The change process is relevant to both culture and climate. More attention has been devoted to the process of culture change than that of climate change in the literature. Yet, culture should be more resistant to change than climate (Schein,
2000).
Culture Change
There is much controversy about whether organizational culture can and should be consciously changed by management
(e.g., Harris & Ogbonna, 1999; Martin, 1985; Sathe & Davidson, 2000; Smircich, 1983). Opinions range from management can and should change culture (Sathe & Davidson) to the manipulation of culture can only occur naturally and is not the consequence of management's direct intervention (Ogbonna. 1993). The value and appropriateness of discussing cultural change depend on one's philosophical orientation.
Sathe and Davidson (2000) reviewed the cultural change literature and made observations about two key unresolved issues. The first pertains to whether a culture's fundamental assumptions or ideologies can be changed, and they concluded that, in fact, some values and beliefs can. This conclusion was supported by idiographic studies showing that cultural change programs resulted in changes in employee behaviors that were consistent with the desired culture (e.g., Langan-Fox & Tan, 1997; Ogbonna & Harris, 1998) and that cultural change pro-f grams resulted in corresponding changes in organizational systems, structure, and strategy (Ogbonna & Harris). These positive results, however, must be tempered by findings from case studies showing that employees' reactions to cultural change are not always what they seem. Ogbonna and Harris's case study revealed that some of the employees' behavioral change actually represented resigned compliance rather than authentic change. Their results also indicated that value changes were not uniformly positive and ranged from rejection to reorientation.
Moreover. Gilmore, Shea, and Useem (1997) identified four key side effects or unintended consequences of culture-change initiatives based on their personal observations of culture change across numerous organizations over the course of six years. These side effects include ambivalent authority (i.e., who is responsible for leading change and who decides what must change), polarized images (i.e., contrasting images of and comfort with the new and old ways of doing things can polarize employees), disappointment and blame (i.e., initial success can give rise to resistance and disappointment, which is frequently followed by finger-pointing toward perceived malcontents and scapegoats), and behavioral inversion (i.e., new values, beliefs, and behaviors are absorbed into old ones, making the old seem new and thus preserving the status quo without appearing to do so). All told, cultural change can change fundamental values, but management must be aware of negative side effects that are likely to occur. Planning for these side effects should be included in planning a cultural-change initiative.
Sathe and Davidson's (2000) second unresolved issue is associated with the decision of how best to refreeze (Lewin, 1951) or reinforce culture change. That is, should management use extrinsic and intrinsic forms of reinforcement, and
Culture and Climate Change 585
when should they be used? Sathe and Davidson conclude that both forms of reinforcement are needed at different points in the change process. This recommendation is consistent with Stajkovic and Luthans (1997) meta-analysis of organizational behavior modification (OB Mod) research, which revealed that behavioral changes aimed at increasing productivity resulted in a 17% increase in performance when desired behaviors where specifically tied to contingent consequences. Furthermore, Sathe and Davidson also endorsed Luthans and Kreitner's (1985, p. 128) conclusion that
natural rewards are potentially the most powerful and universally applicable reinforcers. In contrast to contrived rewards, they do not generally lead to satiation (people seldom get tired of compliments, attention, or recognition) and can be administered on a very contingent basis.
Climate Change
Little research has explicitly tested whether climates change in reaction to changes in practices (Schuster et al., 1997, is an exception), and no research that we are aware of has explicitly examined the process of how climate perceptions change over time. Nevertheless, testable theoretical explanations have been offered about the change process in climate.
Climate is formed from the practices, policies, and procedures of the organization. Thus, a change in practices should result in a change in the content of climate (Kopelman et al., 1990) and force a reevaluation of the situation (Guzzo & Noonan, 1994). The employee is deemed to be a receiver of the communicative content of practices and procedures (Guzzo & Noonan, 1994; Rousseau, 1995). In making interpretations of these practices, either automatic or systematic processing of communications (Eagley & Chaiken, 1993; Feldman, 1981) will be evoked (Guzzo & Noonan, 1994). Automatic processing entails a superficial perception and assessment of signals. In contrast, systematic processing involves careful attention to stimuli, extensive evaluation of and comparison with present knowledge and belief, and the making of inferences about how all this might affect one's attitudes and behaviors. Changes in practices and communications are likely to trigger systematic processing as employees derive conscious explanations of the information (i.e., as they engage in sense-making; Guzzo & Noonan, 1994). Changes in particular practices (e.g., a change from a merit-based system to profit sharing, or adding a new practice such as teams) will evoke a process of reinterpreting what the organization expects.
Furthermore, constructs may shift levels over time (Dansereau, Yammarino. & Kohles, 1999). Changes in the set
586 Organizational Culture and Climate
of practices may initially cause discord and disagreement among individuals in an organization. Hence a previously homogenous group with shared perceptions that lead to an organizational climate may lose their agreement with a change in practices, thereby enabling a focus on psychological climates only. Thus, a change in practice may not produce the desired change in climate content unless the process of the changed practices is delivered in an effective manner (e.g., they evoke salience, understand ability, visibility, and so forth; Ostroff & Bowen, 2000). In addition, climate change is likely to fail if we do not take into consideration the underlying cultural assumptions (Schein, 2000). As noted by Reichers and Schnieder (1990), a climate survey may not yield sufficient data about the inner workings of an organization and is unlikely to be a good source of information for promoting change toward a new focus or strategic objective. In promoting climate change, it may be necessary to examine underlying cultural assumptions through other methodologies (e.g., qualitative study, attributional analysis) to determine whether the desired climate change is consistent with underlying cultural assumptions and to derive more information about the organization's functioning.
CONCLUSIONS AND DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
We believe that the definitional distinction between what and why highlighted initially is a useful one because it indicates the interrelationship between the two constructs of culture and climate as well as their differences. Researchers, theorists, and practitioners are urged to attend more carefully to whether they are referring to climate or culture and to whether they are referring to psychological or organizational climate (as defined previously) in an effort to help to reduce the emerging confusion between the two constructs. Although culture and climate are similar and interrelated in that they both focus on the creation and impact of social contexts, maintaining a distinction between them is important if we are to understand different aspects of the social context and shared meaning and perceptions that develop in organizational life. At the same time, we argue that there is much to be learned by examining the two streams of research simultaneously rather than approaching each as a separate body of literature.
Much theory and research has addressed the layers of culture, how employees and new members learn about the culture, and how culture can be changed. Yet culture research, although theoretically strong in the notion of shared meaning, has done little in the way of empirically measuring or determining the extent to which shared meaning exists, nor does it
have a strong tradition in defining the dimensions of culture or of developing categories of culture (Schein, 2000). In contrast, in climate research, much attention has been devoted to content or delineating different types of climates and the types of organizational practices, policies, and goals that lead to these types of climate, but very little attention in climate has been devoted to process or how shared interpretations of climate emerge. Some of the difference in emphasis in culture and climate work is likely due to measurement techniques that have dominated these research areas. Climate's tradition of survey research is deductive and requires that content of climate be specified a priori, whereas culture's tradition of observational techniques, qualitative studies, and case studies is more inductive and allows for the emergence of cultural properties but not for robust comparisons with other organizations (Ashkanasy, Wilderom, et al, 2000). Our understanding of climate could be advanced if we used the qualitative and quantitative techniques from culture research to examine the deeper values and assumptions that help lead to climate (Schein, 2000; Schneider, 2000). Similarly, climate researchers could learn from culture researchers about studying the change process, while culture researchers could borrow from the strong measurement tradition, particularly about aggregation and agreement, inherent in climate research (Dennison, 1996; Schneider, 2000) to examine shared meaning.
Research is also needed to test many of the linkages specified in Figure 22.1, both within and between levels. Theorists and researchers are urged to take a multilevel perspective in examining culture and climate. In particular, a much-neglected area of research is the emergence from the individual level to higher levels in the formation of culture and climate. Research is needed to explore how these constructs emerge in organizations.
We also specified that the structural context and set of organizational practices, policies, and procedures are the mediating mechanism between culture and climate. Future research is needed to test this notion. For example, research could assess cultural values and assumptions; actual practices as reported by managers, HR directors, and written documents; and employee perceptions of these practices to test the linkages specified in Figure 22.1. Related research should test alignment among culture, practices, and climate. For example, climates inconsistent with culture may result when practices are not consistent with culture or are not delivered in a way that creates a strong situation that allows for the formation of shared perceptions. Additional research is needed to determine both how alignment-based strength is fostered and its relationship to agreement-based and system-based strength in the emergence and impact of culture and climate.
The lack of relationship between culture and performance may be due to the failure to take into account the mediating mechanisms specified in Figure 22.1. Although a few studies have demonstrated relationships between climate and organizational performance, much more work is needed in this area. For example, there is emerging work on the link between HRM practices and organizational performance (e.g., Becker & Huselid, 1998) with assumed mediators of climate and collective attributes of employees, but little work has explicitly tested these relationships. Indeed, some of the contradictory findings of organizational practice-outcome relationships may be due to fact that organizational climate did not emerge (e.g., due to poor agreement-based or alignment-based strength) and hence expected relationship between practices and outcomes were not realized. Thus, multilevel research is needed to determine the emergence and strength of climate from practices and its relationship to collective attributes and performance. ^PFinally, there is a lack of longitudinal research that tests reciprocal relationships among constructs and across levels. For example, organizational outcomes can have a reciprocal relationship with climate (Schneider et al, 1998). Research is needed to determine how the other feedback loops contained in Figure 22.1 operate to more fully understand relationships among culture, climate, and the effective functioning of organizations.
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