Organizational Behaviour 2: Culture & Change

The first theme of the course is Organisational Culture. We will handle this subject from two perspectives: First, organisational culture as a supporting factor for the organisational structure, and its role as in the organisational level systems and second, organisational culture as seen by Cameron and Quinn (2011), the culture assessment tool (OCAI) furthermore being an integral part of organisational change activities and the need for alignment there.

Following the approach of Cameron and Quinn (2011) we will investigate the subject of the culture change in organisations, with special focus on change derived from the Competing Values Framework. Furthermore, we will focus on the factors that hinder change, the change process itself and change accelerators (Kotter 2012).

The final theme in this course is Organisational Communication, which is related to the other two subjects. The importance of communication in organisations is often underestimated, whereas it should be treated as a powerful management instrument. Employee surveys indicate that many attempts at organisational change fail because the internal communication proved inadequate. Managers and HR professionals need knowledge and understanding of the pro’s and con’s of various types of communication, of media and channels and of how to use these in such a way  that the organisational goals can be attained more readily. Students will play an active role in assessing the benefits of using social media for organisational communication.