O&E: Cultural school

Question 1

Common characteristics of culture:

Answer 1

• Linked to history and tradition
• Shared collectively by group members
• Hard to grasp; requires interpretation
• Ideational (about ideas and values)
• Holistic (whole-system perspective)
• Intersubjective (shared understanding)
• Emotional
• Dynamic (changes over time)

Question 2

3 levels of culture

Answer 2

1. Symbols/Artefacts and Norms/Rules
2. Meanings/Beliefs
3. Underlying Assumptions

Question 3

Culture’s relation to strategy:

Answer 3

• Strategy formation is a social interaction process.
• Culture influences decision-making styles.
• Culture often causes resistance to strategic change.
• Changing strategy usually requires changing the culture.

Question 4

Overcoming resistance to change (Bjorkman’s 4 phases):

Answer 4

1. Strategic Drift: Realizing change is needed.
2. Unfreezing: Challenging current beliefs.
3. Experimentation and Reformulation: Developing new strategy and culture.
4. Stabilization: Reinforcing new culture with positive feedback.

Question 5

The Swedish Wing of the Cultural School:

Answer 5

1. Mapping: Reflecting environment.
2. Matching: Complementing environment.
3. Joint consultation: Cooperative problem solving.
4. Dominance: Projecting the organization’s image into environment.

Question 6

Conditions for Sustainable Competitive Advantage (Margaret Peraf, 1993):

Answer 6

1. Resource heterogeneity.
2. Ex-ante limits: barriers to others developing same resources (patents).
3. Ex-post limits: barriers to imitation (strategic location).
4. Resource immobility: independence from external providers.

Question 7

Premises of Cultural School:

Answer 7

• Strategy is socially constructed process.
• Shared beliefs are often implicit and hard to describe.
• Strategy is a perspective, not a fixed position.
• Culture tends to reinforce existing strategies and resist change.
• There is a reciprocal relationship between culture and strategy.

Question 8

Characteristics & Assumptions of Cultural school:

Answer 8

• Strategy = perspective
• Strategy = deliberate but partly unconscious
• Culture discourages strategic change
• Path dependency of strategies
• Environment seen as passive
• Strategies are complex and unique

Question 9

Critique of the Cultural School:

Answer 9

• Culture is vague and hard to measure.
• Can discourage necessary change by favoring consistency.
• Culture can be undermined by strong authority of one person.
• Overemphasizes uniqueness as source of competitive advantage.
• Explains what exists rather than what could emerge.