Organizational Culture Importance during Change Management - Coursework Example

ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE IMPORTANCE DURING CHANGE MANAGEMENT Table of Contents Page 3 2 Introduction 4 3 Literature Review & Critique 4 4 The Implementation Process 6 5 Conclusion 7 6 Bibliography 9 1 Abstract The culture of an organization is its integral part and behaviours and attitudes of its people are responsible for the organization’s success or failure. Theories of human resource policies have been examined to determine how and why changes take place that affect the organizational culture. It has also been established that training and guidance from consultants or experts is required for change management and that they have to know and understand the current organizational culture to ensure a smooth transition to new or changed values. 2 Introduction Companies need strategies to remain competitive in the market. This is a continuing exercise which brings in changes. These changes lead to strategic issues and managers deal with them in a duality of theory and practice. The theories recommend cold reason and logic wile the practice is overwhelmed by culture and politics of management. The culture of the organization, whether sponsored or patronized by management or developed by customs and practices, often becomes a barrier in implementing strategic management policies. 3 Literature Review & Critique While there are many well defined and understood theories of strategic management there are few for cultural and management practices. The managers often fall back on these theories to emulate them in practice. Shared views, aims, ideals and practices are the basis of cognitive behaviour. These are the ingredients that form the culture of an organization. According to Nelson and Winter (1982) routine interactions within the working environment forms the basis of organizational culture and a predictive pattern emerges. Deal and Kennedy 19820 describe it as “the way we do things here”. The importance of this routine is gaining importance as has been acknowledged by Cohen et al (1972) and Hedberg et al (1976. Ritual activities form another view of practices as shown by Trice and Beyer (1984, 1985). Training, assessments and promotions resulting in awards and recognition are other practices. People management has always fascinated everyone and various theories have been expounded to explain how people act and react in different situations. The primary image of an organization is akin to family, clan or tribe where relationships, needs, feelings and skills are the characteristics of its members. The objectives are empowerment, liberation, fulfilment and self actualization of both the individual and the group and the challenge is how to develop attitude to achieve this goal. There are three assumptions to all HR theories. Organizations serve human needs. People and organization need each other for this service. It is critical that people and the organization are in complete harmony to fulfil this purpose. Abraham Maslow (1954) described this in a hierarchical manner starting with human psychology, safety and security, belongingness, self esteem and finally self actualization. According Maslow employees have a basic human need and a right to strive for self-actualisation, just as much as the corporate directors and owners do and by this fulfilment the organization becomes stronger, competitive and profitable. Chris Argyris (1957) argued that conflict was an inherent part of the issue and the result of skill was monotony of work. This dehumanizes a person and leads to conflict. Frederick Herzberg (1959) propounds that there are indeed only two factors that motivate a person to work and they are hygiene and motivators like self actualization. Hygiene does not motivate but its absence will reduce motivation and a good hygienic environment enhances motivating factors like achievements, responsibility and advancement. He further states that increase in salary without better hygiene and the motivators will result in disaster. Negative or Positive attitude of the management is explained by Douglas McGregor (1960) in his theory X and theory Y. According to him a negative attitude of the management, theory X, presupposes that workers are lazy, passive, without ambition, willing to be led and resist change. Hence management is through control, coercion, threats and punishment. This results in low productivity, antagonism, unionism and subtle sabotage. In contrast positive management, theory Y, believes that people are motivated, active and interested, ambitious, prefer to lead and are interested in change. Hence management is through open systems, communications, self-managing teams and peer controlled pay systems. The result is high productivity, bonhomie and care for the organization. Most industries operate on the X theory and therefore there is the usual mistrust and struggle between the management and the workers. Unions are stronger and teamwork is only on paper. Self actualization is narrowed to self empowerment at the cost of others. The abysmal results are there for all to see. Bankruptcies and failures abound and productivity is at all time low. 4 The Implementation Process Having laid down the way behaviours will form and determine Organizational Culture the next step is to implement these practices and policies throughout the organization. Both the management and staff/workers have to be guided into these activities as a regular routine and custom. It is important as the system of hierarchy will now be replaced by participation and motivated by self actualization. Empowerment is a welcome aspect but that it brings responsibilities and discipline in its wake is equally important. The whole attitude towards superiors and subordinates will have to undergo a sea change and people need to be trained for the new beginning or change as the case may be. Training programmes will have to be initiated to inform and educate all on the principles and assessments and evaluations will determine failures or deviations. Corrective measures have to be undertaken to correct course and sometimes a system of reward or punitive action is necessary to bring conformity. This is like setting of standards and parameters and evaluation systems. To set this up it is quite normal to bring in consultants to advise and educate the management and the employees to fully understand the requirements and the implications of success or failure. Ahead of the orientation programmes it is essential for these Implementers to be aware of the present prevalent culture of the organisation. They need to understand this in order to devise rules and provide for contingencies when change is taking place. This knowledge of the culture of the organization will avoid confrontations and conflicts of interest and is necessary for smooth implementation programmes. It will be wrong to say that since a change is taking place old values do not matter. For effecting any change knowledge of previous values, practices and customs is essential to ensure a painless transition from the old to the new. Glaser, Zamanou and Hacker (1987) measured organizational culture by using a triangular approach. This is a combination of quantitative data, interpretation of idiosyncrasies and complex perceptions of qualitative analysis. This provided a detailed analysis of the culture of an organization. Other researchers agree that organizational change implies cultural change and the challenge lies in its implementation. (Lundberg 1985; Thackeray 1986). Many companies like McDonalds have tried this approach with dramatic results of improved employee motivation and increased productivity. 5 Conclusion It has been observed that organizations are like a family and therefore growing and expanding organisms. They have to evolve and that means changes. Sometimes the changes are radical to remain in tune with changed environment and a good change management will ensure that policies that are framed are for the empowerment of its employees. An empowered employee is more productive and at the core of this is his self actualization. Such changes need knowledgeable experts to advise and train the people for effective results. But they too have to be aware of existing culture of the organization seeking change in order to avoid conflicts. Like the family the organizational culture is what will either take it to great heights or render it unfit to survive. 6 Bibliography Argyris, C., (1960). Individual actualization in complex organizations. Mental Hygiene, 44(2), 226‑37. Cohen, M.D., March, J.C., and Olsen, J.P. (1972), A Garbage Can Model of Organization Choice, Administrative Science Quarterly, 17: 1-25. Deal, T., and Kennedy, A. (1982), Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life, Reading, M.A: Addison-Wesley Hedberg,B., Nystrom, P., and Starbuck, W. (1976), Camping on Seesaws: Prescription for a Self- Designing Organization, Administrative Science Quarterly, 21: 41-65. Herzberg, F., Mausner, B., & Snyderman, B. B. (1959/1993). The motivation to work. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers Glaser, S.R., Zamanou, S., and Hacker, K. (1987), Measuring and Interpreting Organizational Culture, Management Communication Quarterly, 1(2), 173-198. Lunderberg, C.C. (1985). On the feasibility of Cultural Intervention in Organizations. In P.J.Frost, L.F.Moore, M.R.Louis, C.C.Lundberg, & J.Martins (Eds), Organizational Culture,pp 169-186, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Maslow, Abraham., Motivation and Personality, published in 1954 (second edition 1970) McGregor, D. (1960). The human side of organization. New York: McGraw Hill. Nelson, R., and Winter, S. (1982) An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change, Cambridge, M.A: Harvard University Press. Thackray, J. (1986 Feb), The Corporate Culture Rage, Management Today, 144, pp 67-69 Trice, H., and Beyer, J. (1984), Studying Organizational Cultures through Rites and Ceremonials, Academy of Management Review, 9(4): pp 653-669. Trice, H., and Beyer, J. (1985), Using Six Organizational Tires to Change Culture, in R.H. Kilman et al, (Eds) Gaining Control of the Corporate Culture, London: Jossey-Bass. 6 Bibliography Read More