Organizational Culture and Change

Course Objective

By participating in the course, students should be enabled to:
- Develop a theoretical understanding of different perspectives on
organizational culture and change
- Apply different theoretical concepts and perspectives in the analysis
of organizational culture (e.g. in movie extracts and case studies)
- Reflect upon the advantages and limitations of the different
approaches and methodologies for studying organizational culture and
change
- Critically engage with the complexity, ambiguity and ethical
implications of organizational culture as well with their own learnings

Course Content

According to Alvesson (2013), the exploration of organizational culture
offers significant insights for understanding organizational life in all
its richness and variations. But what do we actually mean when we speak
of ‘organizational culture’? How can we capture, theorize and study it?
And why bother about organizational culture in the first place? These
and other questions will be addressed in the course Organizational
Culture and Change.

Rather than providing students with clear answers, definitions and
categories to work with, though, this course sets out to explore
organizational culture in all its ambiguity, complexity and messiness.
It bluntly admits that culture is a fuzzy concept with a plethora of
competing definitions deriving from a broad range of different
disciplines. This does not mean however, that studying organizational
culture is necessarily a chaotic endeavor. Instead, the course tries to
sensitize students – in a pretty structured way – to different
perspectives and approaches for studying organizational culture, each
coming with different interests and framings of the phenomenon.

While most studies on organizational culture are driven by an interest
to improve the efficiency of organizational performance, other studies
take a more neutral interest (“knowledge for the sake of knowledge”), or
even a critical view, framing culture as a potential tool for
manipulating employees by controlling their ‘hearts and minds’ (Kenny et
al., 2011). Each of these different perspectives comes with different
assumptions about how to best study and analyze organizational culture
and to what end.

What most framings of organizational culture have in common, though, is
an understanding that culture is not (only) what we see at the surface.
Organizational culture is broadly recognized as deeply and often
historically rooted in the shared experiences, meanings and values of
organizational members. It is frequently expressed and reproduced in
symbolic form, indicating the underlying values and basic assumptions of
taken-for-granted behavioral patterns. Based on these deep roots,
organizational culture is mostly perceived as being difficult to change.
This raises new questions – again with different answers – on how
cultural change comes about and whether or how it can deliberately be
attained.

The course underlines how culture or a system of sub-cultures permeates
entire organizations, namely by guiding the interpretations of
organizational members in their everyday work life. In this way, culture
is closely intertwined with other aspects of organizing, such as
leadership, strategy or business ethics. With a particular interest in
new work cultures of the 21st century – embracing flatter hierarchies,
post-heroic leadership or ‘cultures of fun’ which lead to a stronger
work-life fusion (Fleming, 2005), the course invites students to
critically reflect upon the world of work which they are soon about to
enter.

While students usually have a common sense grasp of organizational
culture already, this course aspires to sharpen their analytic and
critical thinking skills, and to provide them with a conceptual language
for describing and interpreting the complex cultural dynamics which they
will encounter along their work and career lives.


References

- Alvesson, M. (2013). Understanding Organizational Culture (2nd
edition). London: Sage -Publications.

- Fleming, P. (2005). Workers’ Playtime? Boundaries and Cynicism in a
“Culture of Fun” Program. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science,
41(3), 285-303.

- Kenny, K., Whittle, A. & Willmott, H. (2011). Understanding Identity
and Organizations. London: Sage.

Course structure
The course will be structured along the following agenda:
- Exploring questions around organizational culture
- Understanding the link between organizational culture, identity and
control
- Engaging critically with new work cultures in the 21st century
- Addressing the complexity, ambiguity and ethics of culture

Additional Information Teaching Methods

The teaching approach will consist of lectures, including facilitated
text discussions and in-class learning exercises based on the analysis
of case studies and movies. The course will ask students to reflect upon
their own assumptions and learnings and to be actively present during
the course sessions. Next to attending the lectures, the main activity
during this course will be reading. It is highly recommended that
students complete the assigned course readings prior to attending the
lectures. Reading the literature will provide the in-depth knowledge
required for following the course contents and it will enable students
to apply theoretical insights to the analysis of empirical cases.

Method of Assessment

Examination
At the end of the course, there will be a written examination which
tests your knowledge (application) and critical thinking skills. The
exam will consist of four different types of open-ended questions,
reflecting the following:

a) Knowledge: Your understanding of theories and concepts covered in the
course
b) Knowledge application: Your ability to apply these theories/ concepts
to empirical cases
c) Critical evaluation: Your ability to critically evaluate course
topics and theories
d) Critical reflection: Your critical reflection on course topics and
your own learnings

Details on the exam will be provided during the lectures. The result of
the exam should be 5.5 or up.

Estimated study load
Lectures: 28 hours
Reading literature: 84 hours
Exam preparation + Exam: 56 hours
Total: 168 hours

Literature

Required reading: book

Alvesson, M. (2013). Understanding Organizational Culture (2nd edition).
London: Sage Publications.


Required reading: articles/ book chapters

- Bell, E. (2008). Reading Management and Organization in Film. New
York: Palgrave Macmillan. (Introduction, p. 1-12) [Available on Canvas]

- Fleming, P. (2005). Workers’ Playtime? Boundaries and Cynicism in a
“Culture of Fun” Program. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science,
41(3), 285-303.

- Kaptein, M. (2011). From Inaction to External Whistleblowing: The
Influence of the Ethical Culture of Organizations on Employee Responses
to Observed Wrongdoing. Journal of Business Ethics, 98(3), 513-530.

- Kärreman, D. & Alvesson, M. (2004). Cages in Tandem: Management
Control, Social Identity, and Identification in a Knowledge-Intensive
Firm. Organization, 11(1), 149-175.

- Picard, H., & Islam, G. (2018). ‘Free to Do What I Want’? Exploring
the Ambivalent Effects of Liberating Leadership. Organization Studies,
0170840618814554.


Additional reading: optional

- Bell, E. (2008). Reading Management and Organization in Film. New
York: Palgrave Macmillan. (Chapter 1, p. 13-39) [Available on Canvas]

- Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison.
London: Penguin.

- Grey, C. (2017). Organizational culture and self-management (Chapter
3). In Grey, C. A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap
Book About Studying Organizations. London: Sage Publications, 62-82.

- Hoyer, P. (2014). Careers in Transition: Continuity, Complexity and
Conflicting Desires in the Discursive Identity Construction of
Ex-Consultants. Dissertation, Universität St. Gallen. Bamberg:
Difo-Druck GmbH.

- Holmqvist, M. & Maravelias, C. (2018). Management in the
“neo-paternalistic organization”: The case of worksite health promotion
at Scania. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 34(3), 267-275.

- Hoyer, P. (2017). Modifying the discourse of elitism: How
egalitarianism can reduce status anxiety. Presented at the 77th Annual
Meeting of the Academy of Management, Atlanta, GA.

- Kenny, K., Whittle, A. & Willmott, H. (2011). Understanding Identity
and Organizations. London: Sage

- Morgan, G. (2006). Images of Organization. London, Sage Publications,
Updated edition, p. 3-8.

- Schein, E. H. (1990). Organizational culture. American Psychological
Association, 45(2): 109-119.

Additional Information Target Audience

Second year Bachelor’s students in Bestuur & Organisatie, Exchange
students, and students in the Minor Organisatiewetenschap

Explanation Canvas

Students are expected to check Canvas regularly as this will be the main
communication facility for the course. All relevant course materials
will be made available on Canvas.