What can managers do to influence/shape culture?

1. Creating a climate for change

In terms of creating a climate for change, culture is only effective if it is applied to the relevant area needing change or is tied to some organizational issue. Several of the organizations studied here used internal or external drivers in order to facilitate the culture shift they wanted to see achieved.

2. Leaders as champions

Leadership is clearly important in determining the effectiveness of culture change. The leaders of organizations are ‘champions’ of understanding and managing culture in the organization and of rewarding or punishing sub cultures depending on whether they align or not with the corporate culture espoused by the leaders. The influence of leaders in terms of rewarding the sub-culture groups that espouse the dominant beliefs, values and underlying assumptions of the organization cannot be underestimated.

3. Employee engagement and empowerment

Employee engagement and empowerment is crucial to ensure that the culture is effectively managed and aligned with the cultural assumptions of the organization as a whole. 

4. Team orientation

Team working was a common feature in most organizations studied, in terms of crossing existing barriers and as a useful means of promoting and disseminating new cultural traits. In terms of individual and organizational development, teams are seen as a way of investing in talent development.

5. Tracking cultural change

Tracking cultural change is important in terms of assessing whether the culture has become misaligned in terms of sub-group cultures’ practices, or whether there are issues or challenges to be addressed which could undermine the cultural ethos and underlying assumptions of the organization

6. Training, rewards and recognition

Training in terms of culture awareness is viewed differently in various organizations. Culture is an aspect of general management training in some organizations. In other organizations, it is deemed appropriate to learn from leaders and managers about the prevalent cultural norms and assumptions.