ORGS 2010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: W. M. Keck Observatory, Decision-Making, Machismo

• School: WLU
• Department: Organization Studies
• Course: ORGS 2010
• Professor: Eleanor Westney

Document Summary

Key concepts: identity, symbols, values and basic assumption, mental models and sensemaking, artifacts, meanings, org, as both having culture and as making cultures. Org. structure, is a map of identities. Role of the leader; symbolizing culture, understanding leveraging the culture. Stimuli for change: challenges to basic assumptions, opposing interpretations, natural evolution (external social world changes), managed evol (org. learning and developing), and challenges to cultural assumptions. Sensemaking: building a shared mental model of what the issue really is, and what the appropriate response to it is. Why hard to change: dominant culture, established mindsets of how to be successful. Cultural perspective focuses on social and personal identities carried by ppl, the mental maps they use to deal with hardships and the normative standards they take for granted. Cultural understandings are rooted in the past, so are often diff. to surface because they are taken for granted, obvious or unquestioned by the organization.