Verified Document

Corporate Culture Survival Guide Chapter 1 & Research Paper

CORPORATE CULTURE SURVIVAL GUIDE (CHAPTER 1 & CHAPTER 2) The work of Edward H. Schein (1999) entitled "Corporate Culture Survival Guide" begins by examining the question of why it is important to understand culture. It is important according to Schein (1999) to understand that the organization exists "within broader cultural units that matter in today's global world because mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and special projects are often multicultural entitles who must have the ability to work across cultures." (p.3) Culture is residual in the individual and is reported by Schein to be the "hidden force hat drives mot of our behavior both inside and outside organizations." (Schein, 1999, p. 3)

Schein (1999) makes it clear that the organizational culture is no small thing but instead is vital and a living aspect of the organization that determines the organization's projection whether that be toward failure or success. People belong to their country, as well as belonging to occupations, organizations, communities, families and a social group with each of these various cultures affecting the individual. Each new social situation results in the individual functioning as "leaders' because the individual "not only reinforce[s] and act[s] as part of the present culture, but often begin to create new cultural elements." (Schein, 1999, p. 3)

According to Schein confusion concerning what is meant by culture and leadership is the result of a "failure to consider this interaction between them and our failure to define what stage of an organization's life we are talking about." (1999, p. 3-4) The reason that management of the alignment of various subcultures is important in the present includes that:

(1) mergers and acquisitions and joint ventures in the subculture are actually entire organizational cultures that need to be blended or aligned;

(2) Globalization, which produces many diverse multicultural organizational units based on nationality, language and ethnicity;

(3) Technological complexity which produces many more 'mature' occupational subcultures that have to be taken into account in designing the flow of work;

(4) Information technology which has resulted in many more structural options of when, where and by who work is to be done. (Schein, 1999, p. 6)

Schein (1999) notes that the CEO and top executive group's concern about how to manage the...

(p.7)
Schein (1999) provides an example of how leadership and cultural interaction matters stating that when Atari was one of the top designers of computer game and a new CEO in marketing was hired that CEO's cultural background informed him that providing individual incentive and career system was important but when he discovered "loosely organized" groups of engineers and programmers with work that appeared very disorganized he did not know who should be rewarded and for what. This CEO began to clean up what he considered to be a mess and the result was demoralization among employees with many of the best engineers leaving the company. What this CEO had failed to realize is that "in its evolution the company learned that the essence of the creative process in designing good games was unstructured climate that enabled designer to trigger each other's creativity." (Schein, 1999, p. 8) This CEO also failed to realize that when a successful game was produced it was the result of a "group" rather than individual effort. The individual engineers are reported to have "shared an assumption that only through extensive informal interaction could an idea come to fruition." (Schein, 1999, p. 8) The importance of this example is the fact that the organizational culture formulates the nerve center of the organization and is central and vital to the success of the organization.

Schein reports that the culture is the primary source of the identity of the organization and when the culture is challenged it is the same thing as challenging the organizational founders. In other words, when the individual or group of individuals within the organization attempt to challenge the well-ingrained culture of the organization, the challenge that presents is not just against outdated and no longer useful cultural elements in the organization but instead the challenge is against the very foundations of the organization. The cultural elements are reported by Schein to become "sacred cows and difficult to change." (p.17)

There are mid-life organization cultural issues and remembering that Schein states that it is of great importance to understand the age and stage of the organization mid-life organizational culture issues…

Sources used in this document:
Bibliography

Schein, EH (1999) The Corporate Culture Survival Guide. John Wiley & Sons. Retrieved from: http://books.google.cz/books?id=LkYRFu05W-AC&printsec=frontcover&hl=cs#v=onepage&q&f=false
Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Corporate Governance Much Has Been
Words: 3011 Length: 12 Document Type: Research Proposal

Reliability & Validity The key will be to find reliability and validity. Reliability, of course, is the concept that if someone else does the same exact research in the same exact way, the research conclusions drawn will be close to if not entirely identical. Validity is similar in that the conclusions met have to be directly applied and ascertained based on the data that actually exists and not based on the

Corporate Finance East Coast Yachts I My
Words: 702 Length: 3 Document Type: Corporate

Corporate Finance East Coast Yachts I My time horizon is long-run. I would want a diversified portfolio, but can afford to take the risk of equities. So the first decision is to go with 100% equities. I am not interested in company stock at the moment, because I want a diversified portfolio and I only want liquid securities with values set by the market. The company stock does not meet those criteria. In

Culture of Interest: Japan Theoretical Foundations of
Words: 5094 Length: 15 Document Type: Research Paper

Culture of Interest: Japan Theoretical foundations of cultural and cross-cultural analysis: Japan and America Japan: Mildly collectivist culture American culture American: An individualistic culture Similarities and differences in Japanese and U.S. culture Potential biases of researcher Appendix I- Hofstede four Dimensional Theory Edward Tylor (1832-1917) defines culture as a collection of customs, laws, morals, knowledge, and symbols displayed by a society and its constituting members. Culture is form of collective expression by groups of people. Since the dawn

Culture in the Work of Lahiri
Words: 978 Length: 3 Document Type: Essay

Culture and the Work of Lahiri Focusing questions: After looking at three or four definitions of culture from different dictionaries, what do these definitions have in common? In the United States, some members of ethnic groups who have been in the country for several generations or more may feel distant from their cultures or even without a culture. What are the various factors that account for these feelings? The Four Definitions of

Survival of Zi Wei Do Shu or the Purple Star Astrology
Words: 6653 Length: 20 Document Type: Thesis

Survival of Zi Wei Do Shu or the Purple Star Astrology The psychology and behavior of individuals has been studied using the astrological structured for years, however this aspect has not been evaluated and researched in detail especially in the context of the Purple Star Astrology from the Chinese Astrological Structures. This section reveals a concise, yet comprehensive review of preceding theories and researches of human behavior and psychology existent within

Survival in Auschwitz, Primo Levi's Most Important
Words: 1683 Length: 5 Document Type: Essay

Survival in Auschwitz, Primo Levi's most important observation was that staying alive depended not only on skill and cunning but also a large measure of good luck. In his case, one example of good fortune was being born in Italy, where the Jews were not deported until after the German occupation in 1943. Whatever the faults of the fascist Mussolini regime -- and they were many -- it refused to

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now