MGMT 110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Masculinity, Organizational Culture, Individualism
MANAGING CULTURES
• Cultures within an organisation are not usually capable of being managed
• Dimensions of culture include:
• Symbols
• Artefacts
• Norms
• Stories and narratives
• Gestures
• Values
• Cultures comprise of the habits, values, mores and norms by which people identify
themselves
• One way to establish norms is to break them down, breaching norms draws them to
attention
• Culture is everyday knowledge people use habitually to make sense of the world
• Patterns of shared meaning and understanding is passed down through language,
symbols and artefacts
• Norms are tacit and unspoken assumptions and informal rules, the meanings of
which are negotiated in everyday interactions
• Values are a set of beliefs that serve as guiding principles; trans-situational values
are consistent and stable across situations
• Artefacts are things with which we mark our territory and are symbolic of culture
(decorations, uniforms, architecture, furniture)
• Meaning is dependent on the culture in which artefacts and symbols are
encountered. This context is referred to as culture
• Organisational culture
• Comprises of the deep, basic assumptions, beliefs and shared values that
define organisational membership
• Refers to members’ habitual ways of making decisions and presenting
themselves and their organisation with those who come in contact with it
• Ethnography is an approach to research that attempts to understand social
phenomena, such as organisational life as it happens and in its own terms (includes
observations, interviews, collection of artefacts)
• Schein’s levels of culture
• Artefacts
• Espoused values (consistent beliefs about something in which an individual
has an emotional investment)
• Basic assumptions (the essence of a culture – intangible and tacit frames
shaping values and artefacts)
• Perspectives of culture
• Integrationist (Peters & Waterman)
• One strong and commonly accepted culture with shared values
• Assumes an integrated culture leads to performance
• Differentiation (Anthropological)
• Multiple cultures are likely to be the norm, rather than one
• Cultures can come and go
• Subcultures can become legitimate and dominant cultures
• Fragmentation
• Cultures are fragmented, unstable, fluid and temporary
• Hofstede’s national cultures assumes
• Nations have one, commonly-shared culture
• Cultures are a mental program – the “software of the mind”
• Nations can be grouped based on surveys measuring cultural dimensions
• Power distance
• Uncertainty avoidance
• Individualism and collectivism
