4. Suggest ways in which the operations manager can influence the repositioning of the organization’s culture to enable it to pursue a particular strategic direction. Once the travel business has been through the process of analysing its strategic position and has formulated strategies to determine its strategic situation, it then needs to be able to successfully implement its chosen strategies. The operations manager will be required to successfully manage those internal aspects of the business that may be affected as a consequence of the organization’s transition towards its intended strategic position. This involves a consideration of the internal culture of the business as well as of the process of the management of change.

We understand culture to be the values, norms and belief systems that the organization is predicated upon, as discussed in Chapter 6. These values, norms and belief systems will be deeply embedded within the organization and will have formed as a consequence of a number of factors. The organization’s culture can be highly influential in determining employee motivation and thus the productivity and quality of the end product or service.

Therefore, an analysis of the organization’s culture within the context of strategy is important, as there may be cultural issues that are preventing the travel business from moving in a particular strategic direction. An understanding of the organization’s culture will enable the operations manager to deploy strategies for developing an organizational climate that is dynamic and flexible in its response to strategic change. Johnson et al. (2014) propose a model, described as the cultural web, which can be used to analyse the cultural orientation of the firm. According to Johnson et al., the cultural web consists of seven different elements, as illustrated in Fig. 2.10.