Organisational Culture, Change and Motivation
“Culture is the system of such publicly and collectively accepted meanings operating for a given group at a given time” (Pettigrew, 1979)
Organisation culture is the set of beliefs of the company that are shared amongst employees and shared buy its customers. It is a widely explored paradigm and has remodelled definition throughout many decades of organisations and management. From Charles Handy’s four classes of culture (power, role, task and person) to metaphoric representations like Edgar Schein’s iceberg. Hence, culture is formed of many organisation aspects including subjective feelings such as expression and value, preconscious factors such as symbols and norms and deep structures such as assumptions and world views (Pettigrew, 1979). Put together, they all show that culture is an important aspect of an organisation and without giving it the thought it deserves, strategy development could perform not as well as it could, leading to the belief that culture should always fit with organisational strategy. Lance Revenaugh (1994) supports the argument, along with many other researchers, that corporate culture is a vital contemplation for understanding and successfully dealing with organisations.
Its various definitions and interpretation can make corporate culture difficult to define, measure or control; this shows that culture is not static, it is a multifaceted concept that is always changing though time and being influenced by many factors, as suggested by Pettigrew (1979). Strickland and Thompson (1987) provide this description:
"Every organisation is a unique culture, it has its own special history of how the organisation has been managed, its own set of ways of approaching problems and conducting activities, its own mix of managerial personalities and styles, its own established patterns of "how we do things around here."
There are many definitions of culture but the basic understanding of this concept in organisational terms is twofold. It is a representation of the core of the company and its way of doing things or even its Achilles Heel.
Culture is viewed in two ways. The first is through the added unique benefits it adds to a workplace. The latter is often associated with the term “Icarus Paradox” (Miller, 1991). Miller argues that a company’s previous success can sometimes be the result of their downfall. This is called strategic drift, which is a critical concept within Strategic Management. It typically happens when organisations are unable to keep pace with the changes that happen in their internal environment which in turn leads to their slow and gradual demise. In this matter, culture is viewed as a barrier to change, which can cause strategic drift due to innovation being suppressed. Summarising this point, an organisations response to the external environment is made up within the organisation rather than taking into account the external elements and understanding the objectives. Therefore, this proves that strategic changed must always be accompanied by an appropriate change of organisational culture.
Quinn (1980) and Lindblom (1958) have stated gradual development is something to be expected within organisations and it is also logical. Managers are aware that it is not possible to know the threats and opportunities that could affect the future of the organisation. This is called strategic fit, which is the opposite of strategic drift.
Uncertainty is avoided by producing strategies in stages, which carries employees from the beginning of it through to the end. Through this process, new concepts and practices are tested within the organisation to see which are likely to be operational. Commitment is kindled though continual gradual change. Mintzberg and Waters (1985) state that putting too much pressure on what the manager already thinks can be risky, because it doesn’t matter if they appreciate logical incrementalism or not, because it doesn’t necessarily mean that they act in certain ways. This distinguishes the different between the intended strategy (what the company hopes to execute) and what is actually being implemented – the realised strategy. This difference is due to culture – an unseen internal power.
There has been a vast amount of research carried out in the recent years regarding the formulation and implementation of strategy. Therefore, the case I am presenting is that for strategic change to be effective, those within the organisation, must take into account the cultural constraints. It is correct to say that organisational strategy and culture should fit with each other, assuming that culture can be measured and regulated. The rationalistic models, one of them being logical incrementalism, which have governed scientific management, have only scratched the surface, and should be viewed as a vital component of a much broader operation. This is because there are other different theories stating explicitly how managers deal with the intensity of managing change. For example, Allaire and Firsirotu (1984) explained the importance of how an organisation analyses its environment. Leadership, organisational design and decision-making style are important factors within the analysis process. Though, Schein (2004) argues organisation strategy is the outcome of organisational culture, not vice versa, because organisational culture takes all these factor into account.
If strategic change was perceived like this instead, the intricacy faced by managers would not be dispassionately examined, due to the fact that they hold a set of fundamental principles. There is also a chance that managers hold the same common set of fundamental principles (at some level). Nevertheless, this set of principles accepts all suppositions regarding the organisational environment, the characteristics of its managers, and the operations and processes which are seen as vital to the growth and success of the organisation. These suppositions help conclude that while it is important to alter corporate culture to guarantee operational strategic change, as the recommendation proposes, given the idea of the culture paradigm it is not generally conceivable to follow to that rule.
I would propose that a company’s culture is seen more significantly by those in the external environment. This is what happened with Compaq Computers, when they externally employed CEO Eckhard Pfeiffer. Within a year, Pfeiffer had set up an operation to completely ‘repair’ the company. His leadership style was planned to accomplish a rapid transformation. He said “we had to recognise what had gone wrong and name the problems early. Only by asking for dramatic change can people see their way out of old habits. Sometimes it is more difficult to achieve a 10% cost reduction than it is to tell people they have to achieve 50%. Small incremental steps block your view of doing something fundamentally different” (Link & Krystek, 2013). The success of this operation negates the views of Quinn (1980) and Lindblom (1958) whose perspectives on the value of logical incrementalism are profoundly respected and rather gives sustenance to the research of Mintzberg and Water (1985).
Instead, there is a view that it is often easier for companies to get things done more efficiently when they hold the same vision and same culture, for the reason that it empowers distinctive competences. Moreover, behaviour within an organisation is easier to handle if a set of goals, perspective and vocabulary are shared. Managing an organisation that holds the same vision and has a strong culture has been a strong recommendation for corporations (Deal & Kennedy, 2000, Peters & Waterman Jr, 2004). It is shown through Pfeiffer’s actions that he also supported this notion and also wanted protect Compaq’s strong and ground-breaking culture. “I was 100% in the culture. Let’s keep the culture but let us solve our pro
blems” (Link & Krystek, 2013). Pfeiffer’s view suggested that it was not necessary to get rid or change the organisation’s culture in order to accomplish a suitable strategic change.
Research conducted by Gagliardi appropriately summarises the suppositions and flaws discussed so far. Beginning with Schein’s belief that values and assumptions are at the core of an organisation’s culture and adding that every organisations’ primary strategy is to protect the organisations identity rooted in those values and assumptions.
Beginning with Schein, he believed that the core of an organisation’s culture was its principles and expectations and that all companies main strategy was to protect its identity rooted within those principles and expectations. He then went onto elaborate on the fact that there are secondary strategies that are established and applied which takes into account the main strategy. These strategies may be applied for the internal or external environmental. They are either to help the organisation adapt to external factors and problems arising from within the company regarding integration (instrumental) or to are put in place to guard the stability of the company and the consistency of shared beliefs (expressive). Upon further research, Gagliardi outlined three forms of change, which have structured the main topics of this essay so far.
Firstly, a noticeable change is seen where new problems are resolved by selecting methods that are in line with the company culture. Secondary tactics that are used to solve new problems only bring minor change, because the organisation only adjusts within the limits of its present self, much like the process of logical incrementalism. Secondly, Gagliardi suggest the process of Cultural Incrementalism. This is where a strategy pushes the boundaries of the prevailing culture present within the organisation, this adds new elements to it. Pfieffer implemented this change when he was running Compaq. Lastly, revolutionary change happens when a strategy is implemented within the organisation that is not in line its existing set of cultural beliefs, this was also argued by Gagliardi. This forces the company to adopt new values and symbols in order to see that revolutionary change. It would make sense to say that “the old firm dies and a new firm is born”. In other words, strategic change does not always go well with the organisations culture.
On one hand, cultural change is not required when a strategy exists that is in line with the company culture. On the other hand, company culture can be completely destroyed and replaced when a strategy opposes the current culture, or the strategy could be overthrown and never be implemented if the negative impact of the organisation is too great. A middle ground exists between these two scenarios where strategies are adapted but still compatible with current assumptions and values, and the culture is only adapted to include new assumptions and values, if necessary. In conclusion, Gagliardi’s model viewed culture and strategy as two different elements, because they had different effects on the organisations cultures and the instances and points I have presented in this essay would seem to support his model. That while the suggestion being examined is somewhat correct, I would like to offer a more distinct statement, “Putting organisational culture with organisational strategy can sometimes work well, however it is not always fitting, given the situation” and to quote Paul Strebel “successful change takes place on a path that is appropriate to the right situation” and this further supports my statement (Senior & Swailes, 2010).
During strategic change, many organisations are faced with the obstacle of motivating their staff. Success of a company is built with motivation of its employees being the foundation. To recognise the influence of motivation on an employee and how it works, we need to understand the human mind. In some instances, this could be a very simple procedure, however in other it could be challenging and difficult. Management and leadership must be efficient in order for employees to be directed through the many motivation steps. It is often believed pay is the biggest motivator for employees, nevertheless employees may way to surpass acknowledgement, input and an enhanced sense of self-worth. French argues that empowerment play an imperative role in an organisation’s development.
Content and Progress theories published in the 1950s are two methods to motivation. Content theories explore distinct elements that may encourage employees by exploring the needs of the person and attempting to guess what can inspire their behaviour. Unlike Content theories, Process theories focus on the reasoning behind how and why an individual will choose one action over another. These types of theories focus on one’s set of cultural beliefs and the rewards of accomplishing certain tasks. While both theories are important in aiding us to develop a deeper understanding of motivation, this essay will focus on content theories, more specifically, Maslow’s Hierarchy and David McClelland’s Needs for Achievement.
The Hierarchy of Needs theory was formed in 1943 by Abraham Maslow and it is still present within organisations today. The theory was established to better understand what motivates a worker, management training and individual growth by creating five different levels. Maslow created three main stages: basic needs, psychological needs and self-fulfilment needs. Basic needs comprise of physiological needs, which are the fundamental needs of a human, such as food and water, and then progressing to the next level would be the safety needs, which is the need for security, stability and defence.
Once the basic needs (physiological and safety needs) have been met by somebody, they move onto the psychological needs, which are the social needs, to feel loved and a sense of belonging, and the esteem needs, feeling respected and the feeling of accomplishment. Once these four levels have been met, the individual moves on to the final stage, which is the self-fulfilment needs, and the final levels, which is the self-actualisation level, this is the level where you realise your full potential and becoming everything you are capable of becoming (French, et al., 2015).
Though, flaws have always been found with every motivation theory. Maslow scrutinised his own theory, he said his, “theory was published 20 years ago and in all that time nobody repeated it, or tested, or really analysed it or criticised it. They just used it, swallowed it whole with only the minor modification” (Wilson, 2010).
When dealing with this issue, his work was questioned as to whether the levels in his theory were different depending on the culture. For example, in Asian countries, like China and Japan, employees were more motivated when a basic need was fulfilled rather than a self-fulfilment need (Rayner & Smith, 2009). This is due to the lack employment opportunities available in the country, so citizens are more concerned with security needs.
On the other hand, some organisations take no notice of the basic needs and choose to only recognise the esteem and self-actualisation needs. “Hall and Nougaim have that as managers advanced, safety needs became less important while higher order needs [psychological and self-fulfilment needs] were more important but this could be explained by a process of career change and advancement” (Wilson, 2010).
The statements given above imply that Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is not relevant in today’s society because it is not followed in the traditional how. Maslow believed unmet needs, which are in the order of the hierarchy, were the key to the individuals’ motivation. He hypothesised that in order for one to be successful they must follow the hierarchy; conversely cultural difference and organisational change has disrupted this.
Clay
ton Alderfer proposed the ERG theory, which was a further development of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs by categorising it into his ERG theory (Existence, Relatedness and Growth). Alderfer argues that Maslow’s theory is not adaptable to changing organisational culture, which will result in anger as people are not able to progress onto the next stage. Alderfer reduced the five stages into three: existence needs, relatedness needs and growth needs. This theory is more adaptable as people are able to move freely between stages.
The needs of people are constantly changing alongside their jobs. Some peoples source of motivation at work is the feeling of having achieved something. McClelland tried to seek out the desire to achieve. Using Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) they explored the individual needs of different people. TAT uses images and asks the users to develop stories for each image. After gathering and analysing the results from the TATs, McClelland discovered that there were three needs which he though had a significance to human behaviour and motivation, which were the need for achievement, the need for affiliation and the need for power.
Individuals who have a greater need for achievement steer clear of risky environments as they are focused on excelling in the workplace. They want to achieve something great by solving problematic jobs and find solutions to issues. They require a constant flow of feedback from management so they can keep a track on their progress. Conversely, those who have the urge for affiliation create harmonious relationships within the workplace. These types of individuals tend to excel in roles like customer services and customer relationship management. Lastly, those who have a need for power tend to take control of individuals, ‘micro-manage’, or be in command.
Both theories have their own disadvantages and are scrutinised by other theorists. Erik Erikson, a psychologist known for his research surrounding human development, believed that the need to achieve is a trait that is only developed in childhood and it cannot be achieved in the adulthood (French, et al., 2015). In response this criticism, McClelland argued that the need for achievement is behavioural and it can be enhanced through exercise in adulthood. His theory is shown to be relevant in the 21st century as they are being put to use in the India.
Each individual is motivated in different ways and by different things, consequently, organisation cannot follow just one theory. I believe motivation cannot be enforced upon an employee; it has to flow through from within themselves. If an individual does not like their job role or environment, they will find it considerably difficult to find motivation or to be motivated in the workplace. Over the 21st century, theorists have attempted to create a motivation theory that caters to both the needs of the employer and the employee, thus we have a wide range of motivational theories to use.