organizational culture can be structured by identifying the core company values and by deciding what the company stands for. It requires consistency, consensus and clarity. In weal organizational cultures a lot of company resources and employee time is wasted in figuring out the desired behaviour by the organization. Strong organizational cultures result in committed, motivated and hard working employees who are dedicated to a cause. It leads to not only increased efficiency and productivity but employees can be moved to go beyond their contract. A basic principle in this regard is to win the heart and minds of the employees by managing how employees think and feel instead of just analyzing their behaviour. Organizational culture is perceived as a natural force which is self reinforcing and crucial for organizational success. Managers can play an important role is shaping the culture (Knights et al. 2006) Levels of Culture According to Schein there are three levels of organizational culture namely artefacts, espoused values and basic underlying assumptions. Artefacts are visible organizational structures and process which are hard to decipher. Artefacts are things which we see, observe hear and feel. It includes things such as dress codes, patterns of behaviour, physical symbols, organizational ceremonies, and a published list of values, myths and stories of the organization (Senior, 2010). It is hard to decipher because it is rooted in the deeper levels of organizational culture and assumptions. The second level is espoused values. It includes strategies goals and philosophies. These values are hypotheses and gives information about integrating as a group and adapting to environmental changes. It is about espoused justifications i.e. how people justify what they do. If an espoused valuing is helping in the groups functioning or reducing the anxiety or unstable relationship then it slowly becomes the basic underlying assumption i.e. the only desirable and acceptable behaviour. The third level is about basic assumptions which are unconscious and taken for granted beliefs, perceptions and thoughts. It is embedded so deep in the culture that members are not conscious or aware of it any more. It includes structure, system etc. It tells about how group members and employees think and feel about the problems and issues. Schein’s model is particularly useful in organizations with strong cultures which is determined by the strength and amount of homogeneity in group members as well as duration and intensity of shared values (Smart, 2010) Creation and Management of Organizational Culture There are many factors that influence cultures and leadership plays an important role in creating and managing culture. The factors that play an important role in defining culture can be divided into three categories, societal norms, external adaptation and internal integration. Societal norms include those factors which affect the culture of society as well such as demographics, attitudes and values of the people in general. External adaptation is the national culture how readily an organization can adapt to the national culture in context. Internal integration includes internal factors such as technology, systems and processes etc. In addition to these factors founding members also have strong influence on the organizational culture through their philosophy, social structure, norms and values, remembered history and symbolism and institutional arrangements (Durai, 2010). Cultural Web Cultural web is defined as the physical manifestation of organizational culture. Understanding of culture at all levels is though very important but it is by no means a straight forward task. Even with very well defined and written strategies and organizational values the underlying assumptions making up this paradigm of cultural web are reflected in day to day activities and behaviour of the people. These behaviours provide an understanding of the assumptions and reinforce the assumptions in the paradigm. The figure below shows the cultural web( Johnson et al 2009). The above figure shows the main constituents of the cultural web. This cultural web outlines some questions which help in developing an understanding of the culture. Stories are important because of their relevance to core beliefs. Do these stories relate to the main strengths and weaknesses? how pervasive these stories are into the beliefs of the culture? Do stories support conformity or the mavericks? What was the degree of deviation for the successful mavericks? Routines and rituals provide information about what routine should be followed. What is the desirable behaviour and what routine should be encouraged? What are the key rituals and what core belief do they reflect? Do such routine and rituals are emphasized in training programs. How easy it is in an organization to change those rituals and routines? Control system identifies what is most closely monitored and controlled? What is the emphasis of HR reward or punishment? How effectively these control systems are related to strategy? Are there too many or too few control systems? Symbols gives an insight into what part of strategy is emphasized in public. What particular symbols denote the organization? Are there any status symbols? Power structure gives the insight into the distribution of power within the organization. It also determines the core beliefs of the leadership. It also identifies the major barriers to change. Organizational structure determines the hierarchy of authority or chain of command. It also identifies whether organizational structure is competitive or collaborative and how formal and informal is organizational structure. All these factors of cultural web together define the paradigm upon which the culture of an organization is based (Benedict, 2005). Importance of Cultural to HR Strategy Leadership, HR strategy and HR practices have strong correlation with culture. The aim of HRM strategy is to align HR activities and practices with corporate strategy. HR is now considered the strategic partner of the business whose role is not restricted to strategy implementation but also strategy formulation and HR in today’s organizations is increasingly viewed as a source of competitive advantage. Hence HR policies and practices cannot be made in isolation. It has to take into account all external and internal factors that affect the organization including organizational culture. The much touted strategic view of HR requires proactive strategies by HR which is directed to optimize opportunities for long term sustained growth of the organization. Without this strategic view and incorporation of factors like organizational culture, HRM activities will remain isolated independent activities lacking central purpose and coherent structure. HRM through its activities of recruitment and selection, training and development and performance evaluation should emphasize those values of the organization identified in the cultural web. Reinforcement of the desirable behaviour in the organization through the HRM activities will strengthen the organizational culture and hence will lead to achievement of organizational objectives (Heracleous, 2003). HR can reinforce and emphasize the desirable behaviour in the organizational culture through its daily routine activities and practices. Through recruitment and selection it can select people who are already in conformity with the organizational culture. HR can also strengthen culture by rewarding the desired behaviour in the employees. It can design the evaluation system in a way in which the emphasis is on the desired behaviour. For example if teamwork is the desired behaviour in an organization, HR can develop a performance evaluation system in which this quality of the employee is judged. Based on this performance evaluation an employee can be rewarded. In this way team work will be emphasized in the organizational culture through Hr strategy. In the similar manner lack of a certain ability or behaviour can be improved in employees by designing and imparting appropriate training to the employee. In this manner HR can not only be reactive by designing strategy according to the organizational culture but can play a strategic role by being proactive. Strategic HR policy can even bring changes in the organizational culture and lead organizational culture towards the future demands of the organization to match the external and internal fit (Stonehouse, 2004). Culture and HRM Policy: Empirical Evidence Culture has an important role to play in the determination of HR strategy and HR practices. A study was conducted in the New Zealand public sector to study the correlation of leadership and culture in HR strategy. Although the role of leadership was identified much greater than the culture but still a strong correlation of culture and HR strategy was also found. Leadership and culture combined together were responsible for 50% of the outcome of HR strategy measures. Culture is closely related to the human side of the organization and hence its role in the effectiveness of HR practices and employee behaviour is quite expected. Several studies have been conducted to study the impact of culture on different kinds of variable outcomes in an attempt to statistically measure the outcomes of various HR activities such as performance, training, selection etc with different cultures. After using different methodologies to assess the culture and performance, it is argued that only parts of the organizational culture have been assessed mostly at the levels of perceived norms, values and beliefs. Hence there is a lot of room for further research with multi method approaches and large comparable data. In short we can analyze that there is enough empirical evidence available based on the study of various organizations worldwide to prove a strong correlation between HR strategy and performance and organizational culture (Ashkanasy et al. 2011) Conclusion After studying the various constituents, levels and various other aspects of culture which together determine the Cultural web, it is concluded that culture is very important in determining the HR strategy and its effectiveness. HR strategy deals with the people and so does culture and hence there is a strong relationship between them. HR cannot take its strategic view and make its strategy in isolation without taking into account all the external and internal factors affecting the organization. Organizational culture is an important force of internal environment. HR activities will not be effective and will not yield desired results if it is not formed in congruence with organizational culture. In fact HR strategy play an active role in strengthening the culture by rewarding and emphasizing the desired behaviour in organizational culture through its recruitment and selection, performance evaluation and training and development activities. A strong culture backed by hr strategy which is in alignment with corporate strategy ensures sustainable growth for the organization. References Ashkanasy, Neal M., Wilderom, Celeste P M., Peterson, Mark F. (2011) The Handbook of Organizational Culture and Climate, London: Sage Publications Alvesson, M. (2002) Understanding organizational culture, London: Sage Publications Benedict, R. (2005) Patterns of Culture, New York, Houghton Mifflin Durai, P. (2010) Human Resource Management, New Delhi: Dorling Kingsley Goffee, R., Jones, G. (2006) Why should anyone be led by you?: what does it take to be a leader, Boston: Harvard Business Press Griffin, Ricky W., Moorhead, G. (2011) Organizational Behaviour, USA: South Western Cengage learning Heracleous, L., (2003) Strategy and organization: realizing strategic management, New York: Cambridge University Press Johnson, G., Scholes, K., Whittington, R. (2009) Exploring Corporate Strategy, New Delhi: Dorling Kingsley Knights, D., Willmott, H. (2006) Introducing Organizational behaviour and management, UK: Thompson Learning Schein, Edgar H. (2004) Organizational culture and leadership, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Smart, John C. (2010) Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Volume 25, London: Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg Senior, B., Fleming, J., (2010) Organizational Change, New Delhi: Pearson Education Stonehouse, G., Cambell, D., (2004) Global and transnational business: Strategy and management, England: John Wiley Read More