Organisations- og Virksomhedsteori

6. Undervisningsgang – 11. marts 2013

Lectures, Spring 2013

Week Date

5 28. Jan 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 4.

Feb 11. Feb 18. Feb 25. Feb 4.

Mar 11. Mar 18. Mar 25. Mar 1.

8.

Apr Apr 15. Apr 22. Apr 29. Apr 6.

May 13. May 20. May 27. May

Subject

Introduction to the course Multiple Perspectives Winter holiday Organizations and Environment Cancelled Organizational Social Structure + Case Culture + Technology Organizational Power, Control & Conflict + Case Case Work kick off Easter holiday Case work – supervision at ITU Theory in Practice / New directions in Organization Theory Strategizing; Intro + Decision Theory Strategizing; Agent- and Transactional cost analysis Strategizing; Institutional- Networks theory Strategizing; Corporate Systems Theory Whit Monday

Spare week

Literature

MJH, Chap 1+2 MJH, Chap 3 MJH, Chap 4 + Comp MJH, Chap 6 + 5 MJH, Chap 8 + IKEA MJH, Chap 9+10 Nygaard, Chap 1+2 Nygaard, Chap 4+5 Nygaard, Chap 8+9 Nygaard, Chap 10

Organizational Culture

Welcome to the world of Organizational Culture!

Cultures integrate human diversity with a shared sense of belonging that can be expressed in a multitude of ways, only a few which are likely to be acknowledged by every cultural member. In this sense sharing culture is paradoxical, being at once universal and particular, tangible and intangible, integrated and fragmented, and relying upon community and diversity.

A construct describing the total body of belief, behavior, knowledge, sanctions, values, and goals that make up the way of life of a people.

Exercise!

Please form 1-3 groups and discuss the following statements:

Elliott Jaques (1952:251)

The culture of the factory is 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.

Andrew Pettigrew (1979:574)

Culture is a system of Publicly and collectively accepted meanings operating for a given group at a given time. The system of terms, forms, categories and images interprets a people’s own situation to themselves.

Meryl Reis Louis (1983:39)

Organizations are culture bearing milieux, that is, they are distinctive social units possessed of a set of common understandings for organizing action and languages and other symbolic vehicles for expressing common understandings

Edgar Schein (1985:6)

The pattern of basic assumptions that a given group has invented, discovered or developed in learning to cope with its problems of external adaption 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 these problems.

John van Maanen (1988:3)

Cultures refers to the knowledge members of a given group are taught to more or less share; knowledge of the sort that is said to inform, embed, shape, and account for the routine and not-so-routine activities of the members of the culture. A culture is expressed (or constituted) only through the actions and words of its members and must be interpreted by, not given to, a field worker. Culture is not itself visible, but is made visible only through its representation.

Harrison Trice and Janice Beyer

Cultures are collective phenomena that embody people’s responses to the uncertainties and chaos that are inevitable in human experience. These responses fall into two major categories. The first is the substance of a culture; Shared, emotionally charged belief systems that we call ideologies. The second is cultural forms; Observable entities including actions, through which members of a culture express, affirm and communicate the substance of their culture to one another

Organizational Culture

Family Industrial Culture Community Professional Cultures School Church Occupational Cultures Organizational cultures have complex relationships with the environments in which they operate and from which they recruit their members. Employees join an organization having already been socialized by cultural institutions such as family, community, church and school.

Organizational Subcultures

Members of a subculture identifies themselves as distrinct group(s) with unique collective understandings Subculture Subculture Subculture • Dominant subculture, typically put forward by company management, also known as the corporate culture.

• Enhancing subcultures that enthusiastically support the corporate culture.

• Orthogonal subcultures holds independant values and beliefs that neither interfere with norcelebrate the dominant culture.

• Countercultures holds values and beliefs that actively challenges the corporate culture.

Organizational Subcultures

The Silo metaphor Distinctive norms, values, routines and discourses Strong culture: An agreement about what is valued and the intensity with which these values are held.

Strong Cultures are marked by both high agreement and high intensity. While silo cultures may have high intensity within their subcultures, they do not agree what matters most.

Multucultural perspective - Hofstede

Culture Physical Culture Social Customers Regulatory Agencies Physical Unions Social Customers Regulatory Agencies Unions Legal Legal Suppliers Organization Partners Culture Physical Suppliers Organization Partners Political Competitors Special Interests Economy Social Customers Regulatory Agencies Unions Political Competitors Special Interests Economy Legal Technology Organization Suppliers Partners Technology Social Political Culture Customers Suppliers Regulatory Agencies Organization Competitors Special Interests Technology Physical Unions Partners Legal Economy Social Culture Customers Regulatory Agencies Physical Unions Political Legal Competitors Special Interests Technology Economy Political Suppliers Organization Partners Culture Physical Competitors Special Interests Economy Social Customers Regulatory Agencies Technology Organization Suppliers Unions Partners Legal Political Competitors Special Interests Economy Technology As soon as an organization begins to expand its activities beyond the boundaries of its home nation, it will interact with regularly with representatives of organizations from other nations – joint venture partners, consumer groups, tariff collecting agencies, tax authorities and licensing agents, to name only a few – and all of these stakeholders will become part of the organization’s network. The international / global environment is not simply ‘another layer of things to worry about’. It represents a fundamental shift in perspective such as shown in the figure .

The international environment includes actors that cross national boundaries or operate on a global scale. Trends can appear in different sectors of the international environment, just as they do in the general environment. In this regard, it can be difficult to separate out general and international sector trends and conditions in the overall environment.

Multicultural perspective - Hofstede

Uncertainty avoidance Index - How do people cope with uncertainty and ambiguity

Low: accepting innovative ideas, differences of opinion and eccentric behavior High: resisting or legislating the these areas 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Power distance Index - Accepting an unequal distribution of power

Low: inequalities are difficult to accept High: relies heavily on hierarchy , hence unequal authority distribution 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Multicultural perspective - Hofstede

Individualism Index - The degree to which individuals are expected to act independently of others

Low: individualism is seen as undesirable and alienating High: Individual rights are paramount and a symbol of well being 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Masculinity Index - The degree of separation between gender roles in a society

Low: Gender differences are less pronounced High: Men are expected to be more assertive and women more nurturing 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Multucultural perspective - Hofstede

Long-term vs. short-term Cultural differences in predilections for thrift and perseverance Low: Traditions and commitments represent fewer challenges to change High: Hard work will lead to long-term rewards

Three levels of culture - Schein Artifacts

Artifacts are manifestations or expressions of the same cultural core that produces and maintains values and norms

Values Assumptions

Values are the social principles, goals and standards that cultural members believe to have intrinsic worth. They define what we care most about and are revealed by our priorities.

Assumptions represent truth, or what members of a culture believe to be their reality. Invisible and typically taken for granted.

Three levels of culture - Schein

• Basic assumptions represent truth, or what members of a culture believe to be their reality. They are typically taken for granted. Even though they are beneath ordinary awareness these unquestioned aspects of culture penetrate every part of cultural life and color all forms of human experience. As Schein said, they influence what cultural members perceive and how they think and feel.

• According to Schein, a culture’s deep assumptions pervade the next level of culture – cultural values. Values are social principles, goals and standards that cultural members believe have an intrinsic worth. They define what the members of a culture care most about and are revealed by their priorities. Because they also guide cultural members in their evaluation of what is right and what is wrong, a culture’s values are sometimes equated with its moral code.

Three levels of culture - Schein

• Norms are expressions of values. They are unwritten rules that allow members of a culture to know what is expected of them in a wide variety of situations including how to coordinate their behavior with that of others. Norms communicate expectations regarding many types of social behavior. Business norms communicate important information such as when you should inform your superior of potential problems, what sort of clothing you should wear to work, and when it is appropriate to display emotion.

• According to Schein’s theory, members of a culture hold values and conform to cultural norms because their underlying assumptions nurture and support these norms and values. The norms and values, in turn, encourage activities that produce cultural artifacts. Artifacts are manifestations or expressions of the same cultural core that produces and maintains values and norms; however, their further distance from the cultural core can make it even more difficult to interpret their cultural significance unambiguously.

Three levels of culture - Artifacts

Category Examples

Objects Verbal expressions Activities Arts, design and logo Architecture, décor and furnishings Dress, appearance, costume and uniform Products, equipment and tools Display of posters, photos, memorabilia and cartoons Signage Jargon, names and nicknames Explanations and theories Stories, myths and legends and their heroes and villains Superstitions and rumors Humor and jokes Metaphors, proverbs and slogans Speeches, rhetoric and oratory Ceremonies, rituals and rites of passage Meetings, retreats and parties Communication patterns Traditions, customs and social routines Gestures Play, recreation and games Rewards and punishments

Gagliardi

Every organization's primary strategy can be defined as to protect the organizational identity that the core assumptions and values create and maintain. In service to the primary strategy, organizations may develop and implement a range of secondary strategies which can be instrumental (operational in nature) or expressive (symbolic in nature)

Gagliardi

Secondary strategies can either be: • Instrumental that are operational in nature; they direct attention to the attainment of specific measureable objects • Expressive operate in the symbolic realm and protect the stability and coherence of shared meanings by enabling group members to maintain a lively awareness of their collective self and offer a recognizable identity to the outside world Gagliardi describes three types of change • Apparent occurs within culture but does not change it in any significant way, new problems are confronted by choosing from the range of secondary strategies.

• Revolutionary happens when a strategy is incompatible with cultural assumptions and values when imposed upon a organization, usually through the entry of outsiders who destroy old symbols and create new ones • Incremental is the only way of change that reaches the deep level of cultural values and assumptions

Organisations- og Virksomhedsteori

Technology

Technology, skill of the artist

Modernist perspective: Equate technology with its most objective features; the tools, equipment, machines and procedures through which work is accomplished. Deterministic perspective because it claims that different technology types suits different environments, require different social structures and affect human action differently.

Symbolic-interpretivist perspective (SCOT): studies how technologies are themselves shaped by processes of social construction . They argue that technologies both shape and are shaped by cultural norms, power relations and aspects of the organizations physical structure.

Postmodernist perspective: claims that technologies popularity with modernists derives from its ability to mask ways that employees are monitored and controlled by those in authority. Technology impose discipline on those who use them and that their demand for certain behaviors are build right into the production system. Technical design choices and their consequences reflect the imbalance of power in organizational relationships – managers and designers control workers but not the other way around.

Modernist definitions

Core Technology: is the transformation process directly involved in producing the organizations products and services. Comparing core technologies makes it possible to study the differences between both competing and non-competing organizations.

High Technology: has been used loosely to describe many different aspects of computer based technology. At other times high technology refers to any business in which technology is changing rapidly or to one that is considered technologically innovative.

Service Technology: Service technology can be described by these three main characteristics: • are consumed as they are produced • are intangible • cannot be stored in inventory

Woodwards typology

Which organizational arrangement that produce the highest performance levels??

Small batch and unit production: Small spans of control, fewer management levels and decentralized decision making – characteristics of organic organizational forms.

Large batch and mass production: Large spans of control, centralized decision making, characteristics of mechanistic forms of organizing.

Contimous process production: Same as small batch but more Mgmt levels.

Group I

Small batch and unit production

Group II

Large batch and mass production

Group III

Contimous process production I Production of single pieces to customers orders II Production of technically complex units one by one III Fabrication of large equipment in stages IV Procuction of pieces in small batches V Production of large components in large batches- assembled diversely VI Production of large components in large batches- assembly line type VII Mass Production VIII Contimous Process Production, combined with mass or batch methods IX Continous Process Production of chemicals in batches X Continous flow production of liquids, gasses and solid shapes.

Thompsons typology

Long-linked; technologies generally fits into either the mass production or continuous processing categories that Woodward defined. Thompson used the descriptive term ‘long linked’ because all of the technologies of this type involve linear transformation processes that have inputs entering at one end of a long series of sequential steps from which products emerge at the other.

Mediating; technologies serves clients or customers by bringing them together in an exchange or other transaction. In general, these technologies link partners in a potential exchange by helping them locate one another and conduct their transactions, often without ever having to physically meet. Thompson used the term ‘mediating’ because organizations using these technologies act as go-betweens in bringing together the interests of two or more parties to a transaction.

Intensive; technology require coordinating the specialized abilities of two or more experts in the transformation of usually unique input into a customized output. Each use of intensive technology requires on-the-spot development and application of specialized knowledge to new problems or unique circumstances.

Thompsons typology

Thompson’s typology can be easily visualized in terms of a two-by-two matrix. Using this matrix, you can classify any organization as producing either highly standardized outputs from highly standardized inputs or unstandardized outputs from standardized inputs, and as either using standardized or un-standardized transformation process.

Transformation processes

Standardized Non-standardized ?

Standardized Long-Linked

Inputs/ Outputs

Non-standardized Mediating Intensive

Perrows typology

Task variability is measured by counting the number of expectations to standard procedures encountered in the application of a given technology. Task analyzability is measured as to which extend, when an exception is encountered, there are known analytical methods for dealing with it.

• Routine: technologies are characterized by low task variability and high task analyzability. Usually represents assembly like lines such as Thompsons long-linked typology • Craft: technology describes conditions of low task variability and low task analyzability. Construction work is craft technology. Few varieties and when exceptions occurs, inventions must be made • Engineering: technologies occur where high task variability combines with high task analyzability. Characterized by high task variety but standardized exception handling.

• Nonroutine: technology is the label attached to technologies characterized by high task variability and low task analyzability. Many varieties and when exceptions occur, inventions must be made.

Perrows typology

Whereas Woodward and Thompson treated organizations as if they had only one dominant technology, Charles Perrow theorized technology by focusing on the task level of analysis. He began by defining the variability and analyzability of tasks and then created measures that assessed these two dimensions High Low

Task variability

High Routine Engineering

Task analyzability

Low Craft Non-routine

Routineness and complexity

Small Batch Mass Production Assembly workers Artisans Continuous Processing Technicians Low Artists Design engineers, scientists Complexity of the technology High

Musikkonservatoriet

1. Har konsulentfirmaet efter jeres mening brugt de rigtige variabler i bestræbelserne på at kunne diagnosticere strukturproblemer i en organisation 2. Foretag en teoretisk baseret diagnose af de strukturelle problemer på konservatoriet. Hvor er kilden til hovedproblemerne efter jeres mening?? Inddrag gerne sammenligninger fra jeres egne oplevelser fra andre uddannelsesinstitutioner 3. På baggrund af jeres diagnose må i komme med en teoretisk begrundet plan for, hvorledes konservatoriet kan omstrukturere for at løse sine strukturproblemer