Volume 14, Number 4 Article by Abinash Panda , R K Gupta December, 2002
Studying Organisational Culture: HICOM India :
A strong culture facilitates coordination and communication and distinguishes successful organisations from others. In a market characterised by continuous innovation and swift imitation, a strong and productive culture can be an important source of sustainable competitive advantage because it is difficult to imitate. Managers need to learn that where culture may matter most is in its impact on the ‘hard’ stuff, such as strategy and structure. Practitioners and academics in India and abroad have been systematically attempting to understand organisational culture. Although the study of organisational culture gathered momentum in the early 80s, researchers by and large conceptualised culture from only one of three possible perspectives, ignoring the others. Studies from the integrated perspective regard culture as an organisation-wide consensus with virtually no ambiguity. The differentiated perspective studies on the other hand hold that an organisational culture is not unitary; it has a nested, overlapping set of subcultures within a permeable organisational boundary. According to the advocates of the fragmentation view, relationships among the manifestations of a culture are complex, containing elements of contradiction and confusion. Consensus does not exist either at an organisational or a subcultural level. Joanne Martin for the first time viewed the culture of a particular organisation from all three perspectives, arguing that any organisational culture contains elements congruent with all three perspectives.
Abinash Panda and R K Gupta survey the literature, and specifically revisit Joanne Martin’s three perspectives framework to decipher organisational culture. They present empirical data drawn from the detailed qualitative study of the culture of a hi-tech Indo-American joint venture. The analysis of this data shows how the culture of HICOM is ‘differentiated’ and ‘fragmented’, though the management feels it has a strong ‘integrated’ culture. The authors argue that Martin’s framework for deciphering organisational culture provides a deeper understanding of it. Becoming aware of the tensions and complexities prevailing within an organisation helps managers/leaders identify the sources of subcultures and ambiguities. Once the sources of ambiguity, confusion or subcultures are identified, the process of culture change, if required, becomes easier.
Reprint No 02401