Lund University Master Thesis Alagic and Salic

Lund University Master Thesis Alagic and Salic

When Culture Takes Over

- Culture as a Substitute for Leadership

Senada Alagic

Edin Salic

Lund University, School of Economics and Management

Department of Business Administration

Master Thesis

Spring 2012

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank our supervisor Sverre Spoelstra for his guidance in our thesis as well as for his for his genuine interest and contributions to our research. We would also like to thank all of the respondents at Tele2 for their participation and interest in our research. Finally, would like to thank Mirta Salamon who made it possible for us to conduct the research at Tele2.

Lund, 21th of May, 2012

Senada Alagic and Edin Salic

Abstract

Title When culture takes over - Culture as a substitute for leadership

Seminar date May 30th 2012

Course BUSN49 Degree Project in Managing People, Knowledge and Change – Master Level

Authors Senada Alagic and Edin Salic

Supervisor Sverre Spoelstra

Key words Leadership, Culture, Socialization, Trainee program

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Purpose The purpose of this thesis is to examine how trainees in a big Swedish telecommunications company are being socialized into becoming the future leaders of the company

Theoretical framework In our theoretical framework we have focused upon existing research that theorizes the relation between leadership, culture and socialization, with particular focus on the way this relation has been established within transformational leadership research.

Methodology The study is based on qualitative research and the inductive method has been used. We have conducted semi structured interviews with participants and interpreted their answers.

Findings Our study is based on a company’s socialization of trainees into leadership. We have conducted interviews with current trainees and managers about this process and their view of leadership.

Discussion The theoretical distinction between transformational and transactional leadership has been an essential theory in our discussion that has assisted us to discuss the interplay between leadership, culture and socialization. Through socialization individuals are adapting to the culture and become transactional leaders. This, however, could be perceived as management rather than as leadership. Transformational leadership is substituted by the culture.

Conclusion In this case study we have found that the trainee program which is aiming to create the leaders of the future is creating the managers of the future. The reason for this is that the strong culture is influencing the socialization process which in turn is facilitating the creation of transactional leaders. We also found that organizational culture is substituting leadership in this organization which might be preferable for the organization. Culture has taken over the role of leadership within the organization.

Table of contents

1. Introduction 6

1.1 Background 6

1.2 Problem discussion 7

1.3 Research Purpose 9

1.4 Relevance 9

1.5 Research Question 9

1.6 Structure 9

2. Theoretical Framework 11

2.1 The relationship between leadership and culture 11

2.2 Leadership and management 13

2.3 The link between organizational culture and socialization 14

2.4 The role of organizational socialization 16

2.4.1 Socialization through training programs 18

2.4.2 Learning – a part of socialization 19

2.4.3 Socialization into leadership 19

2.5 Summary 20

3. Methodology 21

3.1 The choice of Tele2 21

3.2 Research process 22

3.3 Gathering of empirical data 23

3.3.1 Interviews 23

3.3.2 Respondents 24

3.3.3 Location 24

3.4 Gathering of theoretical data 25

3.5 Analysis 25

3.6 Reflection 26

3.7 Validity and Reliability 27

4. Findings 28

4.1 The Tele2 Way 28

4.2 The Trainee Program 29

4.3 The career of trainees 34

4.4 The View of Leadership 36

4.5 Work and Own Initiatives 39

4.6 Summary 40

5. Discussion 41

5.1 The culture and the socialization of trainees into Tele2 41

5.2 Is organizational socialization important? 44

5.3 Is it possible to be socialized into becoming a leader? 45

5.4 Leadership within a strong culture 48

5.5 Is leadership subordinate to the culture? 49

5.6 What is leadership and does it exist? 50

5.7 Summary 51

6. Conclusion 53

6.1 Socialization into leadership 53

6.2 Leadership subordinate to the culture 54

References 56

Appendix 62

Chapter 1

1. Introduction

In this chapter the background to the study is presented. The background emerges into a problem identification that is discussed. Thereafter the research purpose and its relevance are presented which is followed by our research question of the thesis. Finally, the structure of the thesis is presented.

1.1 Background

This thesis is a study of a company that intends to socialize trainees into future leadership roles. We are interested in this trainee program because there is something paradoxical about the idea of leadership socialization. Leadership, as it is often understood, consists of shaping and directing culture, rather than to be subordinate to culture. Since socialization is a process in order to make the newcomer a part of the culture the very idea of leadership socialization appears as a tautology. Management, on the other hand, is something that is more associated with existing organizational culture. Socialization into management may therefore be seen as a more likely objective of a trainee program.

Managers often refer to themselves as leaders without knowledge of the concept. One explanation of this might be that leadership is a positively value added word that works well for an individual’s self identity. According to Sveningsson and Larsson (2006) it might be preferable for an individual’s self identity to be perceived as a leader instead of a manager. The practices of a manager and practices of a leader are generally seen to be quite different. There is extensive academic literature of the difference between leadership and management (Zaleznik, 1992; Spitzer, 2003). While leadership is presented to be about visions, charisma and engagement, management is often portrayed in more bureaucratic terms. This theoretical distinction of leadership and management does not seem to be as clearly defined in the practical work life in organizations. Perhaps the distinction is mostly an academic understanding that organizational members bear in mind but do not always distinct in practice. As we will also illustrate in our findings, management and leadership are in fact sometimes used as synonyms. The respondents in our study are mixing the use of leadership and management even though they are outlining leadership as something that is exceeding over the managerial expectations.

Leadership is a popular concept that means different things for different people. The meaning of leadership has not always been the same but the most basic aim has: to influence people. According to Bass and Avolio (1993) there are differences between transformational and transactional leaders. Transactional leaders act in accordance to the organizational culture while transformational leaders influence the culture. Some authors use this distinction and only refer to transformational leaders as leaders while transactional leaders are perceived as managers (Sveningsson and Alvesson 2010; Spoelstra, 2009). There are also authors that are not making a clear distinction between leadership and management (de Jong and Den Hartong, 2007). On top of different views of leadership and management, there might be ambiguity in researching the subject because it can be uncertain to determine if someone is a leader or a manager.

Research in this field might also be obstructed by the uncertainty that exists in knowledge intensive firms. According to Alvesson (2004) knowledge intensive firms are engaged in a complex environment where the intangible nature of their work contributes to ambiguity. This means that the actions of both managing or leading people are uncertain and the people who are doing these practices may not always know for certain what kind of actions that may lead to a good result in the future, nor which actions led to an already occurred result (Alvesson and Sveningsson, 2003). This means that a trainee program that aims to create future leaders is an uncertain process as well since it aims to create leaders through a process that is filled with ambiguity. Since such programs exists and there is a lot invested in these trainees the perceptions of their process into becoming future leaders are put in focus in this thesis. Therefore it is of interest to examine the process of becoming a future leader and how leadership is perceived in this process.

1.2 Problem discussion

Since a trainee program is attracting young people that are in the beginning of their career the organizations may have great opportunity of influencing them. During the initial time at a company young organizational members are exposed to the culture and socialized into the company. The trainee program in the examined company is however not only socializing the employees into the culture but also creating “the leaders of the future”, which the company is using as a slogan for its global executive trainee program. As we will also illustrate in our findings, management and leadership are in fact sometimes used as synonyms. Therefore the aim can be referred to the creation of transformational leaders who are taking charge of the organization. But are these leaders the ones that are created in this trainee program? As we have already mentioned, this might be seen as a contradiction because socialization is about protecting and being a part of the current culture while leadership is about taking lead and it might in this sense be understood as a way to change the culture. Our understanding is that socialization is about socializing newcomers into the culture and can be referred to followership while the leader is the change agent and autonomous agenda-setter. The problem and paradox of being socialized into a leader is identified and we can question whether it is possible to create leaders through a trainee program. By examining the trainees and managers perception of these questions we will look at how people within the company really look at this issue and how they understand it.

There might be a problem in the transition from being a trainee to other roles in the company if these positions are very different from each other. A trainee might expect to get the same attention and push in the career on other position as during the trainee program but other positions might not emphasize development and require results instead. The question is if the trainees are suited for these positions after the trainee program? Even though the program is aiming to create future leaders of the company it is unsure if the program itself is developing these kinds of leaders. According to Kotter (1990) a leader is someone who is influencing and leading people in a certain direction. But are trainees better suited for such actions than other employees and are these actions integrated in the trainee program?

The culture is a vital part of organizations since it might influence people’s behavior and thereby their actions. Organizational socialization and corporate culture are integrated and go hand in hand but the one thing they might not do is to encourage people to be deviate. A leader who has incorporated the culture might be constrained from leading people in directions that are not in alignment with the current culture. Therefore we can ask ourselves if these kinds of leaders are leading people where they want to lead people, or if they just lead people in an already defined direction which is in line with the culture. Is the leader leading the path or is the path leading the leader?

1.3 Research Purpose

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the relation between socialization and leadership by looking at the way trainees in a big Swedish telecommunication company are being socialized into becoming the future leaders of the company. By looking at the Global Executive Trainee Program, which is emphasizing the creation of future leaders, we are looking at the current trainees’ perception of the process. This perception is also contrasted by managers understanding of it. This is of interest because we see a contradiction between being socialized into a company and becoming a future leader since leadership can be a way of shaping the corporate culture but socialization is a way of protecting it.

1.4 Relevance

After extensive research on current academic texts we can conclude that there are not much academic writings to be found on this topic. Researchers have not yet aimed to study how trainees get socialized into leadership roles and how leadership is perceived in organizations that that runs this kind of programs. This makes our study of interest for organizations that are conducting such trainee programs and want to look at the future leadership within similar contexts such as the case company we are targeting.

1.5 Research Question

The following research question has been developed for our study:

-  To what extent is it possible to socialize trainees into leadership and how is leadership perceived in this process?

1.6 Structure

The thesis starts off with a theoretical framework in which we discuss relevant academic literature in the subject. Initially we present theories of the relationship between leadership and culture which are very closely related. A separation between leadership and management is made in this chapter. We end the chapter by presenting theories of organizational socialization, which are of relevance to our study due to the trainee program.

The theoretical framework is followed by the methodology. In this section we explain why we chose the specific case company and how we conducted our interpretive study. We also outline how we analyzed our material and have a reflection of this. Our understanding of the validity and reliability is also outlined in this section.

In the following section we presented the empirical findings from our case company. In this section we do not only outline the participants’ understandings, but also how we interpret their answers. One thing that is found is that the culture plays an important part in the company. The trainee program is very much in alignment with the culture and the trainees are socialized into it. The perception of leadership, at the end of the chapter, describes the different views of leadership within the organization.

After the findings comes the discussion in which we analyze our findings by using the previously presented theoretical framework. The chapter begins with the culture and the socialization into it. Thereafter we discuss the problems with socialization into leadership. This is questioned within a strong culture and leadership within the case company is questioned. In the discussion we create a solid ground for our conclusions.