Corporate culture change: adaptive culture structuration and negotiated practice

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to present adaptive culture structuration, a new approach for theorizing and analyzing culture change and for creating an "adaptive cultural structurated learning environment". Design/methodology/approach -Incorporating a case study in the financial sector the paper explores 12 employees' narrated accounts of living through a culture change initiative. A constructivist, interpretive, qualitative research study followed grounded theory principles. Organizational documentation provided secondary data. Semi structured interview data were analyzed using content analysis, constant comparison and theoretical sensitivity and were managed by ATLAS.ti software. Findings -Three themes emerged: respondents' investment of self, accepting the culture change initiative and its values; employees' epistemic analyses of the embedded value promises including experiencing a critical incident that interrupted managers' enactment of values; employees' resulting "received practice" which represented the enacted (versus the espoused) values and was not visible to managers. Practical implications -An adaptive culture structurated learning environment fosters a relationship of "negotiated practice" instead of "received practice" between managers and employees in the constitution of corporate culture change. In this space, employee interpretations and assessments, which may otherwise remain hidden from managers and thereby prevent workplace learning opportunities, can be drawn upon, shared meaning co-produced and psychological contract issues explained. Originality/value -While much has been written on espoused culture change, this is the first theoretical model to examine the process from an employee perspective through an adaptive culture structurated lens.

Establishing and Demonstrating US Hospital Brands Through Facebook

“…In hospitals, corporate culture expresses the organization's ability to align its mission, values and professional practices every day so that, in this way, the hospital can strategically provide a health service with value added brand equity (Nelson, Taylor, & Walsh, 2014). Corporate culture supports employee engagement and encourages them to perform their jobs well (Pinho, Rodrigues, & Dibb, 2014;Whiteley, Price, & Palmer, 2013). Based on what and how an organization communicates (Wright et al, 2008), its corporate culture should be consistent with its brand and corporate values (De Chernatorny & Cottam, 2008).…”

A Theoretical Literature Review on Adaptive Structuration Theory as Its Relevance to Human Resource Development

“…The following examples highlight some of the areas where HRD scholars and scholar-practitioners may be familiar. These examples include software development teams utilizing instant messaging (IM) to create new interactions (Zhang, Köbler, Tremaine, & Milewski, 2010), organizational change in health care using technology (Barrett & Stephens, 2016), social media tools for strategic implementation (Sinclaire & Vogus, 2011), analyzing change during the implementation of an enterprise resource planning system (Furumo & Melcher, 2006), and to examining change and culture (Whiteley, Price, & Palmer, 2013).…”

“…Other studies looked at change and culture through the perspective of AST. When looking at adaptive culture structuration and negotiated practice, Whiteley et al (2013) used AST as their theoretical framework. They regarded AST as a new tactic for examining and theorizing change in culture and for building an “adaptive cultural structurated learning environment” (Whiteley et al, 2013, p. 476).…”

La gestión de la reputación online de las marcas hospitalarias: una propuesta de modelo

“…El Director de Comunicación del hospital, en colaboración con los directivos del mismo y los responsables de los diferentes departamentos -médicos y de administración-, debe liderar un proceso colectivo que permita definir la arquitectura de marca del hospital, es decir, la identidad, los valores, la misión, la visión y la cultura. La identidad de una organización debe estar alineada con la misión, la visión y la estrategia de la organización (Ditlevesen, 2012), pero también con su cultura, la cual forma parte del negocio de la empresa ya que impulsa a los empleados a realizar bien su trabajo (Whiteley, Price y Palmer, 2013). Definir la arquitectura de marca y garantizar la coherencia entre todos los elementos que la integran constituye un primer paso fundamental para la correcta gestión de la reputación online del hospital.…”