BUSI 310 Week 2 Discussion Board Forum 1 Thread and Replies Example

Discussion Board Forum 1: Organizational Culture and Effectiveness

BUSI 310 Principles of Management, Discussion Board Forum 1 Thread and Replies

Thread by [Student Name]

The credit union example and the classmates are composites; the textbook, books and research cited are real.

Thread

Few things shape a workplace more than its culture, and few are harder for a manager to steer. Bateman et al. (2018) describe culture as the set of important assumptions that members of an organization share, and they note that a strong culture shapes how employees think and act even when no supervisor is watching. The question for a manager is whether culture can be designed, or whether it simply happens.

Schein (2010) explains why culture resists quick change by describing it at three levels. The most visible level is artifacts: office layout, dress, ceremonies and the stories people tell. Beneath them are espoused values, the principles an organization says it holds, such as customer service or innovation. At the deepest level are basic underlying assumptions, beliefs so taken for granted that members rarely discuss them, such as whether mistakes should be hidden or shared. A manager who changes artifacts, for instance by redesigning the office, without touching assumptions often finds that behavior does not change.

To sort cultures into types, many researchers use a model called the competing values framework. Picture a grid. One axis runs from flexible to stable, the other from inward-looking to outward-looking, and each corner holds a culture: the clan, built on teamwork and loyalty; the adhocracy, prizing experiment; the market, driven by targets and rivals; and the hierarchy, valuing rules and smooth routine. Hartnell et al. (2011) tested whether these types predict effectiveness by combining dozens of studies. Every type showed some link to effectiveness, the clan type tracked most closely with how employees felt about their work, and real organizations blended the types far more than a neat grid would suggest. Real organizations tend to mix culture types, so the useful question is which emphasis to strengthen, not which box to occupy.

A composite example shows how a manager can shift culture deliberately. A regional credit union had a hierarchy culture: decisions went up the chain, procedures were followed exactly and branch employees avoided taking initiative. Member complaints about slow service were rising. The new president did not begin with a values statement. Instead, three practical things changed. First, branch staff were authorized to waive small fees and resolve complaints on the spot, and their decisions were reviewed only in aggregate. Second, the monthly report to the board added member satisfaction scores alongside efficiency measures. Third, the president visited branches and publicly praised employees who had solved problems creatively, telling those stories at every all-staff meeting. Within two years, employees described the credit union as a place where they could act on their judgment, and complaint resolution times had fallen.

Schein (2010) would recognize the pattern: in his account, employees read a culture off the things leaders notice, count and pay for, and off how leaders behave when something goes badly wrong. It also fits the competing values framework: the credit union did not abandon control, which a financial institution needs, but added a clan and market emphasis on members and empowerment.

Three lessons follow for managers. First, diagnose the culture before trying to change it, listening for the assumptions behind behavior. Second, change what is rewarded and measured, not only what is said. Third, model the new behavior consistently, because employees watch what leaders do far more closely than what they write. Culture changes slowly, but it does change when these signals align.

It is also worth noting what culture cannot do. A strong culture can become a liability when the environment shifts, because the same shared assumptions that once produced success can blind members to new threats. Bateman et al. (2018) warn that organizations must adapt their cultures as conditions change, and the credit union's story could easily have gone the other way: a culture of strict procedure, well suited to a stable regulatory environment, became a handicap once members began comparing its service with online banks that answered questions instantly. Managers therefore need to treat culture as something to revisit periodically, asking whether today's shared assumptions still fit tomorrow's competition.

Reply to Daniel

Daniel, your post laid out the textbook's four-part map of the manager's job with good examples, and Bateman et al. (2018) build the whole course around that map. I agree they are a useful framework for learning what managers are responsible for. I would add, though, that research on what managers actually do all day looks quite different from a tidy list of functions.

Mintzberg (1975) observed executives at work and challenged what he called the folklore of management. Rather than reflective planners, the managers he studied worked at an unrelenting pace, spent most of their time in brief, fragmented activities, preferred verbal communication to written reports and relied heavily on informal networks of contacts. He described the job in terms of roles, interpersonal, informational and decisional, rather than functions. A manager might handle a customer complaint, approve a budget item, mentor an employee and gather information about a competitor within a single hour.

I think the two views complement each other. The four functions describe what must get done over time, while Mintzberg's roles describe how managers actually spend their days doing it. For a new supervisor, the practical lesson is that planning will not happen on its own amid constant interruptions; it has to be protected on the calendar. Mintzberg also noted that managers depend heavily on the information they gather informally, through conversations and quick calls, and that much of this information never reaches written reports. That makes the informational roles especially important for a supervisor who wants to plan well, because good plans depend on hearing early about problems on the floor and changes among customers. A supervisor who spends a few minutes each day walking the work area may gather more useful information than one who waits for the weekly report.

Do you think the four functions describe your own supervisor's job well, or does Mintzberg's picture of constant interruptions fit better? I suspect most supervisors would recognize themselves in both, depending on the day. I suspect most supervisors would recognize themselves in both, depending on the day.

Reply to Keisha

Keisha, your thread on environmental scanning made a strong case that managers need to watch the external environment, from competitors and customers to regulation and technology, as Bateman et al. (2018) describe. Your example of a local bookstore that missed the shift to online ordering showed how costly it can be to look only inward.

Research supports your argument. Daft et al. (1988) studied chief executives of manufacturing firms and examined how often and how broadly they scanned their environments. In high-performing firms, executives scanned more frequently and more broadly when their environments were uncertain, paying attention to customers, competitors and economic conditions and using personal sources such as conversations as well as written reports. In lower-performing firms, scanning did not increase as uncertainty rose. The finding suggests that scanning matters most precisely when the environment is changing quickly.

One implication is that scanning should be adjusted to conditions rather than done at a fixed level. A bookstore in a stable market might scan modestly, but one facing a new competitor or technology should increase its attention, perhaps by talking regularly with customers and suppliers. The finding about personal sources is also practical for small businesses that cannot afford market research. An owner who asks regular customers what else they buy online, or who chats with sales representatives about what other stores are doing, is scanning in exactly the way the high-performing executives did, just on a smaller scale. The point is less about the method than about making attention to the outside world a habit rather than an occasional reaction.

In your bookstore example, which sources of information do you think the owner could have used to see the change coming?

References

Bateman, T. S., Snell, S. A., & Konopaske, R. (2018). Management. McGraw-Hill Education.

Daft, R. L., Sormunen, J., & Parks, D. (1988). Chief executive scanning, environmental characteristics, and company performance: An empirical study. Strategic Management Journal, 9(2), 123-139. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.4250090204

Hartnell, C. A., Ou, A. Y., & Kinicki, A. (2011). Organizational culture and organizational effectiveness: A meta-analytic investigation of the competing values framework's theoretical suppositions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(4), 677-694. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021987

Mintzberg, H. (1975). The manager's job: Folklore and fact. Harvard Business Review, 53(4), 49-61.

Schein, E. H. (2010). Organizational culture and leadership (4th ed.). Jossey-Bass.