GENERAL DEL SISTEMA ESTATAL DE INFORMÁTICA

Newstrom and Davis (1993) acknowledge the importance of organisation culture by claiming that “inside the organisation lies a powerful force for determining individual and group behaviour” (p58). They describe that organisational culture is the set of assumptions, beliefs, values, and norms that is shared among its members and that “it [culture] represents a key element of the work environment in which employees perform their jobs” (p.58).

Newstrom and Davis (1993:58) believe that organisational culture is present and pervasive and “Like the air in a room, it surrounds and affects everything that happens in an organisation. Because it is a dynamic systems concept, culture is also affected by almost everything that occurs within an organisation”.

According these authors, organisational cultures are important to a firm’s success for several reasons:

 “They give an organisational identity to employees”;

 “They are important source of stability and continuity to the organisation, which provides a sense of security to its members”;

 “Knowledge of one’s organisational culture helps newer employees interpret what goes on inside of it, by providing an important context for events that would otherwise seem confusing.”

 “They help stimulate employee enthusiasm for their tasks. Cultures attract attention, convey a vision, and typically honor high-producing and creative individuals. By recognising and rewarding these persons, organisational cultures are identifying them as role models to emulate.” (p.58,59)

The third point implies that the manager/leader’s role lies in communicating the culture to new employees or “proposed” culture to the existing employees.

Similarly, Robbins and Judge (2008:250) believe that culture:

 “Enhances the stability of the social system. It is the social glue that helps hold the organisation together by providing appropriate standards for what employees should say and do”

 “Serves as a sense-making and control mechanism that guides and shapes the attitudes and behaviour of employees”.

Newstrom and Davis (1993:59) believe that cultures can be categorised as ‘strong’ or ‘weak” largely on the degree of their impact on employee behaviour and how widely this occurs. Characteristics of culture are summarised as follows:

 Distinctive  Stable  Implicit  Symbolic  Integrated  Accepted

 A reflection of top management  Of varying strength

It is worth noting that this view implies that managers and leaders create, and hence, can change culture.

Based on work by O'Reilly, Chatman et al (1991) and Chatman and Jehn (1994), Robbins and Judge (2008:248) suggests that seven primary characteristics, in aggregate, capture the essence of an organisation’s culture:

1. “Innovation and risk taking: the degree to which employees are encouraged to be innovative and take risks.”

2. “Attention to detail: the degree to which employees are expected to exhibit precision, analysis, and attention to detail”

3. “Outcome orientation: the degree to which management focuses on results or outcomes rather than on the techniques and processes used to achieve those outcomes.”

4. “People orientation: the degree to which management decisions take into consideration the effect of outcomes on people within the organisation.”

5. “Team orientation: the degree to which work activities are organised around teams rather than individuals.”

6. “Aggressiveness: The degree to which people are aggressive and competitive rather than easygoing”.

7. “Stability: The degree to which organisational activities emphasise maintaining the status quo in contrast to growth”. (p248)

Schein (2004: 199) believes that “categorising organisational culture simplifies thinking and helps sorting out the complexities we must deal with when confronting organisational realities”.

 Schein (2004: 191) cites Etzioni (1975) who believes there are basically three types of organisations: i) coercive organisations, in which the individual is essentially captive for physical or economic reasons and must, therefore, obey whatever rules are imposed by the authorities; ii) utilitarian organisations, in which the individual abides by whatever rules are essential however the group often develops countercultural norms and rules to protect itself; iii) normative organisations, in which the individual contributes his or her commitment because the goals of the organisation are basically the same as the individual’s goals. Schein concludes:

“The arguments that managers get into about the ‘correct’ level of

participation and use of authority usually reflect the different assumptions they are making about the nature of the subordinates they are dealing with. Looking at participation and involvement as a matter of cultural assumptions makes clear that the debate about whether leaders should be more autocratic or participative is ultimately highly coloured by the assumptions of a particular group in a particular context. The search for the universally correct leadership style is doomed to failure because of cultural variation by country, by industry, by occupation, and by the particular history of a given organisation.” (p193).

Wilkins (1989), who believes that culture consists of shared vision, motivational faith and distinctive skills and that building culture or ‘corporate character’ is possible by emphasizing programs dealing with each of the above-mentioned component.

According to Cameron and Quinn (1999) an internally focused flexible organisation is thought of as a clan, whereas an internally focused stable organisation is thought of as a hierarchy. An externally focused flexible organisation is called an adhocracy, and an externally focused stable organisation is thought of as a market (cited in Schein 2004: 194, 195).

Citing his own previous work, Schein (2004: 197-199) claims that any organisation has three types of sub-cultures: operator culture (formed by the people who directly do the tasks of the organisation), engineering culture (formed by ‘engineers’- those whose job is to design the work products and processes and who are more concerned about innovation, improvement, and redesign), executive culture (formed by the organisation’s leaders or managers “whose fundamental task is to ensure the organisation’s survival and effectiveness as well as to integrate or at least align the other two cultures to maximize long-run effectiveness”) (p.197). The sub-cultures can be competing/conflicting to each other or/and constructively aligned.

Schein claims that “when one of the subcultures becomes too dominant, the organisation will not survive” (p199). Therefore, the issue for any organisation as a whole or for leaders is “how to align the goals of the three subcultures: focusing on doing the job, remaining innovative to deal with changes in the environment, and staying economically healthy” (p.199).

Charles Handy (1987; cited inSchabracq 2007), however, divides culture into 4 categories: bureaucracies, social clubs, networks, and gatherings of soloists. Schabracq (2007) criticises Handy’s models as a bit ideal because most organisations are of a mixed nature. However, Schabracq also believes that they can be helpful because they give change agents some indications of what they can and even should do, what they had better not do, as well as give leads about the kinds of organisation where they can be more or less productive and successful. Schabracq claims that when one of the four models gets into trouble, it often can be helped by installing some of the characteristics of the other types.

Robbins and Judge (2008: 259) also think it is not impossible to change culture even though it is difficult because culture develops over many years and is rooted in deeply held values to which employees are strongly committed. The authors

find evidence that cultural change is most likely to be possible when most or all of the following conditions exist: 1) a dramatic crisis exists or is created, 2) turnover in leadership, 3) young and small organisation, 4) weak culture.

Most cultures evolve directly from top management, who can have a powerful influence on their employees by what they say and do (Newstrom and Davis 1993; Robbins and Judge 2008).

3.7. Leadership

“Researchers usually define leadership according to their individual perspectives and the aspects of the phenomenon of most interest to them.” (Yukl 1998: 2) Reviewing leadership studies, Yukl (1998: 3) quotes:

Leadership is “the behavior of an individual ... directing the activities of a group toward a shared goal.” (Hemphill & Coons. 1957, p7)

Leadership is ‘the influential increment over and above mechanical compliance with the routine directives of the organization.” (Katz & Kahn. 1978. p528)

Leadership is exercised when persons... mobilize... institutional, political, psychological, and other resources so as to arouse, engage, and satisfy the motives of followers.” (Burns, 19’78.p.t8)

“Leadership is realized in the process whereby one or more individuals succeed in attempting to frame and define the reality of others.” (Smircich & Morgan. 1982, p.258)

Leadership is the process of influencing the activities of an organized group toward goal achievement.” (Rauch & Behling, 1984, p4b)

Leadership is about articulating visions, embodying values, and creating the environment within which things can be accomplished.” (Richards & Engle, 1986, p206)

“Leadership is a process of giving purpose (meaningful direction) to collective effort, and causing willing effort to be expended to achieve purpose.” (Jacobs & Jaques. 1990, 281)

Leadership is the ability to step outside the culture . . . to start evolutionary change processes that are more adaptive.” (Schein. 1992, p.2)

Leadership is the process of making sense of what people are doing together so that people will understand and be committed.” (Drath & Palus, 1994, p.4)

Leadership is ‘the ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organization (House et al., 1999. p184)

Yukl (2006: 3) sees that most of the definitions assume that “it involves a process whereby intentional influence is exerted by one person over other people to guide, structure, and facilitate activities and relationships in a group or organization”. Beside that the definitions appear to have “little else in common”.

According to Yukl (2006), leaders can influence:

• The interpretation of external events by members • The choice of objectives and strategies to pursue • The motivation of members to achieve the objectives • The mutual trust and cooperation of members

• The organization and coordination of work activities • The allocation of resources to activities and objectives • The development of member skills and confidence • The learning and sharing of new knowledge by members • The enlistment of support and cooperation from outsiders • The design of formal structure, programs, and systems • The shared beliefs and values of members

Relating to theories of culture discussed above, it is claimable that leadership can influence culture. Based on Schein (Schein 1992), Yukl (2006) shows that leaders shape culture with:

o Primary Mechanisms

 What things are attended to by the leader  Ways of reacting to crises

 Criteria for allocating rewards  Criteria for selection and dismissal o Secondary Mechanisms

 Design of management systems and procedures  Design of organization structure

 Design of facilities

 Stories, legends, and myths  Formal statements

Having watched hundreds of companies try to remake themselves into significantly better competitors, Kotter (2006: 3-4) claims that even though the efforts have gone under many banners: total quality management, reengineering, right sizing, restructuring, cultural change, and turnaround, the basic goal has been the same: to make fundamental changes in how business is conducted in order to help cope with a new, more challenging market environment.

According to Kotter (2006: 4):

“Change, by definition, requires creating a new system, which in turn always demands leadership. Phase one in a renewal process typically goes nowhere until enough real leaders are promoted or hired into senior- level jobs.”

Kotter also believes a paralysed senior management often comes from having too many managers and not enough leaders. Management’s job is to “minimise risk and to keep the current system operating”. “Transformation often begin, and begin well, when an organisation has a new head who is a good leader and who sees the need for a major change.” (p.4-5)

Adopting the theory of the ‘more powerful person’, which claims that more powerful people almost automatically draw attention and as a result we tend to adopt their attitudes and consequently we tend to look at the world from their perspectives (see Chance and Larsen 1976), Schabracq (2007) believes that as leaders are by definition powerful, they draw much attention and as a result, their followers tend to take over their attitudes and assumptions without question. Leaders then become by definition strong role models who can use their attitudes

to influence their followers’ motivation and behaviour. However, the downside of this is that a leader who displays inadequate attitudes can have a devastating effect on his employees’ motivation and behaviour.

Schabracq goes on saying that energy and clear intent are part of charismatic leadership, energizing and steering followers. In an organisation, this implies a direct confrontation with the members. Charismatic leadership then represents a classic, up-front approach to leadership.

Explaining the supportive model (see the table above), Newstrom and Davis (1993: 34-35) say:

“Through leadership, management provides a climate to help employees grow and accomplish in the interests of the organisation the things of which they are capable. The leader assumes that workers are not by nature passive and resistant to organisational needs but that they are made so by an inadequately supportive climate at work. They will take responsibility, develop a drive to contribute, and improve themselves if management will give them a chance.

Since management supports employees in their work, the psychological result is a feeling of participation and task involvement in the organisation. They may say “we” instead of “they” when referring to their organisation. They are more strongly motivated than by earlier models because their status and recognition needs are better met.

… The manager’s role is one of helping employers solve their problems and accomplish their work.” (p.34-35)

How can leaders provide such a climate? How to consciously create and manage cultures? One suggestion by Newstrom and Davis (1993) is to communicate the cultures to employees (p61). The authors go on to provide some helpful advice on different methods of formal and informal communication: transmitting executive visions of the firm’s future, corporate philosophy statements, and codes of ethical conduct; publicly recognising heroes and heroines, retelling historical success stories, allowing myths to become exaggerated without ‘popping the hot-air balloon’, etc.

However, most of the advice seems to fit well with new employees rather than existing ones who have obviously been long exposed to the culture and, thus, are much more difficult to accept changes to the established culture.

Newstrom and Davis (1993: 63) also conclude that an organisation’s participants learn about its culture through the process of socialisation and influence it through individualisation. Understanding this will help find out how leadership can influence the culture.

Kotter (2006: 15-16) has concluded that the most frequent errors leaders of change often make are:

o Not establishing a great enough sense of urgency o Not creating a powerful enough guiding coalition o Lacking a vision

o Undercommunicating the vision

o Not removing obstacles to the new vision

o Not systematically planning for and creating short-term wins o Declaring victory too soon

o And last but not least, not anchoring changes in the corporation’s culture. Kotter claims that change sticks when it seeps into the bloodstream of the

corporate body and until new behaviours are rooted in social norms and shared values, they are subject to degradation as soon as the pressure for change is removed.