WEEK 04: CORPORATE CULTURE / 7-S FRAMEWORK
Sections: Culture | 7-S Framework | Student's Corner
Culture
Definition. There are a number of definitions of culture, per se:
- a total way of life
- the social legacy the individual acquires from his group.
- a way of thinking, feeling and believing.<
- an abstraction from behavior.
- the way a group of people behave.
- a storehouse of pooled learning
- a set of standardized orientations to recuurrent problems.
- mechanism for the normative regulation of behavior.
- set of techniques for adjusting both to thhe external environment and other men.
- a precipitate of history.
Corporate Culture, states Reimann and Wiener, is a the expressions of the values and beliefs of the members of the organization have come to share and holds the organization together.
Organization with Strong Culture. Attributes of an organization with strong culture includes, firstly, high levels of committed bylaws, i.e, a guided innate sense of right and wrong and a powerful supplement to traditional motivational practices. Secondly, corporate goals, policies, strategies and action prgrams are rooted in and consistent with a stable set of organization values, i.e., a thematic orientation and predictability to organizational life.
High Levels of Commitment can be achieved through:
1. Bias for Action. Do it, fix it, try it. Emphasis is on analysis and decision-making.
2. Good Customer Contacts. "Learn from those you serve."
3. Autonomy & Entrepreneurship Loose-rein leadership, freedom of creation and practical risk-taking.
4. Productivity through People. Rank and file is the source of productivity gains and quality assurance.
5. Hands-on, Value-Drive "Observe what is done and not done."
Organizational Values are attained by the following tenets:
1. Know Your Business The beter tge understanding, the better the business.
2. Streamline Structures are lean, systems are simple.
3. Balance between Decentralization and Centralization Delegation, Authority and Accountability are maximized.
Value-Based Classification.
1. Content-Focus
a. Functional - functions performed for, and in relation with, important organizational publics: product quality, costumer service, innovation.
b. Elitist - primacy or superiority of the firm's membership, product and services as an end in itself. There is a sense of pride: "We Are No. 1" on its membership and its output.
2. Source/Anchor
a. Charismatic Leader - acceptance is by personal identification with its leader.
b. Organizational tradition - same or similar values are transmitted from one generation of organizational membership to the next, this more stable, time-tested and predictable.
Generic Types.
1. Entrepreneurial - usually culture emanates from the founder's way of thinking, feeling and believing.
2. Strategic - presence of corporate identity adapt to environmental changes.
3. Chauvinistic - there is blind loyalty, and tendencies to religion and cult.
4. Exclusive - members belong to same law, education, clubs.
Dysfunctions of Chauvinistic Culture.
1. Navel-Gazing (Elitist Myopia). Potential environmental threats, like technical obsolescence and new competitors, are missed or ignored.
2. Bozo Syndrome Organizational members reject information that does not fit their on view of the world. Invincibility is strong that belittles or underestimates competitors. Leader usually scorn advice from experts and consultants. The organization also ignore customers' real wants, citing "We know better than those bozos."
3. Loose Ethics -
End justifies the means. Profit maximizationis great thus employees resort to unethical practices.
Subculture. The culture of organizational units, e.g., departments and divisions or on cross-organizational groups, e.g., project teams.
Counterculture. Management has one set of values while rank and file has another, often conflicting beliefs. Types of this are:
1. Civil Service Mentality. Minimal effort, protection of status quo, usually curbed with mass firing or retrenchment.
2. Management vs. Labor.
3. Merger/Acquisition-related.
Shaping Culture:Steps.
1. Develop self-awareness of leaders:
a. Discourage personality cults or excessive hero-worshipping.
b. Practice delegation and participation.
c. Practice constructive dissent.
d. Promote functional values: corporate discipline, self-sacrifice, fairness, initiative, creativity.
e. Step aside is development of strategic culture is inhibited.
2. Recruit people whose personal vlaues are consistent with functional organizational values.
3. Socialization and orientation trhough use of symbols, rituals, myths, and specific languages.
4. Promote strong central culture by preventing counterculture development.
5. Remove charismatic leaders.
Sections: Culture | 7-S Framework | Student's Corner
7-S Framework
Definition. The 7-S Framework was developed by McKinsey. It considers that culture is a factor and the foundation of the 7-S: Strategy, Structure, Systems, Style, Staff, Shared Values, Skills.
1. Strategy. It is a coherent set of actions aimed at gaining a sustainable advantage over competition, improving position vis-a-vis customers, or allocating resources.
2. Structure. The organizational chart and accompanying baggage that shows who reports to whom and how tasks are both divided up and integrated.
3. Systems. The processes and flows that show how an organiztion gets things done from day-to-day: information, capital budgetting, manufacturing processes, quality, performance measurement and maintenance systems.
4. Style. The tangible evidence of what management considers important by the way it collectively spends time and attention and uses symbolic behavior.
5. Staff. The people in an organization, not individual personalities but corporate demographics.
6. Shared Values. The superodrinate goals. The values that go beyond, but includes, simple goal statement [vision] in determining corporate destiny which should be shared by most.
7. Skills. Those capabilities that are possessed by an organization as a whole as opposed to the people in it.
Sections: Culture | 7-S Framework | Student's Corner
Student's Corner
Assignment No. 01 Corporate Culture. Select one.
Enumerate the instances, then describe in detail, which depict or observable Corporate Culture, existing in:
a) St. Peter's College
c) Philippines, the country as whole
b) Engineering professional organization
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