Page 337 - DMGT402_MANAGEMENT_PRACTICES_AND_ORGANIZATIONAL_BEHAVIOUR

Management Practices and Organisational Behaviour

Notes Questions
1. What do you analyse as the most influential characteristic of Southwest's culture?
2. Do you really think that the reason behind Southwest's profit's was its culture or the
leadership was just playing it humble?
3. Do you think that following the Southwest way, the other airlines would have also
made profits?
Source: www.ibscdc.org

16.5 Changing Organisational Culture

If organisations are to consciously create and manage their cultures, they must be able to take
their employees into consideration. There are problems that managers face when they go about
the business of changing organisational culture. Changing organisational culture takes patience,
vigilance, and a focus on changing the parts of an organisational culture that managers can
control:
1. Behaviours: One way of changing a corporate culture is to use behavioural addition or
behavioural substitution to establish new patterns of behaviour among employees.

(a) Behavioural Addition: Behavioural Addition is the process of having managers and
employees perform new behaviours that are central to and symbolic of the new
organisational culture that a company wants to create.

(b) Behavioural Substitution: Behavioural substitution is the process of having managers
and employees perform new behaviours central to the "new" organisational culture
in place of behaviours that used to be central to the "old" organisational culture.
2. Visible Artifacts: Another way in which managers can begin to change corporate culture
is to change visible artifacts of their old culture. Visible artifacts are visible signs of an
organisation's culture, such as office design and layout, company dress codes, and company
benefits and perks like stock options, personal parking spaces, etc. These need to change
keeping the new corporate culture in mind.
Corporate cultures are very difficult to change. Consequently, there is no guarantee that
behaviour-substitution, behavioural addition or changing visible artifacts will change a
company's organisational culture. Clearly, an open display of top management commitment
and support for the new values and beliefs is critically important to enable employees to change.

16.6 Forces for Change in Organisations

More and more organisations today face a dynamic and changing environment that, in turn
requires these organisations to adapt. Change has become the norm in most organisations.
Plant closing, business failures, mergers and acquisitions, and downsizing have become common
experiences for most organisations. Adaptiveness, flexibility and responsiveness are terms used
to describe organisations that will succeed in meeting the competitive challenges that businesses
face. In the past, organisations could succeed by claiming excellence in one area — quality,
reliability or cost. But this is not the case today. The current environment demands excellence in
all areas.

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