Changing Organizational Culture: Cultural change work in progress

209 Pages·2007·1.14 MB·English

Changing Organizational Culture
How do people react to significant organizational change? Do we see ourselves as
helping change to come about, or allowing change to happen around us? How can
we adapt more easily to change?
Based around an illuminating extended case-study, this important new text
uncovers the reality of organizational change. From planning and inception to
project management and engagement, the book explores the views and reactions of
various stakeholders undergoing real life change processes. Drawing on theories of
organizational culture, it helps us to understand how organizations can promote
change without alienating the people needed to implement it.
Changing Organizational Culturerepresents an original and timely addition to
the literature on organizational change. It is vital reading for all students, researchers
and practitioners working in organizational theory and behaviour, change manage-
ment and HRM.
Mats Alvesson and Stefan Sveningsson work at the Department of Business
Administration, Lund University, Sweden.

Changing Organizational
Culture
Cultural change work in progress
Mats Alvesson and Stefan Sveningsson
First published 2008
by Routledge
2Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in theTaylor & Francis e-Library,2007.
“To purchaseyourown copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
©2008 Mats Alvesson and Stefan Sveningsson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized 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.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Acatalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Acatalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN0-203-93596-9 Mastere-bookISBN
ISBN10: 0–415–43761–X (hbk)
ISBN10: 0–415–43762–8 (pbk)
ISBN10: 0–203–93596–9 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–43761–5 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–43762–2 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–203–93596–5 (ebk)
For Miha and Mathilda, and for Sara and Erik

Contents
List of figures x
List of tables xi
Preface xiii
PART 1
Perspectives on organizational and cultural change 1
1 Introduction 3
Understanding organizational change 4
Studying change in depth 7
The purpose of the book 9
The structure of the book 10
2 Organizational change 13
Forces of organizational change 14
Views on organizational change 15
The planning approach 19
The planning approach – a critique 26
The process approach 27
Resistance 31
Conclusions 33
3 Organizational culture and change 35
What is organizational culture? 36
Sub-cultures and identity 38
Organizational cultural change 40
Views of organizational culture change 44
viii Contents
Cultural change: preceding, following from or intertwined
with ‘substantive changes’? 47
Conclusions 49
PART 2
Change work in practice – a close-up study 51
4 The case – and how we studied it 53
The company and its story 53
Investigative model of management and cultural work 55
Method 57
5 A cultural change project I: background, objectives and design 60
Some key actors in our story 61
IBackground – talk of an existing culture 63
II Objectives: ideas behind and aims for a culture change project 66
III Designing a change project 69
Summary 77
6 A cultural change project II: implementation, reception and
outcomes 79
IV Implementation and interaction 79
VReception and interpretation 90
VI Results 92
Summary – and questions 96
PART 3
Crucial issues in cultural changework 97
7 ‘It is not so damn easy’ – lack of consistency and expressiveness
in cultural change work 99
Immobilized engagement – on the difficulties in getting the
process moving 99
Key dimensions behind the problems I: coordination and
prioritization 101
Key dimensions behind the problems II: on symbolism,
emotionality and expressiveness 104
Discussion – a challenge that vanished 105
Summary 108
Contents ix
8 Disconnected work: cultural change efforts decoupled 109
From Excellence to HR – a first phase of loose connections 109
From HR to middle managers – a second phase of loose
connections 113
Discussion – disconnected change of baton reflecting bureaucracy 115
Summary and comment 117
9 Hyperculture 119
Culture as an unpacked package 120
Culture as manufactured 121
Culture talk as ceremony and ritual 123
Culture as grandiose fantasies about the future 124
Conclusions 126
PART 4
Getting into the substance of organizational change work 131
10 Working with culture vs culture working on change workers 133
Concepts of culture 134
The change programme as an expression of organizational culture 135
Unintentional reinforcement of existing culture 142
Conclusions 145
11 Working with change 148
An exceptionally unfortunate and/or a typical case? 148
On the re-engineering of engineering culture 150
The organization of change work: beyond steps – and on to identities 153
Identities in change work 156
The organizational context of change work 159
Conclusions 162
12 Lessons for cultural change actors and others 165
Some potential traps in work with organizational cultures 165
On the basic images of change 171
What can be learned? Fifteen lessons for cultural change projects 175
Notes 181
Bibliography 183
Index 189