Leading Culture Change in Global Organizations

Filled with case studies from firms such as GT Automotive, GE Healthcare China, Vale, Dominos, Swiss Re Americas Division, and Polar Bank, among others, this book (written by Dan Denison and his co-authors) combines twenty years of research and survey results to illustrate a critical set of cultural dynamics that firms need to manage in order to remain competitive. Each chapter uses a case as a means to illustrate an important aspect of culture change focusing on seven common culture-change dilemmas including creating a strategic alignment, keeping strategy simple, and more.

Foreword by Edgar H. Schein ix

Preface xiii

1. Building a High-Performance Business Culture 1

2. Supporting the Front Line 25

3. Creating Strategic Alignment 49

4. Creating One Culture Out of Many 71

5. Exporting Culture Change 91

6. Building a Global Business in an Emerging Market 113

7. Building a Global Business from an Emerging Market 133

8. Building for the Future: Trading Old Habits for New 153

Appendix: Denison Organizational Culture Survey: Overview and Resource Guide 173

Notes 195

Acknowledgments 205

The Authors 209

Index 211

Daniel Denison is professor of management and organization at International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Robert Hooijberg is professor of organizational behavior at IMD. His areas of special interest are leadership and 360-degree feedback, negotiations, team building, and organizational culture.

Nancy Lane is a research associate at IMD who collaborates with Robert Hooijberg.

Colleen Lief is project manager of the IMD-Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch Family Business Research Center.

LEADING CULTURE CHANGE IN GLOBAL ORGANIZATIONS

What happens when leaders try to transform the culture of their organizations? What approaches are most likely to lead to success? Which path will have the greatest impact on the performance of the business?

Leading Culture Change in Global Organizations offers a practical look at the approaches that a set of successful companies have used to implement cultural change within their organizations. In this book, the authors summarize over 20 years of tracking culture transformations in seven different global organizations to illustrate the critical set of dynamics that firms need to manage in order to remain competitive.

• Supporting the front line
• Creating strategic alignment
• Creating one culture out of many
• Exporting culture change
• Building a global business in an emerging market
• Building a global business from an emerging market

This important resource summarizes the insights from each of the companies studied (GE Healthcare, Vale, Domino’s, Swiss Re, DeutscheTech, Polar Bank, and GT Automotive) as a means to illustrate these important dynamics of culture change.

The authors tracked these organizations and their leaders over time, using the Denison Organizational Culture Survey. The authors summarize the “before and after” results to help focus on the most successful culture changes. Each chapter provides a set of “Lessons for Leaders,” which illustrates how leaders can learn from these examples to drive the kind of organizational change that is needed to give their company a competitive edge.