Dear all:
Below (and attached) please find a draft of a research symposium abstract. We – Isabelle Walsh and Denise Potosky -- are looking for people who may be able to teach us and contribute to research on the topic of organizational culture, climate, and change at the AoM 2012 meeting.
Please email with your ideas and comments: dxp16@psu.edu, isabelle.walsh@em-strasbourg.eu.
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Can you spare some change? Examining, Anticipating, and Regulating Shifts in Organizational Culture
Over the past decade, almost every organization (large and small, public and private) has encountered dramatic changes to its structure, work climate, and culture. Theory and research that can interpret and guide cultural shifts and climate change can potentially make important contributions to managerial practice. Fortunately, few fields of organizational science scholarship have as many elegant, esteemed theories as that which addresses organizational culture and change. The problem is not so much that there are radically conflicting or flawed theories as it is what to do with them all. Smircich's (1983) theoretical framework described the distinction between 'has' and 'is' approaches to culture. Ashkanasy, Wilderom, and Peterson (2000) described three different ontologies for organizational culture: structural realist (an organization is a structure that has properties including culture), social constructionist (an organization "is" a culture in itself), and linguistic (the concept of culture serves the heuristic purpose of helping us think). Boltanski and Thévenot's (1991/2006) explained that people live and work together in various "worlds," which provide a logic for behavior and for interpreting situations. Martins (1992) proposed three complementary perspectives that should all be examined when studying organizational culture: fragmentation, differentiation and integration. In a recent, substantial review of research and conceptualizations of organizational climate and organizational culture, Schneider, Ehrhart, and Macey (2011) proposed a "climcult model," representing an integrated research paradigm for organizational climate and culture. These authors argue that the organizational climate research literature has provided a strategic focus on organizational effectiveness, whereas the organizational culture literature has illuminated the effects of positive values and beliefs and the importance of communication and socialization processes within organizations. In our paper, we apply a "spinning top" metaphor to illustrate how multiple, differentiated layers of organizational culture can be assessed when an organization undergoes changes and challenges to its values system. This robust metaphor also provides a meta-theoretical tool to identify possible value misfits or culture clashes.
To promote both theoretical understanding of organizational culture shifts and research, we propose to cover the following topics in the symposium:
How can we measure shifts in organizational culture? Can we purposefully create these shifts? Can we prevent them?
Can multi-level and multi-perspective approaches be used to inform and anticipate the dynamic nature organizational culture?
What are some ways to assess and prevent potential "value misfits" or culture clashes between organizations (e.g., in the case of mergers and acquisitions) or within organizations (e.g, when hiring a new CEO or forming alliances between individuals)?
REFERENCES
Ashkanasy N., Wilderom C., and Peterson M. 2000. Handbook of Organizational Culture and Climate. Sage Publications Inc. Thousand Oaks, California.
Boltanski L. and Thévenot L. 1991. De la justification: Les économies de la grandeur. Editions Gallimard. Paris.
Boltanski L. and Thévenot L. 2006. On justification: Economies of worth. Translated by C. Porter. Princeton University press. Princeton and Oxford.
Lee, T.W., Mitchell, T.R., Wise, L. & Fireman, S. (1996) An unfolding model of voluntary employee turnover. Academy of Management Journal 39(1), 5-36.
Lee,EE T.W., Mitchell, T.R., Holtom, B.C., McDaniel, L.S. & Hill, J.W. (1999). The unfolding model of voluntary turnover: A replication and extension. Academy of Management Journal 42(4), 450-462.
Martin J. 1992. Cultures in organizations, three perspectives. Oxford University Press. New York, Oxford
Schneider, B., Ehrhart, M. G., and Macey, W. H. 2011. Perspectives on organizational climate and culture. In S. Zedeck (Ed.), APA Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 1: Building and Developing the Organization (pp. 373-414). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Smircich L. 1983. Concepts of culture and organizational analysis. Administrative Science Quarterly. 28 (3), 339-358.
Denise Potosky, Ph.D.
Professor, Management and Organization
The Pennsylvania State University
Great Valley School of Graduate Professional Studies
30 E. Swedesford Road, Malvern, PA 19355 USA
tel: +1 610-648-3375
Email: dxp16@psu.edu