Building and Managing Cultural Capacity

Cultural risks can be managed to create value, or they can be ignored to create liabilities. To manage cultural risks, organizations must have a cultural capacity from which to draw. Building cultural capacity is a three-pronged effort. It means building capacity at a strategic level, at an individual level, and collectively. Cultural capacity is achieved through strategic, collective, and individual actions. This chapter considers how organizations can build cultural capacity strategically, collectively, and individually.

Seeing Information Strategies

In the knowledge economy, we must manage information as a strategic business asset. Information must be an essential component of our business strategies, and the information strategy must speak to the business value of information. Information strategies are often formulated and issued only at the organization level. The authors stress the importance of developing information strategies that pertain to business units, teams, and individuals. The authors present an integrated view of information strategies to mirror and support business strategies. The integrated view is a high-level synthesis of the information science literature and practice.

Balancing Unit and Team Level Strategies and Cultures

The goal of this chapter is to identify methods for reducing the risk of strategic failures at the division, the unit, the community, or the team level. In particular, the authors are interested in managing those risks that relate to information strategies and the businesses' use of information in the day-to-day work and operations of any organization. The framework and methodology they follow to identify misalignments, to develop target lists of strategies at risk are the same at these lower levels. What is different is the breadth and depth of business strategies they have to work with, the nature of the impact of lacking or sub-optimized information strategies at the operational level, and the cultural factors they need to see and shape. They establish a general methodology around the framework at the organization level and promote that methodology throughout the organization. The authors walk through the seven-step methodology, noting that line managers and team members must take ownership of and be engaged in the assessment process.

Culture and Strategy

This chapter describes the knowledge economy and explains how it differs from an agrarian and industrial economy. The authors describe the changing role of information in the knowledge economy and the impact of business information assets on knowledge organizations. The chapter stresses the importance of managing information and business strategies, and of aligning information and business cultures. The authors consider what we need to know to align strategies and cultures. Eight essential questions help the reader to translate these issues into his/her environment.

Managing Cultural Risks

Risk assessment is a process that allows us to understand risks, define risk criteria, assess the probability and the consequences of that risk occurring, define a level of risk we can tolerate and afford, and define a cost-effective and efficient mitigation treatment. The authors provide a risk assessment and analysis method that the reader can use to (1) build cultural risk into your organizational risk management profile and (2) adapt the organization's risk management profile to include cultural risks. The method builds upon but extends the ISO 31000/31010 risk management methodology to determine the level of cultural risk your organization is carrying. The authors walk through and translate each of the seven steps to account for cultural risks.

Balancing Individual Strategies and Cultures

Strategies may be formulated and published by senior leaders; they may be supported by line managers and by teams. The success of a strategy comes down to the actions of individuals. In particular, the authors are interested in managing those risks result from an individual's day-to-day behaviors and actions. What changes at this level? Two things change. First, who conducts the assessment changes? The individual must take responsibility for knowing the organization's strategies, becoming aware of their personal strategies, and their own cultures. The individual must drive this process. Second, the individual must have a clear understanding of which individuals are responsible for which strategies.

Balancing Organization Strategies and Cultures

The goal of this chapter is to identify and manage risks related to information strategies and the businesses' use of information in the knowledge economy. Business and information managers must find a fit that grows our information and business cultures and supports our business and information strategies. There is no single tool or rule that you can follow to address the risk. The risk always derives from the business context. It is different for each organization, and it is dynamic even within that organization over time. The authors provide a framework the reader can work with to think through and develop a fit that works by any business context. The authors also provide a seven-step methodology that considers strategy and culture and guides the organization through designing and achieving a balance.

Seeing Business Cultures

In this chapter, the authors focus on the essential elements of culture and consider the factors that may contribute to shaping an organization's unique culture. The authors caution that this is a rich chapter – the goal is to help business managers make the transition from understanding culture at a theoretical level to seeing and managing it on an everyday practical level. In this chapter, the authors explain what we need to know about business cultures. They define business cultures in terms of their structural and dynamic aspects. The authors define three structural levels, including macro-level (global, national), meso-level (organization, unit), and micro-level (individual) culture. For each level, a rich set of dynamic factors are identified. This chapter prepares the manager for describing his/her organization's business culture.

Seeing Business Strategies

This chapter focuses on business strategies and reminds the reader that strategy is an important leverage point. We need a good inventory of our business strategies before we can align and shape cultures. Strategies at all levels of the organization are essential – not just those at the top or leadership level. We need to understand our strategies across all functions and the strategies of individuals. It is essential to see and understand all of the forms that a strategy might take, including those that are well-formed, documented, and published; and those that are hidden, false, learned, or only partially developed. Aligning culture with poor strategies will not prevent strategies from failing. In the knowledge economy, business strategies should be assessed in terms of their treatment of information assets.

Strategic and Cultural Risk

This chapter explores the concepts of harm and risk and translates them to the strategy and culture context. The peer-reviewed and gray literature speak to generic hazards and threats whose consequences might be amplified by cultural and information behaviors and actions. This chapter takes the discussion of hazards and risks one step further by speaking to specific hazards and threats related to organizations' business and information cultures and information strategies. The business literature tells us that the rate of strategic failure is somewhere between 60% and 90%. The authors describe several common risk factors that can be addressed by redefining the strategic planning process. The ISO 31000/31010 risk management process is adapted to account for these factors.