Organisational Culture and Change: A Case Study of Drax (UK) Limited

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of organisational culture and change management at Drax (UK) Limited. It begins with an executive summary highlighting the impact of organisational culture on operational outcomes, particularly in relation to profitability. The report delves into the challenges of leading organisational change, including employee resistance, and suggests strategic approaches such as using the cultural web framework to align cultures with changes. It emphasizes the importance of agile methodologies, technology to manage power structures, and Lewin's change model to mitigate resistance. The analysis focuses on Drax (UK) Limited's two divisions, Drax Technology and Drax Services, exploring their distinct cultures and the impact of leadership. The report examines cultural models, including clan, adhocracy, and market cultures, and their relevance to Drax's operations. It also analyzes power dynamics, the role of technology, and the need for change management. The report concludes with recommendations for Drax's management, including measuring cultural alignment, employee training, and maintaining a uniform organisational culture across subsidiaries. The report also considers the company's shift towards IoT, machine learning, and AI to regain market share and become a provider of data-driven information services. The report highlights the importance of integrating technology and services to improve productivity and increase profits. The report uses the cultural web framework to understand and manage the organisational culture. The report also considers the challenges of managing human resources, financial resources, and employee knowledge.

Running head: ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE AND ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE
Organisational Culture and Organisational Change
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Executive summary:
Organisational culture is intangible by nature yet can directly impact the organisational
operations and the ultimate outcome of the operations namely, profits. The discussion below
explored this aspect of organisational culture in detail. Firstly, it has been pointed out that
management bodies may face resistances during leading organisational changes. However,
enforcing changes upon employees actually aggravates the resistances. The management of
companies can follow the strategic approach of cultural web to align organisational cultures with
the changes. Secondly, implementation of agile contributes to towards bringing about more
positive organisational changes. Thirdly, the management bodies can use technology to ensure
that middle level managers do not misuse power. Fourthly, the managers can use Lewin’s change
model to manage organisational changes and reduce resistance with the concerned organisations.
The discussion below led to presentation of three main recommendations before the management
of Drax (UK) Limited. They are, first the management should measure the rate of alignment of
subsidiaries with the organisational culture and secondly, the management should train the
employees to enhance their alignment with the organisational culture. Thirdly, the management
should maintain a uniform standard of organisational culture in all the subsidiaries.

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Table of Contents
Executive summary:........................................................................................................................1
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................2
Analysis:..........................................................................................................................................3
Organisational culture:.....................................................................................................................3
Cultural web:...............................................................................................................................3
Stories:.........................................................................................................................................4
Ritual and routines:......................................................................................................................5
Symbols:......................................................................................................................................5
Organisational structure:..............................................................................................................6
Control system:............................................................................................................................6
Power structures:.........................................................................................................................6
Cultural models and frameworks:................................................................................................7
Clan culture:...............................................................................................................................11
Adhocracy cultures:...................................................................................................................12
Market cultures:.........................................................................................................................12
Services (A) and technology (B) have very different cultures:.................................................13
Is leadership in Drax Services responsible for poor performances?..........................................13
Culture(C):.................................................................................................................................13
Agile ways of working:.................................................................................................................13

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Performance, Productivity, Quality:..........................................................................................13
Profit..........................................................................................................................................14
Leadership:................................................................................................................................14
Power and politics:........................................................................................................................14
Shareholders interested in profits:.............................................................................................14
Division have different leaders (conflict)?................................................................................15
Knowledge and expertise:..........................................................................................................15
Expertise in compliance and safety:..........................................................................................15
Technology expertise potentially changes power relations:......................................................15
Change management:.....................................................................................................................16
Lewin’s model:..........................................................................................................................16
Conclusion:....................................................................................................................................16
Recommendations:........................................................................................................................16
Measurement of organisational culture’s alignment with the organisational change:...............17
Training of employees of Drax Services:..................................................................................17
Establishing common organisational cultural in both subsidiaries:..........................................17
References:....................................................................................................................................18

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Introduction:
Traditional businesses operating in the developed and emerging markets are today
compelled to embrace modern methods of operations in order to sustain in the market. It has
become a necessity of the technology and the service providing companies to modernise their
operational methods right from manufacturing to marketing of goods. These changes in the
operational methods have profound impact on other internal environmental aspects of the
companies like organisational cultural models and leadership. The changing operational methods
require the present methods of operations in the company to undergo immense changes. This
requirement to embrace changes requires the staff members embrace changes as well. These
requirement to embrace changes create negative perceptions among the employees as they feel
insecure. Thus, it is clear that the management of the companies have to manage these changes
efficiently. The aim of the report would be to delve into methods which companies can adopt in
order to modernise the operations in order achieve competitive advantages. The company which
would be considered for the research would be the Drax The two divisions of Drax are Drax
Technology and Drax Services, both of which are based in Britain. The company is operation in
a traditional and outdated business platform aged more than 20 years and lost its leading position
due to competitor companies using more modern facilities. The management of company in
order to deal with the competitiveness which it is facing would analyse several which would
analysed in the analysis section. The research would close after recommendation of strategies
which the management of Drax to deal with the situation.

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Analysis:
Organisational culture:
Cultural web:
Cultural web refers to an approach which management bodies of companies can take to
analyse and change the organisational cultures prevailing the concerned organisations. Alvesson
and Sveningsson (2015) mention that organisational culture have strong impact on the perception
which employees of the concerned organisations harbour towards organisational changes. The
management of the companies seeking to embracing organisational changes facing resistance
due to change resistant organisational culture need to approach the issue strategically. This is
because merely forcing the changes upon employees would only escalate the resistance
jeopardising productivity. This situation is applicable for Drax (UK) Limited since the prevailing
organisational culture one of the subsidiaries of the company namely, Drax Services is change
resistant. Merely enforcing the change on the employees would increase the resistance to
changes. Moreover, since Drax Services alone employed three quarters of the total employee
strength of the company, resistance of from have negative impact on the productivity of the
company as a whole. This means that the company would be required to approach the situation
strategically by using cultural web to align the organisational culture of Drax Services with the
change.

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Figure 1. Cultural web
(Source: Rissanen 2016)
The cultural web framework of Drax (UK) Limited would consist of the following six
elements as shown above (figure 2):
Stories:
Stories refer to past events which the employees of the organisation concerned talk about.
The stories may consist of both positive and negative events which employees of the companies
concerned hold important and refer to regularly. For example, the employees of Drax Services
may keep on telling stories about a certain training which took place two years back session from
which developed new skills and competencies. This means that the employees of the company

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hold training sessions important to enhance their skills and competencies. The management of
the company should in accordance to the stories, hold training sessions for the employees of
Drax Technology (Brough, Chataway and Biggs 2016). These training sessions would enhance
the skills and competencies of the employees of Drax Services which would boost the
relatedness which the employees of the latter would feel towards the management of the
company. These positive perceptions and relatedness among the employees of Drax Services
would increase their motivation to embrace changes. Thus, the employees would readily support
the changes which would make it easier for the management to implement changes in the
organisation as a whole.
Ritual and routines:
The rituals and routines refer to the regular behaviour as well as routines which the
employees of concerned companies follow on regular basis (Whelan 2016). For example, the
employees of Drax Services may be more habituated to executing the instructions and not
participating strategy making meetings. The management in order to implement the change may
establish the policy according which the employees of Drax Services would be required to attend
strategy making sessions on regular basis.
Symbols:
Symbols refer to the logos which the employees of the companies under consideration
hold important. The management of the organisational concerned should aim to implement
measures which enable the employees to relate to the logos, thus in turn enhancing the sense of
relatedness to the company. For example, the management of Drax (UK) Limited should make it
compulsory for the employees to exhibit their identity cards at all times while on duty. This

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would increase the relatedness of the employees to the company as a whole. This would
encourage them to participate in the change process.
Organisational structure:
The organisational structure refers to the documented organisational structure as well as
the unspoken structures of authority prevailing within concerned organisations. For example, as
far as Drax(UK) Limited is concerned, the company functions as under the leadership of the apex
management of the company as a whole. However, Drax Services has its own managers too
which lead the subsidiary. Thus, in order to align the subsidiary with the changes, the apex
management of Drax (UK) may directly bring the subsidiary under its control. This would create
a strong feeling of relatedness among the employees of the subsidiaries, which would
automatically align them to the organisational change.
Control system:
The control systems refer to the ways in which organisations are controlled. They include
the various functional departments like finance and marketing. For example, the management of
Drax (UK) in order to gain higher level of support from the departmental managers of Drax
Services should increase the say of the latter in the operations of the company as a whole. This
would enhance the sense relatedness among the employees of Drax Services with the company.
They would automatically support the changes to a greater extent (Rissanen 2016).
Power structures:
The power structures refer to the board of executives having maximum power in the
organisation. As far as Drax (UK) Limited is concerned, it can be pointed out that the apex
management of the company should post a top manager in the management of Drax Services.

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This would enable the management to exercise more direct control over the latter and take
necessary steps to minimise resistance to change.
Cultural models and frameworks:
Organisation culture refers to the values and behavioural attributes which are unique to
particular organisations. Mohelska and Sokolova (2015) define the term organisational culture
as,’ an elusive phenomenon characterising the quality of the social climate within the
organisation and determining the dominant work positions of all workers.’ Zhu (2015)
defines the organisational culture as the workplace environment established in organisations by
interaction of human resources of the respective organisations. The author then goes on to point
out that organisational cultural attributes of business organisations consist of shared
philosophies, opinions and ideologies of staff members, their expectations and similarly
assumptions under given situations. The employees working within organisations also harbour
similar philosophies, attitude and norms about certain things. Asiedu (2015) then go on to point
out that two types of organisational cultures namely strong and weak. Strong organisational
culture refers to organisational culture in which employees have fair idea about the
organisational policies and participate in the operations of the organisation. Strong organisational
cultures enable management to create strong bonding in between departments. Pučėtaitė et al.
(2016) point out that on the contradictory, weak organisational culture is characterised by an
environment where employees withdraw from communicating accurate information due to lack
of trust in the senior management bodies of the concerned companies. Asiedu (2015 p.292) can
be reiterated here to point weak organisational culture can be the outcomes of lack of clarity in
the core values of the companies concerned among the employees. Weak organisational culture
leads to lack of trust between the management and the employees which leads to communication

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gap between the significant bodies of internal stakeholders. Both the stakeholder groups hold
back of crucial information which ultimately leads to fear and insecurity among both the groups
especially among the employees. Glisson (2015) points out resistant organisational culture
generally resists organisational change. Proficient organisational culture on the contrary is
responsive to organisational changes in order to benefit the clients/customers and the
organisations concerned. Proficient organisational culture supports innovation which in turn
encourages more efficient operations in the organisations concerned. Ahlvik, Smale and
Sumelius (2016) add to the discussion on organisational culture by pointing out an important
factors affecting it, the complex relationship between the headquarters and subsidiaries. They
further point out that the headquarters as the ‘principals’ which allocate certain decision making
power to the subsidiaries which are the ‘agents’ to the former. They relationship between the
headquarters and subsidiaries is known as agency relationship. The difference in organisational
culture may not only occur between the principle and the respective agents but also between two
subsidiaries or agents working under a common principle.
The case study of Drax (UK) Limited and its two subsidiaries namely, Drax Services and
Drax Technology perfectly stands on the concepts of organisational culture discussed above. The
case study mentions that the management of Drax (UK) Limited aims to introduce modern and
innovative technology like machine learning (ML) and internet of things or IoT. The case study
also mentions that Drax (UK) Limited entered into partnership with the Department of Computer
Science Technology (CST), the University of Bedfordshire. This means that the company is
adopting open innovation which shows its strong and proficient organisational culture (Popa,
Soto-Acosta and Martinez-Conesa 2017). The same fact is also applicable for its subsidiary Drax
Technology but not for Drax Services. This is evident from the fact that Drax Technology

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experiences a strong organisational culture characterised by employees supporting the change
which the company is looking forward to embrace. Thus, it can also be remarked that the
organisational culture of Drax is more change proficient (Glisson 2015). However, it has also
been pointed out that level of change proficient attribute of Drax Technology has evaluated and
measured by the headquarters. This gives rise the first issue namely, lack of measurement and
evaluation of the level of change proficient organisational culture in Drax Technology. The
contrary is applicable for Drax Services. The organisational culture of Drax Services is weak
which means that it is less aligned with the change which the headquarters is aiming to embrace.
The change which the headquarters is seeking to embrace would be incorporation of modern
technology like IoT and ML which would enable the company to gain real time data from the
fire alarms installed in the premises of its clients to enable the latter to take more prompt steps to
prevent or at least risks of fire (Clegg et al. 2017). The change would require Drax Services to
undergo radical changes since it is the subsidiary of Drax (UK) Limited dealing with alarm
management. The necessity to align Drax Services with the change can be pointed that it alone
employed three fourth of the staff members employed by the company and accounted for half of
its profit generated. Thus, it is clear from the analysis that it is necessary to change the weak
and change resistant organisational culture of Drax Services to a strong and change
proficient organisational culture in order to attribute success to the change initiative of the
company altogether. This brings into light the second issue which is lack of strong and
change proficient organisational culture of Drax Services.