JOHNSON AND SCHOLES’ CULTURAL WEB
Use this to understand what constitutes appropriate or inappropriate behaviour within your organisation.
Gerry Johnson and Kevan Scholes’ cultural web model depicts the culture of an organisation using seven interlinked elements. These elements form a set of behaviours that identify what are considered appropriate or inappropriate behaviour in the organisation.
Source: Adapted from Johnson, G., Whittington, R. and Scholes, K., Exploring Strategy: Text and Cases (9th edn) (Pearson Education, 2011).
The paradigm is the set of assumptions about the organisation which are taken for granted and shared by everyone.
Rituals and routines describe ‘how we do things around here’ and how members of the organisation behave towards each other.
Stories are told by members of the organisation to each other, to outsiders, to new recruits etc., and embed the present in the organisation’s history.
Symbols are things such as logos, jargon and image that have become a shorthand representation describing the nature of the organisation.
Power structures relate to the real movers and shakers in the organisation. They may be specific individuals, small groups or departments.
Control systems include performance management and reward systems that emphasise what is important in the organisation and focus attention on specific activities.
Structures (organisational and power) relate to management hierarchies, reporting systems and decision-making processes.
HOW TO USE IT
- Use the questions below to review each element of the organisation’s cultural web and identify any changes required (see Section 7).
- What cultural paradigm does the organisation operate in? How much of the organisation’s culture is linked to the past? How uniform is it? How long has it been like this? Do I and other managers in the organisation attempt to align the organisation’s strategy and culture? Or does the organisational culture ‘dictate’ strategy rather than management?
- What rituals do I and others unconsciously follow? What aspects of the way I operate do I take for granted? Do I, or my colleagues, need to change the way we operate?
- What stories or messages does the organisation tell staff, customers and suppliers? What impression do they create? Ratners, the most successful jeweller in Britain at the time, collapsed overnight when the chairman Gerald Ratner was filmed saying that the reason he could sell a ‘gold’ necklace for £3.99 was because it was crap. He meant it as a joke, but it revealed what the organisation thought of its customers.
- What messages do the organisation’s symbols such as logos, publicity material, website and press releases give out about the organisation?
- How do the power bases within the organisation impact on my capacity to function effectively? (see Theories 60 and 86).
- Use the above information when dealing with staff, colleagues and senior management to answer their questions in culturally acceptable terms. You will also know when, where and how to lob a cultural hand grenade into the mix when it’s required and is to your benefit.
QUESTIONS TO ASK
- What are the great unwritten rules of my organisation?
- In whose interest is it to maintain the current organisational culture?