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246 Chapter 7

Transformation to a Knowledge-Sharing Culture

How is culture developed, reinforced, and changed? It is often said in organizations
that “ we need to change the culture around here. ” What is usually meant is that
someone desires a behavioral change, such as employees paying more attention to
customers, or that they want managers to come to meetings on time, or some other
set of behaviors. While these patterns of behavior can be changed by changing the
organization ’ s structure (rule, regulations, reward systems), changing these behaviors
through culture involves changing the underlying mechanisms that drive these behav-
ioral patterns: namely norms, social values, or mental models. Since these underlying
cultural control mechanisms are often taken for granted and subconscious in nature,
they are diffi cult to change.
Changing structure by changing a rule and its enforcement mechanism is rather
simple when compared to changing a social value. Culture is resistant to change
because many of the cultural control mechanisms become internalized in the minds
of organizational members. That is what makes culture such a strong control mecha-
nism. Changing culture often means that members have to change their entire social
identity. Sometimes changes in the status of various roles or identities cause even more
resistance on the part of high-status role holders.
While changing behavior by changing structure may have more appeal because it
appears easier, in many cases this type of change is not successful because managers
have not changed the underlying culture and they fi nd that the culture and structure
are in confl ict. While organizational change is diffi cult and often lengthy to undertake,
it is a critical requirement for most if not all KM implementations. The key often
lies in symbolic action, that is, dealing with important symbols of values, norms,
and assumptions. Kilmann, Saxton, and Serpa (1986 ) provide some good general
guidelines:

• The notion of role modeling is crucial. People look to leaders for clues about what
is important in an organization. The most important thing a leader can do is act in a
manner consistent with the desired social value. When it comes to instilling culture
values, “ do as a say, not as I do ” does not work very well. When organizational
members observe a leader making a personal sacrifi ce for a value, it sends a strong
message that this value is important. For example, if senior managers are seen to be
“ practicing what they preach ” by actively sharing knowledge and rewarding collabora-
tive efforts, then the organizational members can see that this type of behavior is in
fact highly valued and practiced at all levels of the organization.