DOMINICAN COLLEGE OF TARLAC

Capas, Tarlac
COLLEGE DEPARTMENT
A.Y. 2021-2022, FIRST SEMESTER
OBE FACULTY-DESIGNED MODULE

I. Subject: Quality Service Management for Hospitality and Tourism

II. Learning Outcomes:

a. Describe how the organization communicates its culture to its employees—

through laws, language, stories, legends, heroes, symbols, and rituals.
b. Identify how the organization can accomplish the difficult task of changing its
culture, if that becomes necessary.
c. Understand what research reveals about organizational cultures.

III. Topic/Lesson:

IV. Days of Learning Sessions: Monday and Wednesday

V. Delivery

Lesson Starter:

1. Motivation Phase

1.1. Pre-assessment Activity (Collaboration):

2. Presentation Phase:
The 3-A Approach

2.1. ANALYSIS (Communication):

The organization’s culture, then, represents a shared learning process that continues over
time as the people inside the organization change, grow, and develop while responding to a world
that does the same. The world external to the organization (consisting of the physical,
technological, and cultural environment) defines the activities and patterns of interactions for the
organization’s members who have to deal with that external world.

2.2. ABSTRACTION (Critical Thinking):

Learning the Culture
Learning from the Culture As new people join the organization, they learn the culture from
both formal company practices such as training and reward systems and informal social
interaction with fellow employees, supervisors, and subordinates. They learn the right way and
the wrong way to do things in that particular culture. The point is that culture is an important
influence on how people inside organizations behave while performing their jobs, how they make
decisions, how they relate to others, and how they handle new situations.
Developing, reinforcing, and communicating clear cultural norms about what is and is not
the right way to deal with customers is a very effective way to teach those whys. A sign frequently
seen in customer-focused organizations says:
Rule 1: The customer is always right.
Rule 2: If you think the customer is wrong, re-read Rule 1.
While no organization believes that all customers are always right in all situations, the two
principles are a good guide to behavior in those organizations that want to remind their employees
of the organization’s fundamental value structure. This sign is a strong symbolic reminder of this
important cultural value.
Subcultures
Cultures can often split into subcultures. Usually, the more people involved in the culture
and the harder it is for them to stay in communication with one another, the more likely it is that
the organization will see some subcultures form.
Subcultures can be good or bad, supportive or destructive, and consistent with or contrary to the
larger corporate culture. Since culture relies on interactions to sustain itself, people who work
together may well create a subculture of their own, especially if they don’t interact much with other
organizational units.
Organizations that depend greatly on part-time employees are especially susceptible to
subculture formation; the part-timers may not spend enough hours in the greater organization to
absorb its culture or care enough about the organization and its members to substitute its values
for their own.
Subcultures of Nations
When an organization seeks to open a branch or start a business in a cultural setting it is not
accustomed to, it can often have unexpected challenges.
Disney was unprepared for the challenges that opening EuroDisney (now Disneyland
Paris) would have. The French saw this as an attempt to teach American values as superior to
French and resisted it.
COMMUNICATING THE CULTURE
While the substance of culture is a set of assumptions that lead to beliefs, values, and
norms, culture is communicated to those inside and outside the organization in a variety of ways,
including laws, language, stories, legends, heroes, symbols, and rituals. In these ways, people
can express, affirm, and communicate their shared beliefs, values, and norms to each other and
to those outside the organization.
Laws
The laws of an organization are its rules, policies, and regulations—the norms that are so
important that they need to be written down so everyone knows exactly what they are. They tell
the members what behaviors are expected within that culture and also detail the consequences
of violating the norm.
Two norms are so important to Disney that they are corporate policies—in effect, laws.
First, a cast member in costume must not walk in an area where the costume is inappropriate. An
employee in the futuristic Tomorrowland cannot go to Frontierland. Nor may an Epcot World
Showcase member of the China Pavilion be found in costume in the Moroccan Pavilion. Second,
cast members portraying Disney characters must stay completely in character; they must maintain
and fulfill the character expectations of Disney guests.
Language
Each organization develops a language of its own, which is frequently incomprehensible to
outsiders. The special language is an important vehicle both for communicating the common
cultural elements to which the language refers and in reaffirming the identity with the culture that
those who speak this language share.
For example, everyone at Disney uses certain important terms that carry strong cultural
messages. All employees recruited by Casting are called cast members. This term sends two
important messages. First, everyone is equally part of the overall cast of the organization, a
concept reinforced by the use of first names alone on all name tags. Second, the term reminds
cast members that they are playing “roles” that help make up the Disney show. This show concept
is reinforced by the use of other terms such as on stage, to define all situations and areas where
cast members are in front of their customers, and back stage, to define areas the customers
cannot see. Law enforcement staff are called security hosts, and everyone’s uniforms are
costumes that are checked out daily from wardrobe.
Stories, Legends, and Heroes
Stories, legends, and heroes are another way of transmitting cultural beliefs, values, and norms.
They communicate proper behaviors and the right and wrong way to do things.
Symbols
A symbol is a physical object that has significance beyond itself, a sign that communicates an
unspoken message. Cultural symbols are everywhere in organizations. A window office, an office
on the top floor, or a desk and office in a particular location communicate information about the
status and organizational power of the person within that transcends the mere physical objects
involved.
At Walt Disney World Resort, Mickey’s famous mouse ears are everywhere. The plants
are grown in mouse-ear shapes, the anniversary service pins are mouse ears, awards are mouse
ears, the souvenir balloons are ear shaped, the entrance to Team Disney is framed by ears, and
Disney’s Hollywood Studios landmark water tower (The Earful Tower) has mouse ears on it.
Mouse ears are subtly hidden everywhere around the property and serve as a constant symbolic
reminder of where Disney began.
Rituals
Rituals are symbolic acts that people perform to gain and maintain membership or identity within
an organization. At most hospitality organizations, all employees go through a similar training
program. Rituals are mainly informational; new employees learn the organizational basics and
cultural heritage.
Most hospitality organizations develop elaborate ritual celebrations of service excellence. These
can range from a simple event like a departmental pizza party to honor those receiving positive
comments on customer comment cards to elaborate employee of the year award ceremonies that
resemble a major gala.
Leaders Teach the Culture
Managers of effective hospitality organizations constantly teach the culture to their employees,
reinforcing the values, mores, and laws. Strong cultures are reinforced by a strong commitment
by top management to the cultural values.
Setting the Example
Bill Marriott Jr. provides a good example of how a leader can help to sustain the culture. He is
famous for dropping in at a hotel and chatting with everyone he sees. He has been known to get
up early in the morning and wander into the Marriott kitchens to make sure the pancakes are
being cooked properly. This intense commitment to personal contact with each and every Marriott
employee and visible interest in the details of his operations have become so well known among
the Marriott organization that his mere presence on any Marriott property serves as a reminder of
the Marriott commitment to service quality.
The clear commitment to the customer-service culture, demonstrated through the actions of those
on the top of the organizational chart, sends a strong message to all employees that everyone is
responsible for maintaining a high-quality customer experience. This same modeling behavior
can be seen in the many hotel managers who visibly and consistently stop to pick up small scraps
of paper and debris on the floors as they walk through their properties. Employees see and
emulate this care and attention to detail.
Guests Teach the Culture
Hospitality organizations often have the help of guests in teaching and reinforcing the values,
beliefs, and norms expected of the employees.
Culture and the Organization Chart
A leader can define the value of a functional area by placing that area at the bottom or near the
top of the organizational chart. For example, placing the quality assurance function near the top
of the chart and requiring its manager to report to a high-level executive tells the organization’s
employees that the leader values quality. The way in which the leader designs the organizational
systems and procedures will also tell everyone in the organization a great deal about what is
valued.
McDonald’s sends a strong value message through its quality checklist and by the
procedures it uses to maintain its standards of cleanliness to guarantee its customers the
freshness of each hamburger it sells. McDonald’s spends a great deal of money sending quality
control people out to individual restaurants to check on these key items, to let restaurant
managers know what is important, and to make sure that customers get what they expect. All
McDonald’s employees know what’s on the quality checklist and how seriously the organization
takes these inspections, so the checklist helps to define the cultural values of cleanliness and
quality. Employees know that what is expected is inspected.
Culture and Physical Space
The layout of physical space is another secondary mechanism that can send a cultural message.
For example, office size and location are traditional symbols of status and prestige. By
putting the executive chef in the big office out front, the leader tells the rest of the organization
that the chef plays an important role in the organizational culture and that producing food of high
quality is an important organizational function. If the employee break room is put in leftover space,
not very nice, and generally non-hospitable, this sends a very different message of the value of
employees than a well-lit, well-furnished, and appealing employee cafeteria. Finally, the formal,
published statements of the company’s mission and vision hanging on the walls not only teach
employees the philosophy, creeds, and beliefs by which the organization lives but show them that
the organization believes in them enough to display them where all employees can be reminded
of them.
Culture and Leadership Skills
The success with which leaders use the mechanisms discussed above to convey cultural values
is a good measure of their leadership skills. When they concentrate on using them together in a
holistic way, they can ensure that all mechanisms convey to employees a consistent set of cultural
beliefs, values, and norms. Consistency is important as a powerful reinforcer of the culture. The
more consistently these mechanisms are used, the more powerfully reinforced the culture will be.
Leaders must take care about what they do, say, and write to ensure that the messages they
send are what is intended and explicit.
CHANGING THE CULTURE
The world changes and the people inside the organization change. The culture must also evolve
to help members cope with the new realities that the organization faces. Even a culture that starts
out with a strong customer orientation may change over time as the managers, customers, and
employees change.
WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT CULTURE
Here are some principles about organizational culture that seem to hold generally true.
• Leaders define the culture (or redefine it if necessary), teach it, and sustain it. Doing so may be
their biggest responsibility in the organization.
• An organizational culture that emphasizes interpersonal relationships is uniformly more
attractive to professionals than a culture that focuses on work tasks.
• Strong cultures are worth building; they can provide employee guidance in uncertain situations,
when company policies or procedures are unavailable or unwritten.
• Subcultures will form in larger organizations. A strong culture will increase the likelihood of
keeping the subcultures consistent with the overall culture values in important areas.
• Sustaining the culture requires constant attention to the means of communicating culture so that
they all consistently reinforce and teach the organization’s beliefs, values, and norms of behavior
to all employees.
• Excellent hospitality organizations hire and retain employees who fit their culture and get rid of
those who do not. The fit between the individual and the culture is strongly related to turnover,
commitment, and satisfaction
2.3. APPLICATION (Creativity):
Find a hospitality organization that has a strong, clearly defined service culture. How does the
organization create and sustain that culture? What training methods, incentives for managers and
employees, and communication techniques are used to create and define the culture? If you know
an organization that has a weak, muddled, unfocused culture, talk about that organization, too.
3. Assessment Phase:
3.1. Work Activities
1. How are stories important to building and sustaining a strong
culture?
a. Give examples of stories you have heard that helped teach
cultural values.
b. How does all that relate to managing the guest experience in
hospitality organizations?

3.2. Take Home Tasks

Read with comprehension the next lesson; Staffing for Service.