The assignment of 6000 words requires 3 Parts that should follow this structure:
1. A critical review of theories of the nature of organisational culture, including how it may impact on innovation, and how it may be affected by the leaders of an organisation
2. An examination of how culture influences behaviours related to innovation and change in an organisation of your choice
3. A recommendation as to strategies and actions that could be implemented (by you or by the organisation’s leaders) to enhance or create an appropriate culture
Part 1 – Critical review
To do a critical review requires you to read what a number of different experts have said about a topic, and to compare and examine their theories and arguments in order to reach a conclusion. This is similar to doing a ‘literature review,’ which you will have to do in the dissertation, so here is a good chance to practice.
Different experts have different views, they have found different things in their research, and they have proposed different theories, so your job is to make sense of the different views, findings and theories to form a coherent view of your own. But, can you trust what the different experts say? You must assess the quality of their research, their arguments and their findings.
You can do this by reading what Expert A has said on a topic, and then finding out what Experts B and C have subsequently said about Expert A’s work, and what their own research says. Even the leading experts on culture like Schein and Hofstede have had their ideas criticised, with alternatives or improvements suggested.
The assignment requires you to critically examine the theories of the nature of organisational culture.
What do we mean by the ‘nature’ of something? We want to know what it is, what it does, how to recognise it, how to examine it, how it impacts us. For organisational culture, you can:
– Examine how different experts have defined and described organisational culture. There are many different views, so you should ask yourself: Why are there different definitions? Why is it that the experts find it hard to agree on a single definition of organisational culture?
– Examine the different models/frameworks that have been developed by different experts to examine an organisational culture. How and why do the models/frameworks compare with each other? How can they be used to produce different perspectives of the organisation? How can they be used to ‘investigate’ an organisational culture? What are their strengths and weaknesses?
– Examine what different experts have said about how organisation culture is formed and shaped and changed. What is the leader’s influence?
– Examine what different experts have discovered about how organisational culture can help or hinder organisational performance.
– Examine what different experts have said about the aspects of organisational culture that help or hinder innovation; what types of innovation are appropriate to different organisational cultures?
These are the typical questions to address when discussing the ‘nature’ of organisational culture. You may want to add more of your own.
What is the difference between beliefs and values? And another word used by Ed Schein is ‘assumptions’ as in the basic underlying assumptions we use to guide our behaviours. And then there is the word ‘attitude’? What do they all mean?
To do the critical review, you need to read what different experts have said about each topic you discuss.
I attach a ‘synthesis matrix’ which shows how you can look at what different authors say about each question. You will need this in your dissertation, so using it here is good practice!
We provide you with some readings and point you to a number of other sources. You should also search for your own sources. And you have an excellent database in the RKC online libraries of research articles. Use it! I expect to see a number of well-chosen research articles used in your discussions.
There are also many free articles on the internet which you can find through Google. Be careful though because many internet articles, especially blog articles or articles promoting company services are not backed with any research. Articles in the RKC database on the other hand have been assessed by other experts as being trustworthy, and many have gone through a rigorous ‘peer-review’ process. I repeat, use it!
Here is an example of a search, whether in Google on in the RKC database. For example, if you want to find sources that discuss organisational culture and innovation. You can search using combinations of different words, for example:
organisational culture innovation
organisational culture blocks innovation
Schein innovation
Cameron and Quinn innovation
different types of innovation organisation culture
theories organisational culture innovation
criticisms innovation organisation culture
And more……..
Choose different combinations of key words
As you search, you will find more key words and also the names of more authors to search for.
I also attach an article which guides you as to what a peer-reviewed article is; you can find some good articles on the internet, but check they are peer-reviewed.
Part 2 Case study
In Part 1, you must focus on demonstrating your knowledge and understanding of the theories of organisation culture developed by different experts in the academic literature.
In Part 2, you must demonstrate your understanding further by applying those theories to what goes on in an actual organisation. This is your ‘case study.‘ You are specifically required in your case study to examine “how culture influences behaviours related to innovation and change.”
You can choose any organisation, but I strongly suggest you look at the organisation you work in or that you know personally. If you choose an organisation you don’t know personally, for example General Electric, Apple, etc., then you will have to collect a lot of in-depth information about their practices from a number of different credible sources. This can be difficult. But, if you choose an organisation you work in or know personally, you can use your own eyes and ears and other data collecting tools.
In the case study, you should use the theories from Part 1 to explain why things are the way they are in the organisational culture and examine those aspects of the organisational culture that help or hinder the desired innovations. So, you will need to identify what types of innovation the organisation needs. You should use one or more models/frameworks from your Part 1, so that your examination will be more systematic and credible.
Remember in Part 2 to answer the question when examining the organisational culture, “how culture influences behaviours related to innovation and change.”
– Look at your own organisation and identify which aspects of the OC you think help innovation, and which aspects hinder it.
So, how can a person, e.g. a student on this module understand what values and beliefs people have in the organisation?
Part 3 Recommendations
Your recommendations should follow on logically from the findings in your case study in Part 2. From what you discovered in your case study analysis, what should specifically be improved in your case study organisation’s culture to promote the specific sort of change and innovation that is desirable?
You should present a vision of what a culture that supports better innovation and change will look like, and you should use the theories from Part 1 to support your arguments for that vision.
You should then outline the practical steps management need to take to get ‘from here to there’. Imagine your recommendations are being made to management; what will convince them?
Any questions? Just ask here.
Comments from the Tutor
Week 1
Watch George’s video and read the chapter from Ian Brooks (I have attached the Brooks’ chapter here just to save you time. You can download this and other resources from Moodle and from the RKC Emerald library – check the Main section of the Syllabus; you must learn how to search for relevant articles in the library as you will need them for your assignment.)
At this stage of the Module, getting a good definition of OC (as we can all now refer to Organisational Culture) would be helpful. Since you all consciously or unconsciously experience OC, try this: rather than just quoting various authors, put their definitions aside and come up with a definition in your own words.
Values – what is important to us, what we value. The ‘Competing Values Framework’ of Cameron and Quinn looks at how organisations value things in different ways. For example, some organisations value stability and order, while others value change and dynamism. Those two values ‘compete’ with each other. Hofstede’s model looks at the competing values of different countries, for example some value egalitarianism while others value a clear difference between the leaders and the led, some value consensus while others value individualism.
Assumptions – what we assume will happen if we do X. Over time, we learn that things work in different ways. If I smile at you, I assume you will see me as friendly. If I cross a green light, I will assume that cars on the red light have stopped. At work, we assume i.e. we have learned from experience that if we work in X ways the organisation will succeed.
Beliefs – what we feel certain exists or is true. Religions have systems of beliefs; some companies appear to be run as if they were religions. Personally, I need to believe that the companies I consult for are honest and ethical.
Attitudes – literally, the position you take about something, towards or away, whether you like or dislike it.
Norms – the accepted standards, behaviours and methods we expect to see in the organisation.
The above are all interconnected!
In a later post, James refers to Schein who says we can use survey questionnaires and personal interviews to identify values, assumptions, and beliefs. You will need to learn the strengths and weaknesses of the two approaches; we point you to some readings about this later. One problem with both approaches is that people often don’t know their own thinking and feelings, or are uncomfortable with admitting them, whether to themselves or to an external person.
Personally, I think a skilled person can uncover a lot informally simply asking the right questions and then interpreting the answer. For example, the question, “When you said that, what were you thinking?” can be asked quite casually in conversation, and not be seen as aggressive or overly intimate. Them what do example answers such as the following say about a person’s values, assumptions, beliefs, attitudes and norms? “I was thinking that by praising his performance he would work some overtime. And, “I was thinking that by moving people around in different jobs we would get some fresh energy in the team.” And, “I was thinking that that bunch of sheep needed a whip to be cracked.”
Week 2
*’Competing values framework’ (CVF) which is mostly associated with Cameron and Quinn. e.g. https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep12043.8?seq=1
They see the adhocracy quadrant as being the type of OC that is best suited to innovation. But, they do NOT say that innovation is impossible in other quadrants. For example, innovation in a hierarchy, in a bureaucracy, is possible, even desirable. A country’s civil service, likely an example of hierarchy, needs to innovate in………what? Its operating methods? Its services? Its business model e.g. its mix of public and private sector activities?
So, in each of the four quadrants, what needs to be done to enable whatever innovations are needed in those four quadrants?
*More observations:
Hiring and culture fit – yes, will the new recruit fit in? What does your organisation do to match the new recruit not only to the tasks of the job, the competencies that are needed, but also to cultural fit? In practice, it is usually a process of the recruiter saying, ‘Do I like this person? Can I work with this person?’ Should there be anything more in-depth? Personally, as a psychometrician I am sceptical of personality profiling for recruitment purposes, using personality tools more for development. A company I am currently consulting for recently took more than a year to recruit a new CEO for a business unit, with lots of interactions between the owners and the target person.
I have just finished supervising a dissertation from a middle manager at one of the IT giants. he says they are having great difficulty recruiting the right people to fit their OC. Their OC is very, what shall I say, unusual, and they require equally unusual people. The question now is whether they need to change their OC so that more people will be able to fit.
Harmony – hmmmmm, this is a controversial term. Managers like to say that they want everyone pulling together in the same direction, working in harmony, sharing the same values, and such. But does innovation want harmony? The creative aspects of innovation require people to have different views, to be unsatisfied with the status quo, to break things that currently exist. How to combine both harmony with the conflict that is necessary for innovation?
In the innovation tunnel, there are a number of stages e.g. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Innovation-Funnel-Source-wwwsopheoncom-idea-concept-development_fig3_282909259
I suggest that at each stage, different aspects of the OC are needed to make the stage effective. Creativity, conflict at the ideas stage, but solidarity and harmony at the implementation stage.
Culture change – we will discuss this in a later unit, such an important issue!
*Resistance to change, even to the extent of sabotaging the change, is common. So, what in the OC are the factors that lead to people resisting? Why should people fear change as you say?
Lack of trust between employees and management?
Lack of perceived fairness and equity e.g. this new machine will produce more for the company, managers will get bonuses, but it won’t be of benefit to me. Or, even worse, the company will gain, but I will lose.
What else?
What would you do to change the OC so that there is trust, that there is perceived fairness and equity?
And what changes in the OC would you make that lead employees to want to go on courses even in their own time?
*The need for local innovations – there is a strategic management concept called the Triple AAA e.g. https://2012books.lardbucket.org/book… To what extent does, say, McDonalds, adapt to local markets and to what extent do they enforce a common approach? The OC of a McDonald’s restaurant will be more similar than different between one in Baku and one in Japan.
In your organisation, is each regional unit set up for local innovations? You mention innovation needs in products and services. What about in methods? Here is an important concept: https://sourcesofinsight.com/innovati… from Gary Hamel. He evaluates different areas of innovation in terms of the competitive advantage they bring.
Would your company allow innovations in local business models and strategies? M and A – in my experience there are rarely ‘mergers’ of equals, more often there are takeovers i.e. acquisitions by the more powerful of the less powerful. I have seen more than once a big company acquire an innovative small company, precisely to import new innovations, only then to unintentionally destroy them.
In your company, what happens to the OCs of acquired companies?
*In Unit 2 we will look at how to ‘investigate’ (examine, analyse) OCs. To investigate something systematically, you should make use of frameworks or models of OC which can help make the investigation systematic and comprehensive. There are many OC frameworks which you can develop knowledge of, by researchers such as Handy, Cameron and Quinn, Johnson and Scholes, Denison, Cooke, Goffee and Jones, Deal and Kennedy, and more. e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_culture (You should not reference Wikipedia in your written work, but it is often a good place to start finding out more about a topic.)
We will start with Handy’s framework (developed from earlier work by Roger Harrison). He proposes four main types of OC:
e.g. https://www.open.edu/openlearn/money-…
1 Which of Handy’s types of OC does your organisation mostly appear to have? Your organisation is unlikely to match perfectly with one of Handy’s four types. Is it probably a mix of them, with sub-cultures also having variations. Please explain your analysis.
2 How useful/practical do you find the Handy framework when it comes to investigating your OC? Does it help you understand everything you need to know about your OC? And, importantly, does it suggest anything about innovation?
