3. Lecture objectives
1. Define organizational culture.
2. Explain why culture is an important shaper of
organizational creativity, innovation, and change.
3. Identify norms that mobilize creativity and innovation at
work.
4. Present key principles for promoting ‘cultures’
conducive to change and creative processes.
5. Discuss whether strong, cohesive culture hinders
change, constrains creativity, and stifles innovation or
supports the development of new ideas.
4. Culture
• Roots in anthropology and sociology
• In organizations, Jacques (1951: 251) refers to culture of the
factory as:
‘its customary and traditional way of thinking and doing things,
which is shared to a greater or lesser degree by all its
members, and which new members must learn, and at least
partially accept, in order to be accepted into service in the firm’
5. What is organizational culture?
• Concept complex and multifaceted, hundreds of definitions,
increasing emphasis on culture change
• i) The way things are done around here; ii) the social glue
that holds things together; iii) the rules of the game
• Kotter and Heskett (1992: 4) argue that: ‘... at the deeper and
less visible level, culture refers to values that are shared by
the people in a group … at the more visible level, culture
represents the behaviour patterns or style of an organization
that new employees are automatically encouraged to follow
by their fellow employees.’
6. Edgar Schein
Schein (1984: 3) views culture as something an
organization ‘is’ and defines culture as: ‘the pattern of
basic assumptions that a given group has invented,
discovered or developed in learning to cope with its
problems of external adaptation and internal integration
and that have 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’
7. Four dominant characteristics
1. Culture is a shared phenomenon.
2. Culture exists at two levels, namely: the surface (visible) level
and deeper (less visible) level; ‘espoused values’ and ‘values-
in-use’.
3. Culture is learned.
4. Culture generally stable but not static as changes slowly over
time.
8. Disagreements on culture
• Culture as a variable—something an organization
possesses—organizations can be molded/managed
• Culture as a root metaphor—something that an organization
is—i.e. not manageable
• Different views: Integration, differentiation and fragmentation
(Martin, 1992; Frost et al., 2004)
9. Three perspectives
• Integration—shared values among employees (Peters and
Waterman, 1982)
• Differentiation—subcultures and inevitability of organizational
conflict ‘mosaics of inconsistencies’ (Martin and Meyerson,
1988)
• Fragmentation—ambiguity is the hallmark of corporate life
and consensus can only be issue specific (Weick, 1991)
10. Why an important determinant of
creativity and innovation?
• The components of organizational culture (shared
values, beliefs, and behavioral norms) are key in
promoting the generation and implementation of novel
and useful ideas.
• Through formal and informal socialization processes,
employees gradually learn which behaviors are
acceptable.
• Innovative companies, therefore, tend to have
cultures, which emphasize and reward values and
norms that support the generation and
implementation of new ideas.
11. Norms that promote creativity and
innovation (Tushman and O’Reilly,
2002)
• A focus on idea generation.
• Supporting a continuous learning culture.
• Risk taking.
• Tolerance of mistakes.
• Supporting change.
• Conflict handling.
12. Norms that promote implementation
(Tushman and O’Reilly, 2002)
• Team work and effective group functioning.
• Speed and urgency.
• Flexibility and adaptability.
• A sense of autonomy.
13. Five pitfalls to avoid
(Pfeffer, 2002; Pfeffer and Sutton, 2002)
1. Overemphasizing individual accountability.
2. Overemphasizing quantitative goals and budgets.
3. Punishing mistakes.
4. Promoting internal competition.
5. Striving to be the same.
14. Principles of creativity and innovation
(Zien and Buckler, 2004)
1. Sustain faith and treasure identity as an innovative
company.
2. Be truly experimental in all functions especially at the front
end.
3. Structure ‘real’ relationships between marketing and
technical people.
4. Generate customer intimacy.
5. Engage the whole organization.
6. Never forget the individual.
7. Tell and embody powerful and purposeful stories.
15. Can strong cultures hinder innovation?
• At first glance, strong cultures that demand employees to
conform to and continuously follow established norms would
seem to be an anathema to creative employees.
• Many innovative companies are known for their strong,
cohesive cultures (3M, Apple, etc.)
– Strong cultures may therefore promote conformity but not
uniformity (Nemeth and Staw, 1989).
– It depends on the nature of the behavioral norms that
prevail within the organization.
– Social cohesion is necessary in order to implement creative
ideas and to translate creativity into innovation (Caldwell
and O’Reilly, 1995).
16. Strong cultures are not necessarily conducive to generating and
implementing ideas in organizations per se; rather, what are
required are strong cultures that foster innovation-enhancing
norms and at the same time promote the social cohesion
necessary for turning ideas into product innovations.
In Short…..
17. Summary points
• Culture is considered as a form of social control that is
characterized as:
– a shared phenomenon, which exists in both visible
artifacts and mission statements as well as in less visible
and deeper subconscious levels.
– learned by organizational members through a process of
socialization.
– enduring and relatively stable but changes.
• Culture plays an important role in shaping the creative
process.
18. Recommended Reading
• Alvesson, M., & Sveningsson, S. (2016). Changing
Organizational Culture : Cultural Change Work in
Progress (2nd ed.). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
• Bloor, G. and Dawson, P. (1994) ‘Understanding
professional culture in organizational context’,
Organization Studies, 15 (2): 275–95.
• McLean, L. (2005) ‘Organizational culture’s influence on
creativity and innovation: a review of the literature and
implications for human resource development’, Advances
in Developing Human Resources, 7 (2): 226–46.
• Schein, E.H. (2010) Organizational Culture and
Leadership, 4th edn. San Francisco, CA: Jossey–Bass.
