ACCA Applied Knowledge · Business and Technology · Organisational culture
Marlow plc has a strongly bureaucratic culture and wants to improve performance by becoming more innovative. Its directors announce a new mission statement stressing creativity but leave rewards, reporting lines and approval procedures unchanged. Using Johnson's cultural web, what is the most likely reason the change will fail?
The change will probably fail because the other elements of the cultural web, such as control systems, power structures and routines, remain unchanged and keep reinforcing the old bureaucratic paradigm. A new mission statement alone does not shift these interlinked elements, so behaviour stays the same.
- AThe stories and symbols will automatically change to match the mission statement
- BThe paradigm will be altered immediately because the mission statement is an artefact
- COther elements such as control systems, power structures and rituals still reinforce the existing paradigmCorrect
- DEmployees will leave because the cultural web only measures individual personality
Explanation
The cultural web shows that the paradigm is sustained by interlinked elements: stories, symbols, power structures, organisational structures, control systems and rituals and routines. Changing only the stated mission leaves these reinforcing the old culture, so the change is unlikely to take hold. The idea that stories and symbols change automatically ignores this.
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