Name: Fan Wu

Student ID: 15565999

Date: 02/11/2015

Introduction

Organizational culture is defined as a system of assumptions, beliefs, values and behavioural

norms which have been developed and adopted by members of one organization through their

mutual experience and which direct their thoughts and behaviour (Janiijevi, 1997).

Nowadays, culture of an organisation becomes increasingly important in terms of the strategy

formulation and management. Therefore, analysis of culture becomes more necessary in

Barclays Bank which is the Britains second-biggest bank and is experiencing a change of

strategy and culture. This essay will use the Johnsons Cultural Web Model (1992) to analyse

the culture of Barclays Banks investment arm.

Cultural analysis and strategy formulation

In strategy formulation process, organizational culture represents a reference framework in

which strategic decisions makers operate (Janiijevi, 2012). So, the analysis of culture can

be used to inform strategy formulation within Barclays Bank.

Firstly, by cultural analysis, managers can know the most appropriate way to encourage the

employees to achieve high performance. Before 2012, in Barclays Bank, the organisational

culture is calleda culture of gaming or bonus culture (Exploring Strategy, 2014, 171). So,

when the managers formulate the strategy and budget, they will consider the high bonus for

employees.

Secondly, through analysing culture in varying aspects, we can find what aspects of the

existing culture are in line with the desired future strategy and what are not. In 2012, Barclays
Bank, suffered the criticism which was mainly linked to a condemnation of the culture of

Barclays bonus culture. And through analysing the culture, we can see that the bonus

culture has dominated the company's culture and determined the attitude and the behaviour

of the employees but it will hinder the implementation of the new strategy. So, when new

Barclays CEO Antony Jenkins formulated the new companys strategy, he should think about

how to abandon this negative culture and how to change the organisational culture.

Therefore, before formulating a strategy, analysing the culture can make the strategy more

integrated and feasible. And we usually use the Cultural Web to analyse organisational

culture.

Cultural Web Model

Culture Web Model is a powerful tool to help managers seeking and addressing the challenge

of strategy due to the cultural change. And there are the components of the cultural web (see

Figure 1). And in this essay, the routines and control system of Barclays Banks investment

arm will be discussed in detail.

Figure 1: The components of Cultural Web

Routines are the way we do things around here on a day-to-day basis (Johnson et al, 2014).

In Barclays Banks investment arm, employees main work include running processes to clear

and settle transactions; correctly document and report the transaction and investigating breaks

in the cash account within the investment bank, etc. And employees in investment arm always

work hard to make profits for the Barclays even work through night, and their daily life are

lack of entertainment activities.

Control system refers to the measurement and reward system to monitor and motivate

employees and therefore emphasise what is important within the company. In Barclays

Banks investment arm, employees reward and bonus depend on their performance and

managers use high bonus to motivate employees to obtain high profits by any approaches, no

matter how ethical or unethical they are. So, the employees work hard, even if they will not

continue to work, they try to make other people think that they will keep working in the

office. To sum up, the routines and the control system of the investment arm determined that

hard-working and high performance are expected and valued in management.

Limitations of Cultural Web Model

Cultural web model is a comprehensive assessment of organisational culture. However, it also

has some limitations. Different individuals have different perceptions of the culture.

Therefore, the assessment may not be objective if conducted only by one or few managers or

individuals in Barclays. And some components of the cultural web model especially the

paradigm is difficult to be identified. So, it is better to do the analysis in the group work and

members can presents their web to each other and interpret their significance. Then, they can

mix their web and get a more objective one.

Conclusion
In conclusion, it is necessary for Barclays Bank to analyse culture before formulating a

strategy and the cultural web model is a useful tool to do the analysis. Furthermore, the model

cannot be used objectively and effectively by individuals, so the group work may be better.

Reference

Janiijevi, N. (1997). Organizational culture, Faculty of Economics. Faculty of Economics in

Belgrade: Ulysses, Novi Sad.

Janiijevi, N. (2012). Organisational culture and strategy. Serbian Association of Economists

Journal. 139 (3-4)127-139.

Johnson, G. (1992) Managing strategic change: Strategy, culture and action. Long Range Planning,
25(1) 2836.

Johnson, G., Whittington, R., Angwin, D., Regner, P., Scholes, K. (2014) Exploring Strategy. 10th
edition. London: Pearson Education

Exploring Strategy (2014) Bonuses and gaming at Barclays Bank. [case study] Harlow Pearson
Education Limited.