Creating Culture Change
How Do Cultures Change?
Learning Objectives
- Explain why culture change may be necessary.
- Understand the process of culture change.
How Do Cultures Change?
Culture is part of a company's DNA and is resistant to change efforts. Unfortunately, many organizations may not even realize that their current culture constitutes a barrier against organizational productivity and performance. Changing company culture
may be the key to the company turnaround when there is a mismatch between an organization's values and the demands of its environment.
Certain conditions may help with culture change. For example, if an organization is experiencing failure
in the short run or is under threat of bankruptcy or an imminent loss of market share, it would be easier to convince managers and employees that culture change is necessary. A company can use such downturns to generate employee commitment to the
change effort. However, if the organization has been successful in the past, and if employees do not perceive an urgency necessitating culture change, the change effort will be more challenging. Sometimes the external environment may force an organization
to undergo culture change. Mergers and acquisitions are another example of an event that changes a company's culture. In fact, the ability of the two merging companies to harmonize their corporate cultures is often what makes or breaks a merger effort.
When Ben & Jerry's was acquired by Unilever, Ben & Jerry's had to change parts of its culture while attempting to retain some of its unique aspects. Corporate social responsibility, creativity, and fun remained as parts of the culture. In
fact, when Unilever appointed a veteran French executive as the CEO of Ben & Jerry's in 2000, he was greeted by an Eiffel tower made out of ice cream pints, Edith Piaf songs, and employees wearing berets and dark glasses. At the same time, the
company had to become more performance oriented in response to the acquisition. All employees had to keep an eye on the bottom line. For this purpose, they took an accounting and finance course for which they had to operate a lemonade stand. Achieving
culture change is challenging, and many companies ultimately fail in this mission. Research and case studies of companies that successfully changed their culture indicate that the following six steps increase the chances of success.
Figure 15.12 Six Steps to Culture Change
Source: Lumen Learning, https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-orgbehavior/chapter/15-5-creating-culture-change/
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