2 Chapter 2: ORGANIZATIONAL POLICIES, CULTURE, EVALUATION AND CONTROL

Learning Objectives

*Define corporate culture and understand where it resides

*Appreciate the role and function of corporate culture

*Describe and appreciate the planning process

*Learn to access an organization’s strengths and weaknesses

*Understand the execution of a plan

Creating a Corporate Culture

About culture

An organization’s culture directly impacts the relationships between the organization and its employees, as well as the organization and its customers. Culture is a property of a group. It is the learned and shared tacit assumptions that people base their daily behavior (Sawyer, 2001). In other words, culture is a pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned (Schein, 1999).  It guides individual’s decisions and actions at both the conscientious and unconscious level (Bellot & Jefferson, 2011; Tharp, 2012). Culture can be found at all levels of an organization (from the assembly line worker to middle management to the executive office). An individual just needs to look for common experiences and backgrounds to find it. Culture can come in forms of rituals, customs, organizational climate, practices, assumptions, and sophistication, etc. In a corporate setting, culture helps explain all of the phenomena and “normalize” the experience that an employee has encountered. So, they can count on “the consistent way” to do things, because this is the “only way to get things done around here.” Thus, corporate culture becomes the result of a complex group learning process and a possession. There is a sense that it can be controlled, or at the very least be influenced and changed either by the organization’s members or partially influenced by leader behavior (Bellot & Jefferson, 2011; Sawyer, 2001). Individual’s interpretation of culture gives meaning to one’s observations and experiences. This interpretation also helps an employee immerse into the culture and adapt to desired behaviors.

According to Schein (1999), there are three levels of culture that goes from very visible to very invisible and tacit.

Level 1–Artifacts: This is the easiest level that can be observed by using one’s senses to feel, hear, and see. When one walks into the athletic department office, imagine what kinds of artifacts the person may see on the wall, desk, and counter??

Level 2–Espoused values: In order to dig deeper to understand the culture beyond superficial artifacts, one may need to ask the “insiders” to clarify the confusion and explain the organizational culture. The concept of typology is commonly used to categorize the format and structure of the organization through obtained information.

Level 3–Shared tacit assumptions: To understand the cultural meaning of this level, one must learn about beliefs, values, and assumptions of the organization through the historical contexts.

In Schein’s definition of culture, there are three important elements that need to be addressed. First, there is a socialization process involving all individuals within the organization. This means a culture is passed on to the next generation of group members. Secondly, behavior patterns that reflect cultural assumptions may be determined by predisposition and the situational contingencies that arise from the external environment. Lastly, it is difficult to conclude whether or not a large organization just exhibits one culture. It is understandable that certain assumptions are shared across all the units and levels of the organization. However, it is likely a large organization will have several social units that produces their own subcultures.

Photo 1. Standing up for Political Correctness [1] Photo Courtesy of Time Magazine

Implications of taking a culture seriously

There are many reasons for us to understand the importance and formation of corporate culture. To understand how an organization maintains its rules and functions, we look for clues within its organizational cultures. We realize that culture is stable and difficult to change, because it involves the accumulated learning of a group in ways of thinking and perceiving. There are invisible things that come with deeper meaning. We do not always understand how new values are adapted. More importantly, it was suggested that there is really no best or right culture that can be universally applied to all environments or conditions. Although there is no consensus agreement on best corporate culture that should be applied, Schmincke and McCormick (2007) addressed five potential dangerous cultural practices that certainly will hurt an organization. An organization must avoid the following practices:

(1) Involving external consultants blatantly to examine problems without the insiders’ contribution;

(2) Trying to avoid the real conflict or problem by being polite;

(3) Retaining too many mediocre employees that delay the progress and innovation;

(4) Having phantom leadership; and

(5) Not being able to see the problems or accepting criticism, because leaders have too much ego.

Sawyer (2001) suggested that there are two basic reasons for studying and deciphering an organization’s culture: (1) to help leaders manage the organization’s issues and create an employee-centered culture, and (2) for the sake of building new theories on cultural studies. Obviously, the first action research approach should be more appealing to the managers and practitioners. Table 1 displays numerous important key concepts (or assumptions) that allow us to examine organizational culture.

Table 1. Key Assumptions for Examining Organizational Culture.

Table 2 further describes the steps of an implementing culture-deciphering process based on the aforementioned assumption.

Table 2. Steps of an Implementing Culture-Deciphering Process

According to the newsletters published by the Work Institute (2014), literally billions of dollars had been spent annually trying to unravel the best practices and culture that build an organization and engage employees. It is suggested that both quantitative and qualitative research can provide comprehensive view on what motivates employees in one’s organization. Employee behavior has a significant impact on an organization’s success. Oftentimes, employees’ behavior are shaped by the corporate and departmental cultures.

 Concerns and Issues about Corporate Cultures

Organizations’ leaders can help create organizational cultures by looking at different sources. They can review the beliefs, values, and assumptions of the organization’s founders. They can also aggregate group members’ learning experiences and adopt new beliefs, values, and assumptions that are brought in.  In general, the cultural formation will go through the four stages of change: (1) introduction, (2) testing period, (3) adaptation, and (4) final integration. In today’s constant changing business settings, mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures may often occur. As the organizations go through internal adjustments, cultural issues can be blatant and visible. As two different cultural identities attempt to merge and work as one, the idea of keeping the best essence from both cultures may not be an easy or a realistic goal. Overall, there are three possible patterns that will dictate the outcome of the merging situation. First, each entity still is able to keep its separate cultures within the conglomerate setting. The second possibility is that the dominate culture of one entity will take over the other entity’s culture. The third possibility is that the organization will take the best of both cultures (identities) by blending or integrating them together. This practice can be done by either imposing a set of new values or benchmarking various systems and procedures to establish new standards.

Culture matters in different ways for organizations going through different stages of evolution. In Table 3, the authors highlighted three different stages of organizations and discuss each one’s characteristics and implication of its unique culture.

Table 3. Different Stages of Organizations and Their Cultural Characteristics

The organization may be slow to evolve, adapt, and change. Thus, the culture can become a serious constraint on learning and changes.

If the process of merger or reorganization becomes inevitable, there are many recommended steps for the organizations to follow in order to develop a merger plan and maintain best cultural practices. Employee services department (or the Human Resources Office) can be an instrumental part in shaping the organization’s new vision, mission, and future direction. It can assist in detecting the organization’s “pulse” and identify techniques, activities, and programs to positively influence employee attitudes and promote cultural changes. The communication will be extra important in this situation while carrying out the steps for making cultural shift. These steps include: (1) Review and reanalyze the corporate mission/goals; (2) Interview top executives to locate human capital; (3) Review back issues of corporate newsletter; (4) Review past speeches of the CEO; and (5) Analyze benchmark of the other companies.

Planning, Evaluation and Control

In the previous paragraph, the authors addressed the relevance of an organization’s mission and goals on cultural formation and change. In the following sections, the contents will focus on how organizational goals and objectives are developed, and how cultural practices are executed and maintained. The concept of strategic planning, as well as evaluation, will be discussed to illustrate how the mission and goals be accomplished.

Planning is the process of determining the goals and objectives of the organization and selecting a course of action to accomplish them. Planning is effective in offsetting problems and dealing with uncertainties. Prior to the planning process, the organizations’ leaders and administrators often use brainstorming methods to create a SWOT chart. This chart will help all of the involved personnel to review the organization’s internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as identify the external opportunities and threats. Brainstorming is a popular method for a group of members to discover solutions to a presented problem. In general, people are allowed to freewheel for a certain degree to provide all possible creative suggestions. Criticisms are discouraged as people continue to maximize the amount of ideas or build on others’ initial suggestions. Readers can refer to Table 4 for various activities to conduct the brainstorming sessions.

Table 4. Different Brainstorming Activities

 Conducting a Needs Assessment Survey and the Strategic Planning Process

It is noted that an organization devoted to being “Employer of Choice” would consider offering excellent employee services programs as one of its top missions or goals. The success of any employee services programs relies on knowing and satisfying the needs and wants of the employees. In order to plan anything that can help satisfy the employee, the most basic element is to conduct a “needs assessment” analysis from the employees. Needs assessment surveys can help administrators point out the determining factors that affects employees’ use of employee services programs. The collected survey information can help evaluate the current service and employees’ attitude. The results can also be compared with the SWOT analysis and draw correlations with the existing goals and objectives.

When examining the strengths and weaknesses of an employee services program and performance level of the program (in order to know whether program goals are met or not), experts often recommend collecting the following data sets: (1) demographic information of users, (2) user participation pattern, (3) attitude of employees, (4) barrier to participation, (5) prediction of future trends, (6) appraisal of existing programs, (7) health hazard appraisal, and (8) areas for improvement (Sawyer, 2001). Collecting data on needs assessment must carefully consider the validity and reliability of the survey instrument. The survey process involves many other technical issues (i.e., sampling, research design, and data analysis) that will go beyond the scope of this course. The authors would suggest recommend the readers review the topic from textbooks that focus on research methodology. Finally, all of the collected information must be analyzed and translated into a need’s assessment report for any practical use.

When the SWOT analysis, brainstorming activities, and needs assessment are all completed, the leaders and administrators can use the obtained information to further develop a strategic plan. There are six important steps involved in the planning process. They are: (1) identifying internal and external connections and relationships; (2) establishing objectives; (3) developing premises; (4) decision making; (5) implementing a course of action; and (6) evaluating the plan.

Various Types of Plans

Failing to plan is exactly planning to fail. An organization’s planning process dictates the employees’ performance and future success of the organization (Parke, Weinhardt, Brodsky, Tangirala, & DeVoe, 2018). Organizational plans normally can be categorized either as short-term or long-term plan. In fact, the terms, short and long, do not really have precise meaning. They reflect relative periods of time. However, these two types of plans are closely related in two aspects. They both compete for the allocation of resources. In addition, the short-term plan must align with the long-term plan. In many cases, the term long-term plan is equated to the operational or strategic plan for many organizations.

Single-use plans are developed to implement a course of action that are relatively unique and are unlikely to repeat (e.g., planning a ceremony for naming a new or existing athletic facility after the donor giving a large endowment fund). There are other popular types of plans that we have seen in the sports industries. Budget plans deal with the allocation and utilization of various resources for future activities over a given time (e.g., an annual operational budget for the football team). Programs (e.g., wellness membership recruiting program) and projects (e.g., a 5K charity run for employees) are often designed to achieve specific goals or objectives. In general, projects are viewed as a subset of a program and are less complex and narrow in scope.

Standing plans are defined as plans that are continuously operated and focused in recurring managerial situations. Although the programs alone are plans designed to accomplish specific objectives for a fixed time, the authors recommend that the development of employee services programs should be a standing plan of an organization, because managing and supporting employees be an ongoing process. It also means the programs will have permanent policies, procedures, and rules to regularly guide their operation. Policies are established statements that set limits to guide decision making. Procedures are a series of steps that must be followed in an established order while trying to achieve a given purpose. Rules prescribes or prohibits actions about what an individual may or may not do in a particular situation. They often go hand-in-hand with certain types of punishment. Policies and procedures generally provide broad guidelines to address required personal conduct without limiting discretion. Rules are clear standards for individuals to follow that leaves little room for interpretation (with some situational exceptions). In many organizations, the required policies, procedures, and rules are often listed in a manual for individuals to read or refer. It would be ideal for an organization to prepare an employee manual for each employee. Other common manuals are available in addressing employee services programs, schedules, operations, risk management, emergency, training, sales and marketing, fundraising, membership retention, and employee benefits, etc.

Photo 2. Cultivating Your Organizational Culture–[2] Photo Courtesy of Tendenci

Engaging in Strategic Planning

Strategic planning focuses on an organization’s long-term relationship to its environment, stakeholders, and employees. So, it is more appropriate to be developed by the participation of all members of the organization. Its primary purpose is to reorganize all the necessary elements to achieve the organization’s goals and objectives and handle many uncontrollable external issues, such as competitors’ actions, economic conditions, change of customers’ taste, governmental regulations, and demand of labor unions (Sawyer, 2001).  In most cases, objectives concerned with salaries, bonuses, and pensions are determined by top management. They are viewed as entrepreneurial objectives. Many other operational objectives related to organizational functions, such as marketing, innovation, productivity, financial resources, performance, evaluation, and social responsibilities are developed through consensual methods. Setting planning premises will help provide a solid framework for identifying, evaluating, and selecting strategies to complete objectives. A summary of the components of applied strategic or operational plans is listed at the end of the chapter as an appendix. Readers can find some of the repeated concepts and details covered in the aforementioned paragraphs. Although strategic planning is useful and effective, it requires a great amount of time and manpower to develop a well-sounded plan. In addition, attempting to predict the future conditions and trends may cause members of the planning team to experience anxiety, frustration, and disappointment. In order to avoid falling into the pitfalls of planning, the top management personnel must be actively involved in the planning process, provide clear instructions and guidelines, and foster a supportive environment to engage every participatory employee.

For an organization to effectively execute evaluation and control, proper benchmarks must be carefully selected. Benchmarking is a process used to identify gaps and shortcomings between the current practices and best practices. A useful guide to benchmarking is including procedures such as: determining what to benchmark, preparing to benchmark, conducting research, selecting whom to benchmark, collecting and sharing information, and analyzing, adapting, and improving. Lastly, top management leaders must not fall into the trap of perfectionism and learn to effectively delegate the tasks to capable individuals in the planning process. Leaders do not have to try to do everything by themselves. Allowing others to participate in completing the planning tasks is an excellent way to promote growth and trust. Selecting the appropriate candidates to run a planning team can be a tricky thing. Members who are chosen to serve on the planning teams may be selected based on their performance or problem-solving skills. Leaders must eliminate selfish reasons to assign individuals with accountability, enthusiasm, positive attitudes, and knowledge to be involved in the planning team or committee.

Quiz Questions

Q1. _______ is the result of a complex group learning process that is only partially influenced by leader behavior.

1. Leadership
2. Discipline
3. Culture
4. Communication

Q2.  The key to understanding whether a culture exists or not is to look for:

1. Organizational structure
2. Common experiences and backgrounds
3. Organizational leadership
4. Problems and constrains

Q3. There has been proven that a universal preferred culture does exist. True/False

Q4. What is the first step of implementation of a culture-deciphering program?

1. Identifying cultural aids
2. Obtaining leadership commitment
3. Conducting the large group meeting
4. Identifying espoused values

Q5.  Basically, cultures are sprung from:

1. the beliefs, values, and assumptions of founders of organizations
2. the learning experiences of group members
3. new beliefs, values, and assumptions brought in by new members
4. all of the above

Q6.  A _____ organization can be thought of as having had several generations of professional managers appointed by outside boards whose members are usually beholden to diverse stockholders.

1. Midlife
2. Start-up
3. Old dinosaur
4. None of the above

Q7. Employees are often resistant to change, even when that change has a positive end result. True/False

Q8. Which of the following is correct?

1. Leaders must exhibit a perfectionism mentality to run a planning process.
2. Allowing individuals to participate in planning team is an excellent ways to promote growth and trust.
3. Strategic planning usually requires a minimum amount of time and manpower to develop.
4. Delegating is a process used to identify gaps and shortcoming between the current practices and bet practices.

Brainstorming Activities

Take a look at the following list of ideas, discuss with your partners, and explain which of the following concepts that you would like to include as part of your organizational culture or practice.

1. Promote a culture of contests: Reward based on strict merit and performance;
2. How to deal with March Madness syndrome?
3. Incorporate fantasy Football and online gaming into the working unit;
4. How to create a protective workplace environment for LGBTQ individuals?
5. How to promote gender equality in sports organizations or improve from a male-dominant workplace environment?
6. Creating a fair system to foster opportunities for promotion;
7. Monitor the use of social media in the work place; and/or
8. Establish an effective performance evaluation system.
9. Any other suggestions??

Image Citations

[1] Image courtesy of Steve Chen, used with Personal permission. Information from Time Magazine

[2] Image Courtesy of Tendenci, under public domain.

References

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