ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE Organizational Culture and Leadership, 3rd Edition

132 ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AND LEADERSHIPabout the “rehabilitation” of a key engineer who was associatedwith several important projects, all of which failed. Instead of firinghim, the company—reaffirming its core assumption that if someonefails, it is because he or she is mismatched with the job—found anassignment for him in which he could succeed and once againbecome a hero. Buried in this story is also the assumption that individualscount and any person whom the company has hired is bydefinition competent.A story from DEC’s early history concerns an engineer who wassent to the West Coast to repair some equipment. He caught themidnight plane but did not have time to pack any clothing. Thework took a week, requiring the engineer to buy clothing, which heduly charged to the company. When the accounting departmentrefused to approve the charge, the engineer threatened to quit. KenOlsen heard about this and severely punished the accounting department,thereby reaffirming the company’s dedication to technicalvalues and to its highly motivated technical employees.An organization’s ideology in this context can be any of severalthings. Sometimes it is the conscious component of the total set ofassumptions that make up the culture. Sometimes it is a set of rationalizationsfor essentially unexplained or superstitious behavior.Sometimes ideology reflects ideals and future aspirations as well ascurrent realities and thereby functions as a guide and incentive systemfor members. Ideologies often involve statements about the coremission, the goals, the preferred means for accomplishing them, andthe preferred set of relationships among organizational members.Ideologies often are partially stated in formal company documentsas the organization’s key values. They are likely to be embodiedin company charters, annual reports, and orientation and trainingmaterials, but in this form they are often merely a list of espoused valuesand may not even make up a coherent ideology. Only when thereare stories supporting the values and when the underlying assumptionsbehind the values are articulated can one determine what thesubstance of the ideology really is.