The Corporate Culture Survival Guide: New and Revised Edition

Book description

The father of the corporate culture field and pioneer in organizational psychology on today's changing corporate culture

This is the definitive guide to corporate culture for practitioners. Recognized expert Edgar H. Schein explains what culture is and why it's important, how to evaluate your organization's culture, and how to improve it, using straightforward, practical tools based on decades of research and real-world case studies. This new edition reflects the massive changes in the business world over the past ten years, exploring the influence of globalization, new technology, and mergers on culture and organization change. New case examples help illustrate the principals at work and bring focus to emerging issues in international, nonprofit, and government organizations as well as business. Organized around the questions that change agents most often ask, this new edition of the classic book will help anyone from line managers to CEOs assess their culture and make it more effective.

  • Offers a new edition of a classic work with a focus on practitioners

  • Includes new case examples and information on globalization, the effects of technology, and managerial competencies

  • Covers the basics on changing culture and includes a wealth of practical advice

Table of contents

  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Preface to the New and Revised Edition
  4. Acknowledgements
  5. The Author
  6. Part One - THE STRUCTURE AND CONTENT OF CULTURE
    1. Chapter 1 - WHY BOTHER?
      1. Leadership and Culture Are Intertwined
      2. Subcultures
      3. Samples of How the Leadership/ Culture Interaction Matters
      4. How Culture Matters at Different Stages of Growth
      5. Where Does Culture Reside?
      6. The Bottom Line
    2. Chapter 2 - WHAT IS CULTURE ANYWAY?
      1. Three Levels of Culture
      2. So, How Do We Define Culture?
      3. Implications of This Definition
      4. The Complexity of Culture: Digital Equipment Corporation
      5. The Bottom Line
    3. Chapter 3 - WHAT ARE THE ELEMENTS AND DIMENSIONS OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE?
      1. The Popular View: Inventories and Typologies
      2. Culture Content, Part One: Surviving in the External Environment
      3. Culture Content, Part Two: Integrating the Human Organization
      4. The Bottom Line
    4. Chapter 4 - DEEPER ASSUMPTIONS
      1. National and Ethnic Bases of Culture
      2. Assumptions About the Relationship of Humans to Nature
      3. Assumptions About Human Nature
      4. Assumptions About Human Relationships
      5. Assumptions About the Nature of Reality and Truth
      6. Assumptions About Time
      7. Assumptions About Space
      8. Dealing with the Unknowable and Uncontrollable
      9. The Bottom Line
    5. Chapter 5 - WHEN AND HOW TO ASSESS YOUR CULTURE
      1. Should You Use a Survey?
      2. Why Culture Surveys Do Not and Cannot Measure Culture
      3. Can You Infer Culture from Self-Analysis?
      4. Deciphering Your Company’s Culture: A Four-Hour Exercise
      5. Case Examples and Analyses
      6. The Bottom Line
  7. Part Two - THE DYNAMICS OF CULTURE FORMATION, EVOLUTION, AND CHANGE
    1. Chapter 6 - CULTURAL LEARNING, UNLEARNING, AND TRANSFORMATIVE CHANGE
      1. A Simplifying Model of Learning, Unlearning, and Transformative Change
      2. Disconfirmation
      3. Survival Anxiety (or Guilt) and Learning Anxiety
      4. Two Principles of Learning and Change
      5. How Do You Create Psychological Safety?
      6. What Changes? Cognitive Redefinition
      7. Imitation and Identification Versus Scanning and Trial and Error
      8. Refreezing-Seeking a New Equilibrium
      9. The Bottom Line-Implications for Change Managers
    2. Chapter 7 - CULTURE CREATION, EVOLUTION, AND CHANGE IN START-UP COMPANIES
      1. Founding and Early Growth
      2. How Founders and Leaders Embed Cultural Elements
      3. Culture Learning, Evolution, and Change Mechanisms
      4. The Impact of Size and Age-Bureaucratization and the Loss of “Functional Familiarity”
      5. Managing Problems of Succession
      6. The Bottom Line
    3. Chapter 8 - CULTURE DYNAMICS IN THE MATURE COMPANY
      1. From Ownership to General Management Structures
      2. Culture Change Processes in Organizational Mid-Life: Planned and Managed ...
      3. The Change Team and Change Steps
      4. Structural and Process Interventions
      5. Involving the Employees
      6. The Bottom Line
    4. Chapter 9 - MID-LIFE CRISIS AND POTENTIAL DECLINE
      1. Changing Dysfunctional Elements in the Core Culture
      2. Possible Change Mechanisms
      3. Moderate Core Culture Change in Ciba-Geigy
      4. Drastic Culture Change in Digital Equipment Corporation
      5. Change Leaders and Change Agents
      6. The Bottom Line and Change Dynamics Summary
  8. Part Three - THE REALITIES OF MULTICULTURALISM
    1. Chapter 10 - WHEN CULTURES MEET
      1. The Multi-Culture Problem
      2. The Role of Cultural Assessment in Mergers, Acquisitions, and Joint Ventures
      3. New Issues in Collaborations and Other Multicultural Organizations
      4. Culture Traps (the Illusion That We Understand One Another)
      5. The Need for Dialogue at Cultural Boundaries
      6. The Dialogue Process
      7. The Bottom Line
    2. Chapter 11 - CULTURAL REALITIES FOR THE SERIOUS CULTURE LEADER
      1. Realities About What Culture Is
      2. Realities About What Culture Covers
      3. Realities About Deciphering Culture
      4. Realities About the Process of Culture Change
      5. Realities About the Timing of Culture Assessment and Change
      6. Realities About Mergers, Acquisitions, Joint Ventures, and Collaborations
      7. A Final Thought
  9. Notes
  10. References
  11. Index

Product information

  • Title: The Corporate Culture Survival Guide: New and Revised Edition
  • Author(s):
  • Release date: August 2009
  • Publisher(s): Jossey-Bass
  • ISBN: 9780470293713