What is the nature and substance of organisational culture and why does it matter?
This essay will set out to define what is organisational culture, examine the main attributes that characterise it and how cultural originate and develop within it. At the same time, this essay will also assess the importance of organisational culture to the financial performance and continued survivability of firms.
Organisational theorists, depending on their school of thought, hold differing conceptions of organisational culture. Most theorists attempt to use a variety of metaphors, or images, to bound, frame, and differentiate that category of experience referred to as an “organisation” (Smircich, 1983). The most common comparisons made of organisations
…show more content…
Organisational culture is emergent and socially created by constant interactions of organisational members with their environment as well as with each other. Looking at the former, Schein (1985) defines culture as learned solutions to problems that arise from positive problem-solving situations, be it problems of “external adaptation” or “internal integration”. Essentially, when confronted a problem that threatens the continuing survival of an organisation, members of the organisation would try out various responses until they discover one that most effectively remedies the situation. This solution, once accepted, is absorbed into the culture and becomes a cultural norm. For the latter, culture also emerges as a way for members to cope with environmental anxieties. For example, in order to cope with the stress of their occupational responsibilities and develop an effective way to communicate their points with each other, members of an organisation may develop their own jargon and language, which then becomes an implicit cultural …show more content…
It is a “pattern of beliefs, values and learned ways of coping with experience” (Brown 1994) that manifests itself into three layers: artefacts at the shallowest, values and beliefs in the middle and basic assumptions at the deepest. It is inseparable from the organisation that cannot be easily manipulated as it is fundamentally non-unitary and emergent. Finally, organisational culture is important as it is one of the main determinants as to whether a firm can enjoy superior financial and a comparative advantage over firms of differing cultures.
Bibliography
Frost, P. J., Moore, L. F., Louis, M. R., Lundberg, C. C. & Martin, J. (1991). Reframing Organizational Culture. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Miller, K. (2012). Cultural Approaches. In Organizational communication: Approaches and processes (6.th ed., p. 81 to 93). Boston, Mass: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
Morley, D. D. & Shockley-Zalabak, P. (1991). Setting the Rules: An Examination of Organizational Founders’ Values. Management Communication Quarterly, 4, 422–449.
Peters, T. J. & Waterman, R. H. (1982). In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies. New York: Harper &
Another idea created by Johnson and Scholes (1997) is the cultural web. This aims to show how culture influences on behaviour occur and how this impacts on the organisation. The cultural web focuses on artefacts, which are defined by Dwyer (2001) as the “most visible and most superficial manifestations of an organisational culture” These include routines and rituals, stories, symbols, power structures, organisational structures and control symbols. Firstly, routine and rituals comprise the repeated patterns of behaviour from the workers. Routine is how employees behave towards those in and out of the organisation and supports Deal and Kennedy’s (1982) saying of “the way we do things around here”. Rituals, on the other hand, are more so social events which management arrange e.g. work meetings, Christmas parties. Another artefact is stories. Often colleagues will tell each other stories about the organisation which show and emphasise important qualities of staff. This will influence their behaviour and motivate. Symbols are often used in firms which Dwyer (2001) explains as “words, objects, conditions, acts or characteristics of persons that signify something different or wider from themselves, and which have meaning to an individual group” This even include the layout of the business and furnishings. Organisation structure is included in the cultural web. This is important as it is how the business delegates work and responsibility. It reflects the “centralisation, formalisation, complexity, configuration and flexibility in the firm” (Olsen et al, 1998, p, 211). Lastly, is control systems. This helps to control what is happening in the firm. Together, these make up the outer layer of a business’s ‘cultural web’.
Dr. Wagner-Marsh, F. (2013). Organizational Culture . Retrieved from Encyclopedia of Business, 2nd edition: http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Ob-Or/Organizational-Culture.html
Organizational cultural is the system of shared beliefs and values that develops within an organization and guides the behavior of its members, while organizational structure is an expression of social and economic principles of hierarchy and specialization (Kinicki, 2015). Both the culture and the structure of an organization are important things for management to understand in order to successfully set and achieve an organization’s goals. Companies who excel in highly competitive fields can attribute their successful economic performance to a cohesive corporate culture that increases competiveness and profitability. This culture is best utilized in an organization that has the necessary structure to allow its employees to coordinate their
The organizational culture theory is a theory that conceptualizes why an organization operates in the manner it does and how the way they operate differentiates them from other organizations. For instance, in the Metaphors & Culture Web Lecture, it is noted that “different people have different metaphors for the same word, highlighting different interpretations of that word,” which shows that culture can influence the way one views certain ideas through the use of different metaphors for the same word. An example of this used in the lecture are the metaphors “true love can drive you crazy” and “they’re crazy about each other.” These differences in metaphors influence how one communicates their ideas with other individuals. This concept goes back to the theory of organizational culture, in organizational culture an organization 's principles, beliefs, and ethics are shaped from the head of the organization; the way the head of the organization views an idea and communicates that idea shapes the way other members, who are of lower ranking, views that idea. Thus, creating a dominant culture within that
Gardner (2006) states that the culture of an organization can be examined through many different theories. From a postmodern approach it would be asked what are the “different ways that people experience this organization” (2006, p.106). In contrast, a modernist approach would ask, “what is the issue and it’s cause” (2006,
Richard L.D considers that organisation was a clear goal, a well-designed structure and coordinating the activities of the system, social entities associated with the external environment. Along with the development of the economy, organisational culture's influence on employee behavior is the most used more and more big, in general, organisational culture is refers to the organisation in long-term survival and development for the organisation which is formed by the holdings of members and is said to follow the value of the system. Organisational structure refers to all members of the organisation to achieve organisational goals and the division of writing, the scope of duties, responsibilities, rights, etc formed by the structure of the system. Developing the ideas of Harrison , Handy describes four main type of organisational cultures: the power culture; Role culture and task culture, and the person culture.
While organization culture can be defined in many ways. Here are presented some of the meaning of organizational culture according to some members, according to Wood, Wallace, Zeffane, Schermerhorn, Hunt , Osborn (2001:391), organizational culture is a reliable and value system developed by the organization where it leads the behavior of members of the organization itself . While, according to Tosi, Rizzo, Carroll as quoted by Munandar (2001:263), organizational culture is the ways of thinking, feeling and reacting based on certain patterns that exist in the organization or is in the parts of the organization . Whereas according to Robbins (1996:289), organizational culture is a common perception shared by the members of that organization.
To make the readers to understand more in this essay, the purpose to identify the meaning of culture is needed. According to Kendall (2010, p.44), she defined that ‘culture is the knowledge, language, values, customs, and material objects that are passed from person to person and from one generation to the next in a human group or society’. Simply put, culture is existed in our lives which play an inevitable role to enable the human being to communicate, interact and survive among people. Then, how about the culture within the organization? Is the organizational culture sharing similarities as Kendall’s definition? There are no doubts that every single organization has its own culture. Based on Keyton (2005, p.1) the organizational culture is referred as ‘the set of artifacts, values, and assumptions that emerge from the interactions of organizational members’. Moreover, Legge (2005) also declared that organizational culture in the view of organic analogy had been...
Culture is “a system of shared beliefs and values that develops within an organisation and guides the behaviour of its members” (Schermerhorn et al. 2011). It plays an important role in any organisation. For instance, in Woolworths we can se...
A strong organisational culture leads to higher organisational performance. Organisational culture can be defined as a total function of common beliefs, values, patterns of behaviour that are held and shared by the members of an organisation. It is also a valuable resource which can improve the competitiveness of a company and is used to distinguish the company (Barney 1986). From the 1970's the study of organisational culture has become an important issue and closely studied in the early 1980s. Since then, organisational culture has turned out to be one of the most important factors which affects the overall performance of a company.
The concept of organizational culture is one of the most debated topics for researchers and theorists. There is no one accepted definition of culture. People even said that it is hard to define culture and even more change it. It is considered a complex part of an organization although many have believed that culture influences employee behavior and organizational effectiveness (Kilmann, Saxton, & Serpa 1985; Marcoulides & Heck, 1993; Schein, 1985a, 1990).
Organizational culture is the key to organizational excellence and leadership is a function to create and manage culture (Chen 1992). Organizational researchers have become more aware of the importance of understanding and enhancing the cultural life of the institution. "This study is one of a group of companies with high-performance in North America, interest in organizational culture is an important element in organizational success. Tesluk et al (1997). Looking at the" soft "of the organization, the researchers claim that" the organizational culture may be suitable for a means to explore and understanding of life at work, and make them more humane and more pronounced (Tesluk et al, 1997), and the graves (1986) also stressed the importance of corporate culture, and the need for research strategies and methods of investigating the various elements and processes of the organizational culture. He argued the culture that meets the basic needs of belonging and security in an attempt to describe this gathering that culture is "the only thing that distinguishes one company from another gives them coherence and self-confidence and rationalises the lives of those who work for it. Standard that may seem random, is to enhance the life to be different, and safe to be similar, and culture is a concept that provides the means to achieve this compromise (p. 157).
According to Schein, “culture can be defined as a pattern of basic assumptions that are discovered by a given group, learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integrations, worked well to be considered valid” (21). This definition explains that culture is created when a group comes together and solves problems that might arise in a business setting. He also talks about the different levels of culture as well. The levels of organizational culture are observable artifacts, values, and basic underlying assumptions. Schein concludes with saying that organizational culture is a complex phenomenon and there needs to be a different and more reliable way of measuring organizational culture as compared to using the basic definition of
Organizational culture relates to a system of shared norms, ideals, values and assumptions that binds humans collectively (Larson, 2014). The way of life reflects the character of the organization and, similar to a character's personality,
An organisational culture is a system of shared suppositions, qualities and convictions which represent the general employees within the organisation, their occupations, conduct and even dress. Each organisation has rules of conduct and