Organizational Change Congruency with Organizational Culture

Organizational culture change is considered largely as having an effect on organizations’ capacity to effectively execute strategy. This document represents an integration of literature regarding culture and strategic change, along with identifying cultural aspects and variables that influence strategic implementation linked to organizational change. Evidently, the firm’s cultural orientations have been known to possess a key impact on the effectual human resources and, therefore, must be match or aligned with the plans of every competitive strategy devised in reaction to a necessity for organizational change. Most contemporary managers would strongly agree that the collective values, attitudes, loyalties, beliefs, and general ways of thinking socially adopted amongst members of a firm have a significant effect on its long-standing efficacy and performance. The effects of a suitable organizational culture regarding the welfare of the business have been plainly recognized by numerous organizational researchers. A firm’s culture is the amalgamation of collective values, behavior tendencies, mores, attitudes, symbols and normative methods of operating business that, greater than its goods or services, distinguish it from every other companies. Present cultural orientations might be supportive towards the mission and achievement of a company at a certain point, however not at all suitable when considerable strategic adjustments becomes necessary (Cameron & Green, 2004).

Levels of Culture

The culture of an organization is modeled via forces at numerous levels. Studies have revealed three key levels of culture namely the societal, the industry, and the organizational. Understanding the interaction among these levels of culture is critical for precise analysis and modification. Though there are many subcultures in the organization, it has been indicated that aligning the dominant cultures in the industry, society and the organization would better place the company for effective accomplishment of its objectives.
The societal level culture symbolizes the cultural values, mind-sets, and meanings that the members carry into the organization. For instance, things like the educational structure, the economic structure, and the social system of the bigger society affect this level. The organization functions in this broad, cultural “setting.” This level affects the strategies, objectives, and operations of the organization in repeatedly slight but very actual ways. For instance, the strategic shift of the organization should be congruent with societal culture within which it functions in order to preserve legitimacy and support and to sustain effectual human resource operations. The core of industrial level culture is encompasses dramatic differences amongst diverse organizations. There are overriding values or attitudes of a company, which are, promoted by a bulk of organizations in the particular industry. Firms generate prominent styles eventually that have a significant control on such things like decision-making, worker life styles, dressing codes and political stands (Hopkins, Hopkins, & Mallette, 2005).

The organizational level culture consists of the most easily seen as being associated to strategy realization and organizational efficiency. The easiness or complexity of shifting a culture is reliant on how “entrenched” the fundamental components of the present organizational culture are. Certainly, culture is seen in behavioral norms, human nature and concealed assumptions. Every one of these variables takes place at a dissimilar “levels of depth” within the general culture. Deep-rooted cultural values are extremely hard to transform and are controlled strongly by themes originating from the industrial along societal levels. The majority cultural aspects, nonetheless, are liable to some measure of change.

Impact of Culture

Researchers in organizational theory frequently indicate that culture should have some particular properties to be efficient. Most noteworthy is that it ought to be “strong.” Nevertheless, strength is vaguely defined and only handles parts of the whole cultural framework. These among other methodological issues call for us to look beyond explanations of strength towards more advanced, compound categories to evaluate the full impact of culture to an organization. To this end, researchers have developed eight categories that seem better matched to assess the cultural phenomenon. The four measures for cultural dispersion penetrations are: sociological, psychological, historical penetration, and artifactual. Sociological penetration refers to the degree to that cultural expressions are shared throughout diverse groups or subcultures in the firm. Psychological penetration takes place when members in the corporation or subculture intensely internalize the values, attitudes and suppositions of the cultural setting. These members are considered as being organizational patriots owing to their bottomless belief in the organization. Historical penetration occurs when specific cultural themes stay stable over an extended period. Organizational members maintain the culture in due course and hand it on to new the members. Artifactual penetration is created when intangible aspects of the culture are personified in visible cultural objects for instance portraits, awards, titles, dress codes or regular meetings. This institutionalizes the cultural values (Pasmore, Woodman, Shani, & Noumair, 2013)

Strategic Change
The necessity for a company to go through considerable strategic change could be informed by a number of rationales: poor results, environmental instability and improbability, resource movements, risk lessening, or basically managerial preference. In spite of the drive for any change, the requirement to align every aspects of the company with the fresh strategy is of critical importance to general successful performance, in addition to continued existence. Perceptions towards environmental vagueness and organizational control affect the strategic choices. Even though most strategists support an adaptive theory concerning the organizational behavior, a methodical adjustment of every element is normally difficult to realize in short time. Defining a resolution and executing it is not sufficient, but frequently requires a changeover management to quietly lessen problems, clearing why change is desirable and boost the prospects of triumphant change (Bauer & Jenny, 2013).

Organizations are repeatedly changing, though change is not at all times controlled. The process of constantly adapting to the transformations in a company’s environment is the dependent on strategic management. This is an adaptive practice and one that is connected on the resources, which it guides, both outwardly and internally. Additionally, the management processes nature in these organizations affects the state of adjustment sought. The effectual utilization of human resources should include culture assessment and management if change is to be fruitfully adapted into the business.
Change plans must incorporate or promote retention of the aspects that have effectively in the past, and choice of practical new elements, grounded on managerial and cultural mechanisms. Whilst in the previous business’s character can be preserved via induced processes, the new independent processes will be essential to fostering the new norms or elements needed. As such, the introduced processes regard initiatives which are within the capacity of the business’s present strategy and that are founded on existing processes in the company. The independent processes regard initiatives that emerge external of the present organization sphere and that offer the prospective for fresh organizational learning (Floyd, 2002).

Organizational effectiveness characteristically needs some degree of congruence amongst organizational culture and change. Attaining cultural adaptation involves not only induced procedures of new organizational structures, but additionally reaffirming processes reaching there. Change is never an overnight achievement and is never attained without some pain. Extra care should be taken in order that the fresh strategies, regulations, and systems are studied and that the changeover aids the learning procedure (Bellingham, 2001).
The Change Process

Organizations should provide serious consideration towards their cultures if they meet conditions such as diversification opportunities, transformations in strategy, fast growth, subculture clash, and retrenchment. Culture changes greatly through evolution rather than by pronouncement and, therefore, the change process should be slow, continual, directed rather than an imposed speedy and a quick fix. Cultural change can never take place as though it is sovereign of the specific characteristics of the culture undergoing change. Every culture possesses idiosyncratic qualities which must be modified distinctively. Firms’ capabilities to invoke independent learning processes usually differ widely. The presence and strength of division amongst subcultures will diverge from company to company. Taking into consideration those caveats, the resultant model is definite enough to offer a directional structure for starting a cultural change, however, generally adequate to integrate the idiosyncrasies that every organizational environment presents. This projected framework or model synthesizes and incorporates the cultural changes illustrated by

1. Assess the Strategic Change Nature.
The nature of strategic changes, which has made cultural change obligatory in order to preserve effectiveness, must be identified. A cautious organization must as well assess the degree of the change along with the reasons that have necessitated change. These may comprise the long-term impacts to the business, the market, its suppliers, and the industry. If changes are huge and distinctive, thus a cultural change might be necessary. On the other hand, small, steady changes do not justify an instant change in culture rather modifications of specific behaviors associated with the specific human demands. Independent learning processes will most probably make the culture to steadily evolve to match the collective change. How would the change influence the emphasis of organizational effort through the next couple of years? For illustration, consider IBM’s understanding that it was required to shift prominence from mainframe computers to the direction personal computers. Firstly, the orientation of workers had to shift from focus from technical support and service towards marketing and mass production. The change was theatrical and had implications on the full focus of attempts and firm orientation.

2. Locate Major Elements in the Proposed Strategic Setting.
This second stage requires executive to observe more closely at precisely what major human aspects are essential for victory in the new setting. The primary factors of victory should be straightly connected to organizational efficiency, and broken into their mainly basic elements. Here, culture is yet not of primary concern, however, focus in “scanning” must be directed on identifying primary areas where particular human efforts are most significant. For instance, due to deregulation, a company may face competition in regions where it was formerly nonexistent. Therefore, to be effectual, it may be forced to mark their market by aggressively more pursing it. By locating critical variables required for efficacy in the fresh environment, the company’s management can begin to identify areas that “a fresh orientation” or “a fresh emphasis” is necessary (Hubbard, 2004).
3. Define Effectiveness.
Every managerial team in dissimilar organizations possess their own description for organizational efficiency (standard monthly sales, profits, market share, stock price, and so forth). The idea is that to evaluate the efficiency of cultural change endeavors, we should first locate the company’s notions of organizational efficiency. The goals and aims of the corporation must be enumerated and assigned precedence prior to culture change management. The argument is that culture change or adjustment is only effectual to the degree that organizational efficiency is attained.
4. Assess Key Elements in Existing Culture.
This maybe a tricky task that might take a huge deal of time along with a selection of measurement techniques, such as random examination, interviewing, and evaluating the interaction through work group meetings. However, in some instances, measurement may be as simple as qualitatively evaluating present existence, whilst in other cases; evaluation could involve documenting the number of incidences of diverse events over time. It is proposed that measurements may be accessed on such main organizational cultural variables such as concealed pointers of organizational structure and functions, organizational values, climate, and personal beliefs and values. To start with, the measurement illustrates how urgently change is required in addition to identifying the areas that the existing culture is missing. Secondly, measurement isolates key features for efficiency in which the organization is deficient, thus permitting for attention on a few particular items. The consequence is a group of tangible items through which the support of change will emphasize.
5. Establish the Culture Depth regarding Key Elements.
Subsequent to the identification of the key features for efficiency, their regularity in the present organizational culture calculated, the intensity of culture by which the key elements subsist must be evaluated. The reason for this is to measure the complexity in attaining change. If values, assumptions, beliefs and orientations require changing for the corporation to operate efficiently in the fresh environment, then, a cultural change is essential. If these features are enormously deep-rooted, a long-term, intensive, controlled transformation will be essential.
6. Evaluate the Cultural Dispersion along with Organization Potency
In the evaluation of the cultural element; the administration can evaluate the culture’s general potentiality for change. For instance, it might be easier to begin change in a feeble culture, but it might be very tricky to maintain the adjustment. A sturdy culture might create considerable resistance towards change, however if it possesses a high level of smoothness, change will be facilitated and sustained. When the evaluation of the present culture is completed, a suitable adjustment program that meets the requirements of the particular culture under scrutiny must be selected.
7. Establish Strategy-Culture Match or Variance.
Regardless of considerable strategic change directed, the current culture might be deemed appropriate for effectual implementation of fresh strategies. Thus, in such a situation, management can just carry on with the formulation, execution, and evaluation of the fresh strategies. Once the cultural evaluation indicates a variance, nevertheless, it is suggested that managers go on with this model change (Stanford, 2013).
8. Formulate the Cultural Intervention.
Numerous methods of changing organizations’ culture exist. Several take an extensive period whilst others have instantaneous impact. The most effectual method is via staffing, selection, and recruitment. Change is attained by the selection and assignment of new workers whose course is congruent with the preferred culture. For instance, a corporation shifting into a completely dissimilar market will probably hire a few experts from other corporations to help direct the new endeavors. A fresh style of production may call for taking new workers aboard.
A second technique of intervention is through organizational socialization. Here, the members’ values are taken in line with the corporation. This procedure normally takes place shortly after the workers are hired, and might be a way to steadily instill the diverse work teams with a fresh culture. Socialization might be helpful in the organization and preservation of collective value systems.
The third technique of intervention entails basic communication and possibly signifies the most efficient and widely utilized technique of culture change. Culture may be communicated via open or implicit means. Open ways of communication comprise announcements, pronouncements, briefs, memos, lectures, signs, videos, etc. Implicit methods of communication comprise of rituals, awards, ceremonies, stories, etc. Studies indicates that implicit methods of communication are likely to be more effectual in changing culture as compared explicit methods of communication.
9. Execute the Intervention Strategy.
Workers interests and satisfaction must be among the top precedence during the execution phase for transformation is not possible devoid of personnel cooperation. Resistance may be a sturdy effect on cultural customs in the days to come. Three fundamental techniques of strategy execution comprise the following approaches top-down, the participative, and the subculture. Top-down or forced changes typically end in changes that are hard to sustain, although they might be easy to create. Participative methods of culture change are complex and time guzzling, but the pledge and receipt of change is greater as compared to a top-down method. Workers feel a collective possession for the “transformed atmosphere,” that subsequently develops performance. The collective possession of cultural changes encourages the fresh cultural setting. The subculture technique is essential if an organization owns a cultural heterogeneity or physical dispersion. This can be the mainly practical of the techniques, particularly in contemporary worldwide environment. Adopting this method permits every subculture to be considered individually and the disparities that subsist in the subcultures are separated and addressed. This guarantees a more methodical and meticulous execution of the change strategy, thus permitting change in every one of the subcultures.
10. Evaluating, Reporting and Feedback Giving
Evaluation is a required, ongoing part of victorious interventions that must be occasionally free-tuned to attain optimal performance. During the evaluation process, the occurrence of the major elements and general effectiveness should be observed. Techniques of evaluation may include monitoring, gauging effectiveness, or contrasting of elemental occurrence with initial baseline measures acquired during the interior organizational analysis. Congruency might not have been acquired if; the planned change was incompletely understood, the major human elements were misinterpreted or were vague, the organization’s existing culture was misunderstood, a bad plan was formulated, poorly conducted implementation  (Hayes, 2001).

Managerial Implications
There exists many implications that the suggested model holds for supervisors who desire to change their organizational culture taking into account a strategic shift. Primarily, the derived suggested offers managers a clear, succinct, systematic process through which change may be induced. As a broad framework of cultural adjustment, it provides broad theoretical reckoning for a whole process that will essentially call for making appropriate decisions in particular situations. Secondly, the suggested model permits managers to measure the accomplishment of the culture change by use of tangible, “outcome” measures of efficiency. Culture adjustment must not be assessed as a procedure for its self-sake, but its victory or failure ought to be resolved by if or not this transformation will improve organizational efficiency under a fresh strategy (Pasmore, Woodman, Shani, & Noumair, 2013).

Conclusion

The most significant activating events for cultural changes are strategic transformations and their subsequent effect on efficiency. The organizational culture impacts the creation of a fresh strategy that sequentially will present a reciprocal outcome on the adjustment of the existing culture to attain the new strategy’s requirements. If the culture change occurs adopting the proposed adjustment framework, as outlined, the impact on human conduct and actions will be helpful and will enable the corporation to achieve their aims and objectives, therefore, achieving organizational efficiency. Culture is the cohesiveness, which binds the whole strategic “adaptation” endeavors of the organization. This cohesiveness represents a rather conceptual and confusing part of the bulk network of persons interaction referred to as the organization. Therefore it is very clear, nonetheless, that culture may either assist or harshly hinder a selected strategy and additionally considering of cultural influences can be inevitable to fully comprehending of effectual strategic change. This document finds it vitally imperative that organization change be aligned with the existing organizational culture to ensure a successful transformation. Researchers have indicated appropriate congruency possess the ability to ensure the continued existence of the organization. Thus, managers and the relevant administrative organs possess a duty of ensuring the congruency exists prior to any change advancements.

References

Bauer, G. F., & Jenny, G. J., 2013. Salutogenic organizations and change: The concepts behind organizational health intervention research. Dordrecht: Springer.

Bellingham, R., 2001. The manager’s pocket guide to corporate culture change. Amherst, Mass: HRD Press.

Cameron, E., & Green, M., 2004. Making sense of change management: A complete guide to the models, tools & techniques of organizational change. London: Kogan Page.

Floyd, P., 2002. Organizational change. Oxford [England: Capstone Pub.

Hayes, L. J., 2001. Organizational change. Reno, Nev: Context Press.

Hopkins, W. E., Hopkins, S. A., & Mallette, P., 2005. Aligning organizational subcultures for competitive advantage: A strategic change approach. New York: Basic Books.

Hubbard, E. E., 2004. The diversity scorecard: Evaluating the impact of diversity on organizational performance. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science/Butterworth-Heinemann.

Pasmore, W. A., Woodman, R., Shani, A. B., & Noumair, D. A., 2013. Research in Organizational Change and Development. Bradford: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Stanford, N., 2013. Organizational health: An integrated approach to building optimum performance. London: Kogan Page.