3 Writers on culture

　　There are three writers you need to have knowledge of: Schein, Handy and Hofstede.

　　3.1 Schein

　　Schein argues that the first leaders of a company create the culture of an organisation. Once the culture exists, the attributes/criteria for the later leaders are determined by the culture. Thus the link between culture and leadership is very strong.

　　Schein further commented that it if leaders are to lead, it is essential that they understand the culture of the organisation. In order to try and define culture, Schein described three levels:

　　§ Artefacts – these are the aspects of culture that can be easily seen, e.g. the way that people dress.

　　§ Espoused values – these are the strategies and goals of an organisation, including company slogans etc.

　　§ Basic assumptions and values – these are difficult to identify as they are unseen, and exist mainly at the unconscious level.

　　New employees find the last level of culture the most difficult to understand, and lack of understanding of the basic value is one of the main contributors to failure when trying to implement change.

　　Test your understanding 1

　　Schein said that leadership and culture were totally divorced from one another. True or false?

　　Test your understanding 2

　　State three aspects of culture that could be classified as artifacts.

　　3.2 Handy

　　Handy popularised four culture types.

　　§ The power culture – Here, there is one major source of power and influence. This is most likely to be the owner(s) of the organisation, who strive to maintain absolute control over subordinates. There are few procedures and rules of a formal kind.

　　§ The role culture – In this version of culture, people describe their job by its duties, not by its purpose. It is a bureaucratic organisation, where the structure determines the authority and responsibility of individuals and there is a strong emphasis on hierarchy and status.

　　§ The task culture is best seen in teams established to achieve specific tasks, e.g. project teams. People describe their positions in terms of the results they are achieving. Nothing is allowed to get in the way of task accomplishment. If individuals do not have the skills or technical knowledge to perform a task they are retrained or replaced.

　　§ The person culture is characterised by the fact it exist to satisfy the requirements of the particular individual(s) involved in the organisation. The person culture is to be found in a small, highly participatory organisation where individuals undertake all the duties themselves, for example, a barrister in chambers.

　　Expandable text

　　The power culture – This culture tends to rely on a central figure for its strength and has lines of communication which not only radiate out from this centre but link side ways across the organisation. This may be expressed as a web. The boss sits in the centre, surrounded by ever widening circles of intimates and influence. There are few procedures and rules of a formal kind and little bureaucracy.

　　The dominant influence of the centre results in a structure that is able to move quickly and respond to change and outside threats. This culture is often found in small entrepreneurial organisations but will frequently break down as they grow since the web is more difficult to maintain with size. As might be expected attempts to implement a structured system into this culture are likely to be vigorously resisted both on the grounds of constraining flexibility and unnecessary costs.

　　The role culture – Perhaps the most readily recognised and common of all the cultural types – everything and everybody are in their proper place. There is a presumption of logic and rationality. It is based around the job or role rather than the personalities and is epitomized by what we tend to think of as the traditional hierarchical structure.

　　This kind of culture is best suited to an environment that is relatively stable and a large-sized organisation. Because of the focus on the role this culture tends to be impersonal, and by implication restrictive, suppressing individuals’ attempts at any improvements. It doesn’t take much thought to work in a role culture. Change is therefore relatively slow and is often only brought about by fear. Although it can adapt, this ability is restricted and a ‘role culture’ will have problems in surviving a dramatic change.

　　The task culture – This is where management is basically concerned with the continuous and successful solution of problems. Performance is judged in terms of results and problems solved.

　　Although a structure exists it is flexible and capable of being formed and reformed depending upon the task in hand. The organisation is therefore more loosely bound than the role model. Power and respect come from individual knowledge rather than rank or position. People describe their positions in terms of the results they are achieving. These cultures are suited to organisations that are concerned with problem solving and short-term one-off exercises – often found in rapidly changing organisations, where groups are established on a short-term basis to deal with a particular change.

　　Structurally this culture is often associated with the matrix structure. Examples: market research organisations, entertainment industry, computer software design.

　　The person culture – this is where the structure and the culture is built around individuals. Although not a common culture for an entire organisation to be based on, it is none the less found in small areas of large companies. The culture is that of educated and articulate individuals – solicitors, academic researchers, consultants etc. They may use some common office services but generally operate independently. In some instances, a key individual heads a support team of different skills.

　　Test your understanding 3

　　Describe what Handy meant by a task culture. Can you think of two disadvantages this may create for an organisation?

　　3.3 Hofstede

　　Hofstede looked for national differences between over 100,000 of IBM’s employees in different parts of the world, in an attempt to find aspects of culture that might influence business behaviour.

　　He found five traits.

　　§ Individualism vs. collectivism – some cultures are more cohesive than others. Anglo Saxon cultures are generally more individualistic than the collectivist cultures of South America.

　　§ Uncertainty – some cultures, e.g. France and Japan use bureaucracy to reduce uncertainty because they dislike it.

　　§ Power distance – the degree to which cultures are willing to accept an inferior position. In South American societies, differences in power were tolerated more than in North European cultures.

　　§ Masculinity vs. femininity – a masculine role is one where the distinction between the roles of the genders is large and the males focus on work, power and success, e.g. in Japanese culture, whereas in feminine cultures such as Finland, there differences between the gender roles is much smaller.

　　§ Confucianism vs. dynamism – this looks at the attitude to change over the long term, e.g. does a culture embrace globalization?

　　Test your understanding 4

　　Looking at the Hofstede traits, choose the classification that most closely fits Great Britain.

　　Individualistic or collective?

　　Large power distance or small?

　　Masculine or feminine roles?