Hi,
first of all you need to define what you understand under 'culture', how
is culture manifested in a company and so on.
Culture as a complete image of a companys (social) attitude can be seen
mostly only in symbols like:
- How is the intern communication like
- Who is being promoted for what kind of performance
- How is there talked about customers
- Design of documents (example: leadership manuals, working rules
etc)
- How is the executive board behaving in meetings
- Design of buildings and working places
- telefonists kindness
- doormans state of information
- working overtime
- etc
All this is not a measurable process or a written strategy, its only a
difficult to grasp expression of a common structure of values and
standards in every companys area and process.
These symptoms originate out of an
- people focused area (key factors)
- instruments focused area (management factors) and
- ex-organisational focused area (environmental factors)
1. Key factors are
- profile of executives personality such as
CV's (social descent, career etc), values and mentality, visions,
acceptance of innovation, willingness to learn, tolerance of
frustration....
- rituals and symbols such as
Executives: practice of promotion, selection of cadre, behaviour in
decisions, meetings and relations. Staff: companys language,
esteem of customer, dealing with visitors or reclamations.
External symbols: appearance of buildings, office or workplace
outfit, cafeteria, clothing and symbols as flowers or companys
sponsored cars. Conventions: parking places, needs of clothing,
welcome rituals of visitors, companys parties.
- communications such as
Communications style: Behaviour in information and communication,
openess, spontaneouity (?), willingness of consense. Internal and
external communication: Corporate identity, PR, quality circles,
staffs participation, staffs suggestions, official channels.
2. Management factors are
- strategy such as
Documentation of strategy, strategical visions, organization of
realization.
- structure and processes such as
Documentation (Organigramme ?), Philosophy (like centralized or
decentralized etc), informal structure and procedures
- systems of leading
Controlling, payroll, planning systems, techniques like MBO,
3. Environmental factors are
- Economical influences
- social influences
- Technical and
- Ecological influences
You start to analyse a companys culture on the basis of these
bunch of factors by a analysis of written documents and a intensive
planned circuit through the company. Based on these first impressions
you are setting your first focal points and hypothesis. You continue
e.g. with anonymous questionnaires or observation of meetings etc.
Most important part are separate interviews with staff members of al
levels.
So long
Gerold
> I am writing from Panama, Republic of Panama. I am interested in doing
> some work on the Organizational Culture of the Panama Canal Organization.
> I need some help on determining variables that could be used to measure
> organizational culture. Any ideas?
-- Gerold Hombach GermanyLearning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>