Organizational Behaviour 2: Culture & Change

The first theme of the course is organizational culture. We will handle this subject from two perspectives. First, organizational culture as a supporting factor for the organizational structure, and its role as in the organizational level systems and second, organizational culture as seen by Cameron and Quinn (2011), the culture assessment tool (OCAI) furthermore being an integral part of organizational 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 organizations, with special focus on change derived from the Competing Values Framework. Furthermore, we will focus on the hindering factors to change, the change process itself as well as change accelerators (Kotter 2012).

The final theme in this course is Organizational Communication, which of course has many relations with the other two subjects. The importance of communication in organizations is often underestimated, whereas it should be treated as a powerful management instrument. Many attempts to organizational change fail because the internal communication was inadequate, as employee surveys indicate. Managers and HR professionals need knowledge and understanding of the pro’s and con’s of various types of communication, media and channels, and how to use them in such a way, that the organizational goals can be attained more readily. Students will play an active role in assessing the benefits of using social media in organizational communication.