Johnson and Scholes Cultural Web | Example of a Cultural Web Analysis

Organizational and Corporate Culture

Corporate culture can have a huge impact on an organization’s work environment and an organization’s output. This is why so much research has been done to pinpoint exactly what makes an effective corporate culture and how to go about changing a culture that’s not working.

Organizational culture refers to how members of an organization relate to each other their work on the outside environment compared to others.

Organizational culture is the way we do things around here. It is a set of normal behaviors. Organizational culture depends on;

• Organization size; physically in terms of number of employees or in terms of turnover figures
• Technology; What are the attitudes to innovation? How do they adapt to new working methods?
• Diversity;  for example, product range, geographical spread, cultural makeup of stakeholders.
• Age; years, and business degree of managers experience.
• History; What has worked in the past, previous success and failures.
• Ownership;  number and type of shareholders.

Gerry Johnson and Kevan Scholes Cultural Web

Culture often becomes the focus of attention during periods of organizational change. When companies merge, and their cultures clash or grow in a company, other strategic changes mean that the existing culture becomes inappropriate.

In more static environments, cultural issues may be responsible for low morale, absenteeism, or even high staff turnover.

The Cultural Web is a model developed by Jerry Johnson and Kevan Scholes. It provides a framework for changing an organization’s culture.

Using it, we can expose cultural assumptions and practices and set them to work, aligning organizational elements with one another and the organizational strategy.

The Cultural Web identifies six interrelated elements that helped to make up what Johnson and Scholes call the work environment’s paradigm.

By analyzing each factor’s factors, a company can see the bigger picture of the culture, working, what isn’t working, and what needs to be changed.

Visually, the cultural Web model is presented like this.

 

In the center of the Johnson and Scholes culture web model is referred to as the organization’s cultural paradigm. This, essentially, is what people within the organization perceived as being normal. The six interrelated elements that make up this paradigm are categorized just outside as a set of interrelated circles.

These include stories, symbols, power structures, organizational structures, control systems, and rituals and routines.

Cultural Web Stories

These stories refer to the past events and the people that are talked about inside and outside the company. Who and what the company chooses to immortalize says a great deal about what it values and perceives as great behavior?

These are the stories told by members of the organizations to each other, outsiders to new recruits, etc. They embed the present in its organizational history and flag up important events. You can almost hear the Do you remember When can’t you?

Stories that are told by members of the organization to one another, to outsiders, to new recruits, and so on. They typically have to do with success, disasters, heroes, villains, and Mavericks.

Who and what the organization chooses to immortalize says a great deal about what it values as great behavior?

Cultural Web Symbols

These are the visual representation of the company, including the logos, how plush the offices are, how formal or informal dress codes are, and so

Aspects of the organizations, such as logos, offices, cars, car parks, entitle the types of language and terminology commonly used on these symbols to become shorthand representations of the organization’s nature.

Symbols visually represent the company. They might be logos, slogans, badges, titles, privileges, and so forth.

Cultural Web Power Structures

These are the pockets of real power within the company. This may involve one or two key senior executives; a whole group of executives is even a whole department to keep.

The key is that these people have the greatest amount of influence on decisions, operations, and strategic direction.

The most powerful groups and individuals within the organization are likely to be more associated with the organization’s core assumptions and beliefs.

Cultural Web Organizational Structure

The organizational structure includes the structure defined by the organization chart and the written lines of power and influence that indicate the most valued contributions.

These are likely to be associated with key constructs of the paradigm. The most powerful managerial groupings in the organization are likely to be the ones most associating with core assumptions and beliefs about what is important.

The formal organizational structure or the informal ways in which the organization works are also likely to reflect power structures and again delineate important relationships and emphasizing what is important in the organization.

To a large extent, the organizational structure chart reflects our points to the organization’s power on the relationships that might exist between individuals and groups.

Cultural Web Control System

The control system and is the ways that an organization is controlled. These include the financial systems, the quality system, the reward system, etcetera.

The formalized control systems measurements on reward systems that monitor and emphasize what is important in the organization also focus on attention and activity.

These things get measured or monitored systematically or informally, for example, financial systems, and clocking-in at night systems. What is important to the organization should be measured.

Cultural Web Rituals and Routines

Rituals and routines refer to the daily behavior and actions of people that signal acceptable behavior. This determines what is expected to happen in any given situation and what is valued by management.

The routine is the ways that members of the organization behave towards each other. These are the ways we do things around here, which, at their best, greases the organization’s work and may provide a distinctive and beneficial organization competency.

Rituals and routines are the people’s daily behaviors and actions that signal acceptable behavior in the organization.

They’re the things that make up the way we do things around here on a day-to-day basis.

However, they also represent habits taken for granted and how things should happen, which is extremely difficult to change and highly protective of the paradigm’s core assumptions.

The rituals of organization or life, such as training programs, promotion, and assessment, point to what is important in the organization, reinforcing how we do things around here and signal what is especially valued.

 

Mission statements outlined the broad direction of an organization. Therefore, a mission statement can guide an organization’s culture.

Other Models: Edgar Schein Organizational Culture Model

Edgar Schein’s three levels of culture

1. Artifacts
2. Exposed values
3. Assumptions

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Artifacts

Artifacts are organizations’ visual structures and business processes, physical things seen like the organizational chart, which shows who reports to who.

The organization’s dress code, office sizes, whether a manager has a personal assistant, and so forth. Artifacts give an immediate sense of the organizational culture.

Exposed values

Espoused values are the organization’s strategies, goals, and vision. They’re the organization’s publicly known values.

It is how members represent the organization, for example, the mission statement.

Assumptions

Basic underlining assumptions and beliefs are more difficult to identify as they’re embedded and taken for granted behaviors, often unconscious.

They’re the ultimate source of values and actions for the organization.

 

Example of a Cultural Web Analysis