Leading by Leveraging Culture
02-088
Leading by Leveraging Culture
Jennifer A. Chatman1 Sandra E. Cha
1
The first author wrote this chapter while a Marvin Bower Fellow at the Harvard Business School, and is grateful for their support.
Copyright © 2002 by Jennifer A. Chatman and Sandra E. Cha Working papers are in draft form. This working paper is distributed for purposes of comment and discussion only. It may not be reproduced without permission of the copyright holder. Copies of working papers are available from the author.
Leading by Leveraging Culture
Jennifer A. Chatman1 Haas School of Business University of California Berkeley, CA 94720-1900 chatman@haas.berkeley.edu And Sandra E. Cha Harvard Business School Soldiers Field, Sherman Hall 102 Harvard University Boston, MA 02163 scha@hbs.edu
December 11, 2001
To appear in, Subir Chowdhury (Ed), Next Generation Business Series: Leadership, Financial Times-Prentice Hall Publishers, forthcoming, 2003.
1
The first author wrote this chapter while a Marvin Bower Fellow at the Harvard Business School, and is grateful for their support.
2
We occasionally get calls from prospective clients who, having heard that we consult with organizations to improve their cultures, ask us to “come on down to our organization and get us a better one.” Perhaps they are thinking that, somehow, after we have worked our culture magic, employees will be singing and dancing in their cubicles. Although this is a nice image, simply trying to make employees happy misses the power of leveraging culture. The problem is that organizational culture has become faddish, and as such, it has been over-applied and underspecified. Our goal in this chapter is to precisely clarify why culture is powerful, and provide specific criteria for developing a strong, strategically relevant culture that is likely to enhance your organization’s performance over the long haul. A few caveats apply to our discussion. First we won’t claim that by simply managing culture, leaders will
Leading by Leveraging Culture
Jennifer A. Chatman1 Sandra E. Cha
1
The first author wrote this chapter while a Marvin Bower Fellow at the Harvard Business School, and is grateful for their support.
Copyright © 2002 by Jennifer A. Chatman and Sandra E. Cha Working papers are in draft form. This working paper is distributed for purposes of comment and discussion only. It may not be reproduced without permission of the copyright holder. Copies of working papers are available from the author.
Leading by Leveraging Culture
Jennifer A. Chatman1 Haas School of Business University of California Berkeley, CA 94720-1900 chatman@haas.berkeley.edu And Sandra E. Cha Harvard Business School Soldiers Field, Sherman Hall 102 Harvard University Boston, MA 02163 scha@hbs.edu
December 11, 2001
To appear in, Subir Chowdhury (Ed), Next Generation Business Series: Leadership, Financial Times-Prentice Hall Publishers, forthcoming, 2003.
1
The first author wrote this chapter while a Marvin Bower Fellow at the Harvard Business School, and is grateful for their support.
2
We occasionally get calls from prospective clients who, having heard that we consult with organizations to improve their cultures, ask us to “come on down to our organization and get us a better one.” Perhaps they are thinking that, somehow, after we have worked our culture magic, employees will be singing and dancing in their cubicles. Although this is a nice image, simply trying to make employees happy misses the power of leveraging culture. The problem is that organizational culture has become faddish, and as such, it has been over-applied and underspecified. Our goal in this chapter is to precisely clarify why culture is powerful, and provide specific criteria for developing a strong, strategically relevant culture that is likely to enhance your organization’s performance over the long haul. A few caveats apply to our discussion. First we won’t claim that by simply managing culture, leaders will
References: Amabile, T. M. (1983). Brilliant but cruel: Perceptions of negative evaluators. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 19, 146-156. Amabile, T. M. (1997). Motivating creativity in organizations: On doing what you love and loving what you do. California Management Review, 40, 39-58. Baron, J. N., Hannan, M. T., & Burton, M. D. (2001). Labor pains: Change in organizational models and employee turnover in young, high-tech firms. American Journal of Sociology, 106, 960-1012. Baumeister, R. F. (1998). The self. In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (4th ed., pp. 680-740). New York: McGraw-Hill. Beck, B. (2000, March). Cisco Systems. Class presentation, Haas School of Business, Berkeley, CA. Berscheid, E., & Reis, H. T. (1998). Attraction and close relationships. In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (4th ed., pp. 193-281). New York: McGraw-Hill. Bettenhausen, K. L., & Murnighan, J. K. (1991). The development of an intragroup norm and the effects of interpersonal and structural challenges. Administrative Science Quarterly, 36, 20-35. Birenbaum, A., & Sagarin, E. (1976). Norms and human behavior. New York: Praeger. Caldwell, D., and O 'Reilly, C. A. (1995). Norms supporting innovation in groups: An exploratory study. Working paper, University of Santa Clara, Santa Clara, CA. Cha, S. E., & Edmondson, A. (2001). How strong organizational values can inhibit learning. Working paper, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Chang, V., Chatman, J., & Carroll, G. (2001). Dreyer 's Grand Ice Cream (A) & (B). OB35 (A) & (B). Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. Charan, R., & Colvin, G. (1999, June 21). Why CEOs Fail. Fortune, 139, 68-78. 21 Chatman, J. A. (1991). Matching people and organizations: Selection and socialization in public accounting firms. Administrative Science Quarterly, 36, 459-484. Chatman, J. A., & Jehn, K. A. (1994). Assessing the relationship between industry characteristics and organizational culture: How different can you be? Academy of Management Journal, 37, 522-553. Collins, J. C., & Porras, J. I. (1994). Built to last: Successful habits of visionary companies. New York: HarperBusiness. Connerley, M. L. & Rynes, S. L. 1997. The influence of recruiter characteristics and organizational recruitment support on perceived recruiter effectiveness: Views from applicants and recruiters. Human Relations, 50, 1563-1586. Denison, D. R., & Mishra, A. K (1995). Toward a theory of organizational culture and effectiveness. Organization Science, 6, 204-23. Edmondson, A. C. (1996). Learning from mistakes is easier said than done: Group and organizational influences on the detection and correction of human error. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 32, 5-28. Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44, 350-383. Hannan, M. T., Burton, M. D., & Baron, J. N. (1996). Inertia and change in the early years: Employment relations in young, high technology firms. Industrial and Corporate Change, 5, 503-537. Hargadon, A. & Sutton, R. I. (2000, May/June). Building an innovation factory. Harvard Business Review, 87, 157-168 Jackson, J. (1966). Structural characteristics of norms. In I. D. Steiner & M. Fishbein (Eds.), Current studies in social psychology (pp. 301-309). New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 22 Jones, E. E., & Nisbett, R. E. (1971). The actor and the observer: Divergent perceptions of the causes of behavior. Morristown, NJ: General Learning Press. Kotter, J. P., & Heskett, J. L. (1992). Corporate culture and performance. New York: Free Press. Laing, J. R. (2001, July 2). Nothing but blue skies. Barron 's, 81, 25-29. Lee, L. (2000, February 7). Tricks of E*Trade: In his drive to create a Net powerhouse, Christos Cotsakos is building a culture that 's edgy, a bit bizarre–and often brilliant. Business Week, p. EB18. O 'Reilly, C. (1989). Corporations, culture, and commitment: Motivation and social control in organizations. California Management Review, 31, 9-25. O 'Reilly, C. (1998). Cisco Systems: The acquisition of technology is the acquisition of people. Case # HR-10, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. O 'Reilly, C., & Chatman, J. (1996). Cultures as social control: Corporations, cults, and commitment. In L. Cummings, & B. Staw (Eds.), Research in Organizational Behavior (Vol. 18, pp. 157-200). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. O 'Reilly, C., & Pfeffer, J. (1995). Southwest Airlines: Using human resources for competitive advantage (A). HR-1A. Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. Pfeffer, J. (1981). Power in organizations. Marshfield, MA, Pitman Pub. Pfeffer, J. (1998). The human equation: Building profits by putting people first. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Porter, M. E. (1980). Competitive strategy: Techniques for analyzing industries and competitors. New York: Free Press. Puffer, S. (1999). CompUSA 's CEO James Halpin on technology, rewards, and commitment. Academy of Management Executive, 13, 29-36. 23 Roethlisberger, F. J., & Dickson, W. J. (with Wright, H. A.) (1939). Management and the worker: An account of a research program conducted by the Western Electric company, Hawthorne works, Chicago. Cambridge: MA, Harvard University Press. Rokeach, M. (1973). The nature of human values. New York: Free Press. Schonfeld, E. (1998, December 7). Schwab puts it all online. Fortune, 138, 94-100. Spector, R., & McCarthy, P. D. (1995). The Nordstrom way. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Sutton, R. I. (2001, September). The weird rules of creativity. Harvard Business Review, 88, 94-103. Teitelbaum, G. L., & Geissler, D. (2000, October 27). Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream. Merrill Lynch, p.2. Tushman, M. L., & O 'Reilly, C. A. (1997). Winning through innovation: A practical guide to leading organizational change and renewal. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Walton, R. E. (1980). Establishing and maintaining high commitment work systems. In J. R. Kimberly, R. H. Miles, & Associates (Eds.), The organizational life cycle: Issues in the creation, transformation and decline of organizations (pp. 208-290). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.