3.5.1 Deal and Kennedy model of organisational culture Deal and Kennedy’s (1982) model, based on two dimensions, suggested that the biggest single influence on a company’s culture was the business environment in which it operated. They called this ‘corporate culture’,which they asserted embodied what was required to succeed in that environment. The two key dimensions were the degree of associated with the company’s activities, and the speed at which companies – and their employees – get on whether decisions or strategies are successful.
Deal and Kennedy's model of culture is based on characterizing different four types of organization, based on how quickly they receive feedback and reward after they have done something and the level of risks that they take.
By ‘feedback’ Deal and Kennedy do not mean just bonuses, promotions and pats on the back. They use the term much more broadly to refer to knowledge of results. In this sense, a goalkeeper gets instant feedback from making a great save, but a surgeon may not know for several days whether an operation is successful, and it may take months or even years to discover whether a decision about a new product is correct. Deal and Kennedy distinguish between quick and slow feedback. Also, by splitting each dimension into high and low they came up with four ‘generic’ cultures, as shown in the Figure 16. Hp Probook 4410s Vga Driver Download here. (Source: Deal and Kennedy, 1982, p.
107) This type of culture is commonly thought to be prevalent in organisations in which feedback comes in the form of financial rewards. You can think here of commodity brokers and sales-orientated organisations, such as those that sell water purifiers or financial services. Feedback, however, can come in many other ways. Police officers, sports people and entertainers all receive rapid feedback on the effectiveness of their work, and they could all be classified as belonging to a ‘tough guy’ culture, even though their feedback is not simply financial. Similarly, all these occupations have a degree of inherent risk, and the line between success and failure can be very fine indeed.
For example, a football manager’s career could rest on one refereeing decision, and a comedian’s success depends on the mixture of people in the audience. Managers in this type of culture need to be able to make decisions quickly and to accept risk. To survive when things go wrong, they need to be resilient.
These cultures are characterised by aggressive internal competition. Employees in such organisations believe that to get on they must be as tough as the ‘movers and shakers’ at the top.
These activities tend to produce a lot of internal politics and conflict. In addition, these cultures tend to nurture short-term views, and here you might recall some of the reasons that are believed to have led to the fall of organisations such as Enron (auditing failures in picking up billions in debt from failed deals and projects) and Lehman Brothers Bank (bad debts led to its eventual collapse). Despite the label ‘tough guy’, Deal and Kennedy suggest that this culture is the least discriminatory of the four because it is, in their view, a meritocracy in which success is what is acknowledged and rewarded. (Source: Deal and Kennedy, 1982, p. Driver Impresora Hp Laserjet P1006 here. 108) This type of culture is characterised by high levels of activity, and each employee has to take few risks.
Instead, success is measured by persistence. Typically, the primary cultural value is to supply customers with a quality product or service. These cultures spawn meetings, conventions, teamworking, office parties, jargon, buzzwords and so on. They are typical of large organisations such as the motor industry, IT and telecoms because in smaller organisations there are often increased levels of risk as ‘every decision is a big one’. The high levels of energy create two main problems for a manager: ensuring that the energy is being directed at the right tasks, and ensuring that quality accompanies the high levels of activity.