Organizational Cultural Inventory (OCI)

OCI Paper

I applied the Organizational Cultural Inventory (OCI) with the intention that it is a fictional company, J Enterprises. It will be assumed that it is one of the largest financial services companies in the world. The main emphasis of the responses comes from the department in which I work. However, the results could be indicative of the entire company.

The OCI Circumplex showed that the company has a culture with moderately strong Oppositional and Humanistic-Encouraging styles. It also significantly displays Avoidance and Self-Actualizing styles. The two least prominent styles are Perfectionistic and Approval. At first glance, the organization may seem to be working against itself, since the styles are on opposite sides of the circumplex. This is not really the case though.

This organization prides itself on being detail oriented. Because of this, members are encouraged to point out mistakes when mistakes are found. That is a characteristic of an Oppositional style. However, this company focuses on a “Don’t Ask Who, Ask Why” ideology. For example, when an error is discovered in the processing of a transaction, a person is expected to find out why it occurred more than who committed the error. In addition, that person feels comfortable communicating the issue to coworkers of all levels. This reflects a Humanistic-Encouraging style.

Even though this organization scored in the moderate range for Avoidance, by evaluating further, it has a specifically high characteristic that causes this. The main trait that exemplifies Avoidance is pushing decisions upwards. For example, when an associate researches and feels that a transaction needs to be adjusted, it takes two additional levels to make the final decision. Outside of this particular characteristic, this company scores low for an Avoidance style.

The Self-Actualizing style is fairly straightforward. The company encourages employees to further themselves and have a wide variety of experiences. One example of this is having a required 40 hours of training and learning classes each year for every employee. Also, a generous school reimbursement program promotes higher education for anyone who is interested.

There are several Organizational Behavior factors that help shape the norms and expectations within this organization. Although work stress and leadership are among the contributing factors, I will fo...

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...ow that the OCI styles have been evaluated in relation to this organization, I will address the results from the perspective of what should and should not be changed. The examples of the Humanistic-Encouraging and Self-Actualizing are acceptable right now. I feel that the company does well with those styles. Mainly, I think that the organization needs to reduce the aspects that are associated with the Avoidance style. The practice of pushing decisions upward, as explained before, impacts job satisfaction in a negative way. If this were reduced, the employees would be far more empowered, and would in turn serve the customer more effectively. A happy customer usually makes a happy organization, and vise versa. Some of this could be accomplished, I feel, by eliminating one level of approval on adjustments. Workflows would be more efficient, and employees would experience higher job satisfaction.

It was worthwhile to review this organization, and determine the OCI styles it uses. Whether the styles, and resulting outcomes, seem positive or negative, it provides one measure of how the organization is functioning. That could lead to many more steps, and hopefully consistent improvement.