Change is critical to any organization that seeks to grow in the contemporary society. Whenever the management chooses a path that should lead to pursuing the strategy, all the members of the firm should continue on that way. Change requires cooperation for success to be complete. Both substantive culture change and symbolic culture change are essential to organizational growth.
Symbolic Culture-Changing Actions
The actions in a symbolic culture-change involve managerial decisions that seek the tightening of the culture strategy. There may be an appearance of change. However, it is not a drastic shift from the central vision of the organization (Thompson, Strickland, & Gamble, 2014). The company instills values in during orientation and further training in the organization. The process is to align the members to the main agenda and to continue trusting them with tasks.
Change of Management
A company may be having problems with the management. The sales have dropped due to lack of process flow in the system. The workers have decided to down their tools because of poor leadership at the top. The solution that may be needed to solve the current problem is to change the director. The new director may be well-educated, trained, experienced and with talent in handling large organizations’ matters (Thompson et al., 2014).
The company may never have the need to change the structure of management, flow of work or the product. When the stakeholders learn that the company has a new director who has a wealth of experience and a history of success, their perspective concerning the organization may change. Things may continue as normal, but the belief in the organization’s success may increase.
Renaming of the Brand
A brand that has existed in the market for the longest time may be waning in importance because of varieties from competitors. The company can decide to rename it and change the colors with a new slogan. It could be cooking oil with yellow colors and a slogan, ‘Good Meals!’ The management can alter the color to blue and put a slogan, ‘New and Better Always!’ The buyers may think it is a new product.
Substantive Culture-Changing Actions
The organization takes credible and highly visible actions for a change. It shows the seriousness and commitment of the management to change. It may include altering the strategy of the company.
Restructuring Management
A new organization may be lacking certain crucial departments in its system. It may be having problems managing its staff. The company could be having high staff turnover and poor production due to strikes.
The management can take action by including in its management a Human Resources department to deal with the staff issues. The new department may discover that there were no labor laws in the organization. Due to the inclusion of the HR, the organization’s reporting system may have to change. Staffs will be redirected to deal with the HR for any employment matters (Thompson et al., 2014). The changes are drastic and visible when the morale increases, production goes up, and the organization grows.
Diversifying
Due to the continued competition in the market, a company that is dealing with airtime may decide to diversify. It may include investing in real estate, and banking. The decision is to increase employment rate, outgrow stagnation in the market, and increase the number of customers. The new dimension may attract more business and retain customers (Thompson et al., 2014).
Both substantive culture-changing actions and symbolic culture-changing actions are critical for organizational performance. They help to improve its image. However, substantive culture change may be costly and involve shifting the entire organization’s vision.
Reference
Thompson, A., Strickland, A., & Gamble, J. (2014). Crafting and executing strategy: The quest for competitive advantage (19th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.