Analyzing Organization Cultures

295 Pages·2021·7.57 MB·English

by  Bruce Fortado

Analyzing Organization Cultures
Certain consultants argue leaders can quickly, easily, and considerably
alter their organization cultures to improve performance. Conversely,
field researchers have described situations where leaders could do little to
alter the existing organization culture. Between these extreme positions, a
spectrum of varying degrees of leader influence exists, and organizations
fall at various places along this spectrum.
This book presents five field studies dealing with team, service, and
sales cultures where both expected and unexpected outcomes arose. In
multiple instances, leaders hoped showing some employee appreciation
would compensate for offering below market average wages. Several
leadership groups were prospering based on cost cuts or increased sales.
Those below often had their work intensified and they were experiencing
greater stress. Eight paradoxical situations were uncovered and the
interpretations of the participants were based in part on their personal
work histories and the history of their current organization. In each case,
evidence of employee informal organization and managerial operating
cultures were documented.
Analyzing Organization Cultures uses detailed case studies of five
work organizations to offer a comparative approach to analyzing
organizational culture. It shows the latest state of knowledge on the
topic and will be of interest to researchers, academics, and students in the
fields of organizational studies, management history, human resource
management, and organizational theory.
Bruce Fortado is Professor of Management in the Coggin College of
Business at the University of North Florida, USA.
Routledge Studies in Management, Organizations
and Society
This series presents innovative work grounded in new realities, addressing
issues crucial to an understanding of the contemporary world. This is the
world of organized societies, where boundaries between formal and in-
formal, public and private, local and global organizations have been dis-
placed or have vanished, along with other nineteenth-century dichotomies
and oppositions. Management, apart from becoming a specialized profes-
sion for a growing number of people, is an everyday activity for most
members of modern societies.
Similarly, at the level of enquiry, culture and technology, and literature and
economics, can no longer be conceived as isolated intellectual fields; con-
ventional canons and established mainstreams are contested. Management,
Organizations and Society addresses these contemporary dynamics of
transformation in a manner that transcends disciplinary boundaries, with
books that will appeal to researchers, student and practitioners alike.
Recent titles in this series include:
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Analyzing Organization
Cultures
Bruce Fortado
First published 2021
by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an
informa business
© 2021 selection and editorial matter, Bruce Fortado; individual
chapters, the contributors
The right of Bruce Fortado to be identified as author of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters,
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Fortado, Bruce, editor.
Title: Analyzing organization cultures / edited by Bruce Fortado.
Description: New York : Routledge, 2021. | Series: Routledge
studies in management, organizations and society | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020051397 (print) | LCCN 2020051398 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367518028 (hbk) | ISBN 9781003055266 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Organizational behavior. | Corporate culture. |
Management. | Teams in the workplace.
Classification: LCC HD58.7 .A4772 2021 (print) | LCC HD58.7
(ebook) | DDC 302.3/5--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020051397
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020051398
ISBN: 978-0-367-51802-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-51803-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-05526-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by MPS Limited, Dehradun
Bruce Fortado dedicates this book to his mentor,
David G. Moore. Although you are no longer with us,
what you taught me about fieldwork and Human
Relations is still shining light on aspects of the world.
Even the smallest light shines brightly in the darkness.

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Preface x
1 The Migration and Mutation of “Culture” 1
BRUCE FORTADO AND PAUL FADIL
2 Self-Directed Teams and Peer Discipline at Finos 28
BRUCE FORTADO AND LAWRENCE O’BRIEN
3 The Team Culture at Value Stores 51
BRUCE FORTADO
4 Melding Six Sigma into the Organizational Culture
of Insuro 105
BRUCE FORTADO
5 The Yin and Yang of Introducing a Sales Culture:
The Amalgam Bank Case 142
BRUCE FORTADO AND PAUL FADIL
6 The Organization Culture at Balbec’s Housing
Department 163
BRUCE FORTADO
7 Anticipating Reactions to Managerial Decisions 190
BRUCE FORTADO
viii Contents
8 The Unifying Goal of Pleasing Customers 215
BRUCE FORTADO
9 Conducting Organization Culture Analyses 234
BRUCE FORTADO
Appendix: The Methods Used 266
Biographies 272
Index 274
Acknowledgments
I want to thank the following people for their contributions. It would not
have been possible to write this text without the help of numerous
anonymous participants. Steven K. Paulson commented on the first six
chapters before he retired. Steve was very assertive regarding his belief
formal organization and informal organization were different from the
official culture and the operating culture. He thought a two by two matrix
could depict the various combinations. However, Steve could not locate
his notepad where he initially sketched out examples in each quadrant. My
best effort to produce such a matrix appears in Chapter 4. It took me a
long time to come to the realization I needed to cross list these concepts to
make a coherent figure. Dong-Young Kim shared some thoughts with me
about operations and production after he read Chapter 4 Adel El-Ansary,
Josh Samli, Darren McCabe, Arjo Laukia, and Sylwia Ciuk shared their
feedback on a draft that later became Chapter 5. Josh Samli told me that
I needed to insert some visual aids to reinforce the points I had made in the
text. The text currently has figures in all the chapters that are based on case
studies. Scott Harris and Tim Hallett were kind enough to comment on an
earlier version of Chapter 6. Dag Naslund commented on Chapter 7.
Of course, I am responsible for any errors that are found in the final
manuscript.
Bruce Fortado