Debating organisational culture and change
Saturday, 8 December 2007
Md. Amlan J. Haque
DEFINING organisational culture is more like a debate then just to define the term itself. The debate starts when we try to structure the different organisational functions and its people's behaviour. As Steven (1989) illustrates, the organisational culture perspective is challenging the views of the structural and systems' perspectives about basic issues: for example, how organisations make decisions, and how and why people in organisations behave as they do. The problem of defining organisational culture derives from the fact that the concept of organisation is itself ambiguous (Schein 1990). Another reason for the debate could be the culture itself, because that even varies from one place to another. This condition has turned out because of people's use of different concepts and definitions with their own perspectives. Hence Pacanowsky and O'Donnell-Trujillo (1983, p126) said, "organisational culture is not just another piece of the puzzle, it is the puzzle. From our point of view, a culture is not something an organisation has; a culture is something an organisation is". Now rather than going into the debate, I would like to describe the way I understand organisational culture. Here I must say that I would like to define the complex concept of organisational culture by inductively building the generalised theoretical definitions of different scholars' experiences, preferences and assumptions.
Generally, when I think about organisational culture, my thought gives the meaning of something similar to the culture in a society that consists of such things like norms, values, beliefs, assumptions, perceptions, behaviours, artifacts etc. According to Kilmann et al. (1985), organisational culture is a social energy that moves people to act. Similarly McShane and Travaglione (2003) define organisation culture as "the basic pattern of shared assumptions, values and beliefs governing the way employees within an organisation think about and act on problems and opportunities".
The never ending effort of defining organisational culture has got an accepted platform by the well renowned guru of organisational culture, Edgar H. Schein and here I would like to limit my findings for definition with his given statement about organisational culture:
"A pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems." (Schein, 1992, pp 373-374). Still the debate could be continued why is this definition a good one? Why is it more useful than the others for thinking about how culture changes?
Now, if we agree that organisational culture is something difficult to even define because of its different perspectives and interpretations, then it is obvious that it would be more difficult, when it comes to transform or change. Moreover, organisational culture is not such science that we can consider any scientific equation to organisational change. As Schein (1990) suggested organisational culture is a complex phenomenon, and we should not rush to measure things until we understand better what we are measuring. Now the question arises, why do we need to change organisational culture? Because, if it is more difficult to change then we have to justify that why that change is very necessary? Yes, I can give the simplest answer to get into the main discussion and that is only because of organisational success through organisational performance. In other words, we need to bother about and deal with the difficulties for changing organisational culture to ensure the ultimate success of any organisation. Kate Harrad has indicated that, The Harvard Business Review recently conducted a study of successful companies and found that the most successful ones consistently performed well at what they described as "the four primary management practices" - strategy, execution, culture, and structure. Thus I am not hesitating to say that organizational culture is one of the keys to organizational success. Here the question may be asked that how important is it compared to the others? I must say that other factors are obviously not less important but here I am focusing only the cultural aspect for organizational change.
Now why is it difficult to change? McShane and Travaglione (2003) explained three main functions of organizational culture. First it is a deeply embedded form of social control. Second, it is the 'social glue' that bonds people together and makes them feel part of the organizational experience. Third, corporate culture helps employees to make sense of the workplace. Now when I think of any change of existing organisations culture in light of those functions, it is very much understandable that the response of those involved people, specially employees will not only be negative rather it might turn out to destructions of the organisation because of employee dissatisfaction. Thus it is a tough challenge to change organisation culture.
I think it is helpful to understand the difficulty of changing organizational culture by observing the iceberg model. The model states that the formal organisation represented by easily visible artifacts such as tools, processes, roles, and organisation charts, actually makes up only a small part of an organisation; whereas, the largest part of the organisation, its cultural side is invisible under the waterline. This unobserved part consists of customs, values, heuristics, beliefs, stereotypes, taboos etc. Again, according to Schein (1990), analyzing the culture of a particular group or organization, it is desirable to distinguish three fundamental levels at which culture manifests itself as observable artifacts, values and basic underlying assumptions. Here I would like to analytically focus the difficulties for changing organizational culture. Edgar H. Schein (1981, 1984, and 1985),a clinical psychologist turned organizational theorist, refined the distinction between the adaptations and ideational views of culture by conceptualizing three levels of organizational culture: Level : artifacts , Level 2: values and believes and Level 3: basic underlying assumptions.
Level 1: artifacts are the behavioural patterns which are visible, tangible and audible results of behaviours. For example, an organisation's written and spoken language, office layout, technology; behavioural norms etc. Taking the organization like Sony in Japan, we can observe their own written and spoken language, behavioural norms and technology of Japanese organizational culture. These artifacts are the very primary visible issues that we can signify easily. Thus in this level issues can be changed comparably in an easier effort than other levels. Sathe (1985) describes artifacts as relatively 'easy' to see but hard to interpret without an understanding of the other two levels.
Level 2 of organizational culture consists of beliefs and values. They are the sense of "what 'ought' to be, as distinct from what is" (Schein,1985, p15). For example Sony has the core beliefs and values of elevation of the Japanese culture and national status or being a pioneer to not following others and doing the impossible. Hence this level comes as the harder level to implement organizational change. Sathe (1985) describes level 2 as revealing how people communicate, explain, rationalise, and justify what they say and do as a community.
Level 3 basic underlying assumptions are distinct from preferred solutions 'what should be' in the sense of dominant values. This level includes spirit and truths of the surrounding social context. For example replacing the spirit and social contest of Sony in Japan with western spirit and contest would be the hardest job to ensure. As Schein (1985, p18) claimed that basic assumptions, like theorists -in -use, tend to be non confrontable and non debatable. One of the flaws of studying organizational symbols, stories, myths, and other such artifacts is that we may make incorrect inferences from them if we do not know how they connect to underlying assumptions (Pondy, Boland, & Thomas, 1988; Pondy, Frost, Morgan, & Dandridge, 1983; Wilkins, 1983). Hence the elements in level 3 prove to be not only the hardest task to initiate any change in organizational culture. Rather, it sometimes becomes the never changing issue for the organizational change.
Now summarizing the difficulties to change organizational culture, I can say that the change requires uncovering core values and beliefs which are very difficult to see. Because these may include existing values and goals, but they are also embedded in organizational metaphors, myths, stories, and in the behaviour of the involved employees. Again, differences between core values and beliefs of different subcultures within the organization have to be acknowledged, respected, and discussed, which is not very easy to do. Lastly, maintaining the above effects over a long period of time as a continuous process as well as ensure that the new members are enforced by the desirable behaviour, make the whole process more difficult.
Thus, organizational culture with what, why and how- is like a never ending discussion to conclude with any specific and exact answer because of the mysterious chemistry of human psychology, different perspectives of culture and organization itself.
The writer is studying Strategic Human Resource Management, University of Wollongong, Australian and a lecturer, School of Business, Independent University of Bangladesh. He can be reached at
e-mail: ajhaque@gmail.com
DEFINING organisational culture is more like a debate then just to define the term itself. The debate starts when we try to structure the different organisational functions and its people's behaviour. As Steven (1989) illustrates, the organisational culture perspective is challenging the views of the structural and systems' perspectives about basic issues: for example, how organisations make decisions, and how and why people in organisations behave as they do. The problem of defining organisational culture derives from the fact that the concept of organisation is itself ambiguous (Schein 1990). Another reason for the debate could be the culture itself, because that even varies from one place to another. This condition has turned out because of people's use of different concepts and definitions with their own perspectives. Hence Pacanowsky and O'Donnell-Trujillo (1983, p126) said, "organisational culture is not just another piece of the puzzle, it is the puzzle. From our point of view, a culture is not something an organisation has; a culture is something an organisation is". Now rather than going into the debate, I would like to describe the way I understand organisational culture. Here I must say that I would like to define the complex concept of organisational culture by inductively building the generalised theoretical definitions of different scholars' experiences, preferences and assumptions.
Generally, when I think about organisational culture, my thought gives the meaning of something similar to the culture in a society that consists of such things like norms, values, beliefs, assumptions, perceptions, behaviours, artifacts etc. According to Kilmann et al. (1985), organisational culture is a social energy that moves people to act. Similarly McShane and Travaglione (2003) define organisation culture as "the basic pattern of shared assumptions, values and beliefs governing the way employees within an organisation think about and act on problems and opportunities".
The never ending effort of defining organisational culture has got an accepted platform by the well renowned guru of organisational culture, Edgar H. Schein and here I would like to limit my findings for definition with his given statement about organisational culture:
"A pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems." (Schein, 1992, pp 373-374). Still the debate could be continued why is this definition a good one? Why is it more useful than the others for thinking about how culture changes?
Now, if we agree that organisational culture is something difficult to even define because of its different perspectives and interpretations, then it is obvious that it would be more difficult, when it comes to transform or change. Moreover, organisational culture is not such science that we can consider any scientific equation to organisational change. As Schein (1990) suggested organisational culture is a complex phenomenon, and we should not rush to measure things until we understand better what we are measuring. Now the question arises, why do we need to change organisational culture? Because, if it is more difficult to change then we have to justify that why that change is very necessary? Yes, I can give the simplest answer to get into the main discussion and that is only because of organisational success through organisational performance. In other words, we need to bother about and deal with the difficulties for changing organisational culture to ensure the ultimate success of any organisation. Kate Harrad has indicated that, The Harvard Business Review recently conducted a study of successful companies and found that the most successful ones consistently performed well at what they described as "the four primary management practices" - strategy, execution, culture, and structure. Thus I am not hesitating to say that organizational culture is one of the keys to organizational success. Here the question may be asked that how important is it compared to the others? I must say that other factors are obviously not less important but here I am focusing only the cultural aspect for organizational change.
Now why is it difficult to change? McShane and Travaglione (2003) explained three main functions of organizational culture. First it is a deeply embedded form of social control. Second, it is the 'social glue' that bonds people together and makes them feel part of the organizational experience. Third, corporate culture helps employees to make sense of the workplace. Now when I think of any change of existing organisations culture in light of those functions, it is very much understandable that the response of those involved people, specially employees will not only be negative rather it might turn out to destructions of the organisation because of employee dissatisfaction. Thus it is a tough challenge to change organisation culture.
I think it is helpful to understand the difficulty of changing organizational culture by observing the iceberg model. The model states that the formal organisation represented by easily visible artifacts such as tools, processes, roles, and organisation charts, actually makes up only a small part of an organisation; whereas, the largest part of the organisation, its cultural side is invisible under the waterline. This unobserved part consists of customs, values, heuristics, beliefs, stereotypes, taboos etc. Again, according to Schein (1990), analyzing the culture of a particular group or organization, it is desirable to distinguish three fundamental levels at which culture manifests itself as observable artifacts, values and basic underlying assumptions. Here I would like to analytically focus the difficulties for changing organizational culture. Edgar H. Schein (1981, 1984, and 1985),a clinical psychologist turned organizational theorist, refined the distinction between the adaptations and ideational views of culture by conceptualizing three levels of organizational culture: Level : artifacts , Level 2: values and believes and Level 3: basic underlying assumptions.
Level 1: artifacts are the behavioural patterns which are visible, tangible and audible results of behaviours. For example, an organisation's written and spoken language, office layout, technology; behavioural norms etc. Taking the organization like Sony in Japan, we can observe their own written and spoken language, behavioural norms and technology of Japanese organizational culture. These artifacts are the very primary visible issues that we can signify easily. Thus in this level issues can be changed comparably in an easier effort than other levels. Sathe (1985) describes artifacts as relatively 'easy' to see but hard to interpret without an understanding of the other two levels.
Level 2 of organizational culture consists of beliefs and values. They are the sense of "what 'ought' to be, as distinct from what is" (Schein,1985, p15). For example Sony has the core beliefs and values of elevation of the Japanese culture and national status or being a pioneer to not following others and doing the impossible. Hence this level comes as the harder level to implement organizational change. Sathe (1985) describes level 2 as revealing how people communicate, explain, rationalise, and justify what they say and do as a community.
Level 3 basic underlying assumptions are distinct from preferred solutions 'what should be' in the sense of dominant values. This level includes spirit and truths of the surrounding social context. For example replacing the spirit and social contest of Sony in Japan with western spirit and contest would be the hardest job to ensure. As Schein (1985, p18) claimed that basic assumptions, like theorists -in -use, tend to be non confrontable and non debatable. One of the flaws of studying organizational symbols, stories, myths, and other such artifacts is that we may make incorrect inferences from them if we do not know how they connect to underlying assumptions (Pondy, Boland, & Thomas, 1988; Pondy, Frost, Morgan, & Dandridge, 1983; Wilkins, 1983). Hence the elements in level 3 prove to be not only the hardest task to initiate any change in organizational culture. Rather, it sometimes becomes the never changing issue for the organizational change.
Now summarizing the difficulties to change organizational culture, I can say that the change requires uncovering core values and beliefs which are very difficult to see. Because these may include existing values and goals, but they are also embedded in organizational metaphors, myths, stories, and in the behaviour of the involved employees. Again, differences between core values and beliefs of different subcultures within the organization have to be acknowledged, respected, and discussed, which is not very easy to do. Lastly, maintaining the above effects over a long period of time as a continuous process as well as ensure that the new members are enforced by the desirable behaviour, make the whole process more difficult.
Thus, organizational culture with what, why and how- is like a never ending discussion to conclude with any specific and exact answer because of the mysterious chemistry of human psychology, different perspectives of culture and organization itself.
The writer is studying Strategic Human Resource Management, University of Wollongong, Australian and a lecturer, School of Business, Independent University of Bangladesh. He can be reached at
e-mail: ajhaque@gmail.com