As Organizational culture is our topic for this part of our
CMGT 500 module, I spoke with an employee who is based in California but like many
in this state, are field-based, working out of her home in the Los Angeles
area. I wondered if a company or
organization has a strong or weak culture, how does it affect an employee who
doesn’t work on campus (like our learning distance program), but works online
and travels to the headquarters frequently to occasionally (Hofstede, 2009)?
For the last 20 years, Ms. Melissa De Chandt has worked for large and small pharmaceutical and biotech companies (all based in the Northeast region of the United
States. She has been a field-based employee (works out of her home) for 18 years beginning her home-office work career with Merck & Co., Inc., and is currently a medical science liaison with CSL Behring, a plasma company based in King of Prussia, PA, with R&D and manufacturing in Germany and Switzerland.
The company (then called Berhringwerke) was founded in 1904 by
Emil von Behring, the first recipient of the Nobel Prize in Medicine. In 1916, the parent company, CSL Limited, was
founded to supply vaccines to the people of Australia. The company has specialized in providing
plasma therapies to improve the quality of life for people with rare and
serious diseases worldwide.
Her territory is the entire United States. She works with physicians, both clinical and academic, who are Knowledge Opinion Leaders (KOL) regarding academic research.
Her work puts her in contact with many physicians and
patients in medical offices and academic environments on a weekly basis. Many of her physician contacts are part of
her personal social network as many of her interactions do take place at
conferences and dinners sponsored by her company.
Since she is field-based, she travels back to her company’s
headquarters once a month, and the bulk of her travel is across the country to
particular physicians who are members of her companies advisory boards.
In my interview I asked here about what type of culture do she think her company embodies (Sorensen, 2009)? “Since we have been acquiring smaller companies and trying to integrate them into our complete structure, our culture currently isn’t as strong as with other companies I’ve worked with in my experience."
I felt that she embraces more of the academic and company
culture of the other liaisons that are based in California mores than perhaps
her company, though she receives incentives and formal structure as well as
SOPs rules and regulations from her company in Pennsylvania.
I believe that for a California-based employee who works for an East Coast-based company on a permanent basis may be gaining more of a region-based occupational culture (Hofstede, 2009) infusion that to some extent, partially replacing the east coast work culture, despite the strength a company may have in its headquarters.
Our situation as students, attending class online with
support and from the MCM program and MyUSC, provide us with a modicum of strong
organizational culture, but given Sorensen’s assertions on strong culture
(2002) I feel we are still able to function within the volatility of what is a
full-time student and working professional’s life.
References
Denison, D.R. &
Mishra, A.K. (1995). Toward a
theory of organizational culture and effectiveness. Organization
Science, 6, 204-223.
Hofstede, G. (2006). Dimensionalizing
Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context. Online Readings in
Psychology and Culture.
Sorenson, J. (20092 The Strength of corporate culture and the reliability of firm performance. Administrative Science Quarterly 47, 70- 91
Sorenson, J. (2009) Note
on Organizational Culture. Harvard Business School, pp. 1-6
Hi Al,
ReplyDeleteBeing a remote employee whose company is headquartered in NYC, I can relate to the challenge of assimilating to the culture of an org. you don't visit every day. I've been home-based for over seven years, so it does not seem out of the ordinary for me anymore, but I do know some who have a hard time feeling included or truly understanding the culture of geographically distant hubs. Interesting point about regions influencing culture. If we can compare cultures of organiztions to countries (Hofstede, 2009), why not regions? In fact, that's one of the things that came to mind when reading Hofstede. It would seem that culture can drill down to many layers - geographic, political, educational, and as Courtney pointed out to me, the very basic trait of gender. Individuals bring many different cultural variables to an organization that has its own culture. Successfully melding all of these variables is challenging. Adding remote employees to the mix can make it even more difficult.
Hi Lisa,
DeleteI did think of Group Commerce and its headquarters in NYC. I agree with your question/comment -- why not regions? Many Californians, in some respects, almost see themselves as part of a different country (though some would argue a different planet rather than country). I won't bring in the unreasonable argument about secession from the Northern California (we need their water, as well as the Colorado River's), but I feel regions do have a strong influence even within occupations, genders and educational (Hofstede, 2009). Sounds like another opportunity for more investigation and research.
Regarding regions, I recall a series of debates from long distance and found one that discussed differences in regions within the financial industry, though in a way, Wall Street and Silicon Valley, however inextricably connected, are not quite apples-to-apples. (Estes, 2011).
Courtney asked what ways could a company transmit the culture to the new employees. I provided an answer based on Sorenson's (2007) definition of culture; does that sound like good first steps to recommend, based on your experience as a West Coast GC employee?
Thanks for the reply.
Estes, A.C. (2011, Sept, 27). West Coast- East Coast Tech Feud Fed by Silicon Valley Guru. The Atlantic Wire. Retrieved http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/09/silicon-valley-meets-new-york-tech-scene-stirs-coast-tech-feud/42991/
Hofstede, G. (2006). Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture.
Sorenson, J. (2009) Note on Organizational Culture. Harvard Business School, pp. 1-6
Al, I liked your piece a lot. I think Denison and Mishra's (1995) journal article described cultures amidst acquisitions best by saying that it is difficult to keep a strong culture when blending two or more organizations. In reference to the acquisition of Frontier Airlines, "Their organizational innovations did not, in themselves, seem to fail, but they did direct the attention of leaders and members of the organization away from changes that were taking place in the business environment" (Denison & Mishra, 1995, p. 211). If management is stubborn by refusing to acknowledge a strain in culture, then the organization could falter. All employee values and beliefs, new and old, should be placed into consideration. Moreover, the distance and timezone difference could definitely hinder her organization's culture.
ReplyDeleteHi Thomas,
DeleteI could absolutely see that organizational changes could take attention away from the leaders' focus to external business environmental changes (Denison & Mishra, 1995). Certainly the main reason to enact any changes is to create a strong culture and increase stability in the organization (Sorensen, 2007). I'd have to say that changes would be a "necessary distraction", an investment, that would hopefully provide excellent returns sooner than later.
Hi Al,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing the insights gained from your interview.
Can you explain a bit more about how the Hofstede dimensions apply to the geographical cultural differences you mention? Also, how does she define her company's culture? She mentions that it's not "as strong as with other companies" that she has worked for, but what does this means as it relates to the Sorenson (2009) article?
Thanks!
Adriana
Hi Adriana,
DeleteI was positing that, as Lisa Dulyea mentioned in her post, instead of national culture, why not occupational and regional or even subregional cultural differences, especially regarding remote or field base employees (Hofstede, 2006). I'm hopeful that there is some more indepth research on this, but Hinds and Mortensen (2005) touch upon understanding some of the issues with geographically distributed teams. I did retrieve an article that refers to the west coast - east coast feud (Wall Street vs. Silicon Valley) that sheds some light on the issue (Estes, 2011).
When Melissa mentioned that her culture wasn't as strong, I didn't get a clear idea of what that was, so I asked her again about it. She said that like our NASA exercise, there is more of a deadline / bottom-line driven sense of urgency, that the culture integration piece is a part of their overall mission, but not a higher priority. I think they have a lot of the good pieces (an honorable mission, tradition, history and symbolism) in place, and perhaps need a little push -- from consultants like us, I hope!
Thanks for the reply.
Estes, A.C. (2011, Sept, 27). West Coast- East Coast Tech Feud Fed by Silicon Valley Guru. The Atlantic Wire. Retrieved http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/09/silicon-valley-meets-new-york-tech-scene-stirs-coast-tech-feud/42991/
Hinds, P. H., and Mortensen, M. (2005) Understanding Conflict in Geographically Distributed Teams: The Moderating Effects of Shared Identity, Shared Context, and Spontaneous Communication. Organization Science, 16, pp. 290-307
Hofstede, G. (2006). Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture.
Hi Courtney,
ReplyDeletein 2007, Sorenson argues that organizational culture can be built by selection and socialization. I think that in regards to Melissa's organization, their is a fair amount of socialization "integration" that will need to take place, with some comprehensive planning from the headquarters (Daft, 2007; Sorensen, 2007). Certainly, there is a strong sense of symbolism, much like Medtronic's early cultural growth (Denison & Mishra, 1995).
Like Medtronic, her company, CSL Behring, was founded on more of mission of science than commerce -- the founder, Emil von Behring, the first recipient of the Nobel Prize in Medicine (Denison and Mishra, 1995). That tells me that there is some significant symbolism, tradition, history with an updated mission that can be inculcated to the newest team members of the organization.
Before addressing the ways of transmitting culture, your question of whether to integrate the acquired culture is an interesting one. I thing of Thomas Alford's earlier post about the restructuring of Cisco and Flip video (Alford, 2012). In its reshaping from 73,000 to 72,450 employees, there were probably at least few processes, activities, procedures and incentives that could have been incorporated from Flip into Cisco (Sorensen, 2007).
Last night, we had dinner with friends who work in Silicon Valley and one of them works in an innovation lab as a researcher for a fortune 500 business machine company and we were talking about the flexibility of research choices, time off, vacations and the like (D. Hilbert, personal communication, April 4, 2012). In this case, the parent company has chosen not to impose much of its culture (at least overtly), and that does allow for freedom of thought in the pursuit of innovative research.
The adoption of some incentives and benefits, operating procedures and processes of the acquired companies might be a way to more easily integrate Melissa's company (Sorensen, 2007).
Alford, T., (2012). The Restructuring of Cisco. CMGT500 Managing Communication. Retrieved from http://cmgt500a.blogspot.com/2012/02/restructuring-of-cisco.html
Daft, R. (2007). Fundamentals of organizational structure. Organization Theory and
Design (9th ed.), pp. 88-125 (Chapter 3)
Denison, D.R. & Mishra, A.K. (1995). Toward a theory of organizational culture and effectiveness. Organization Science, 6, 204-223.
Sorenson, J. (2009) Note on Organizational Culture. Harvard Business School, pp. 1-6