The Importance of Organizational Culture

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What is organisational culture? One of the things that organisational culture is infamous for is its ability to be elusive whereby no distinct definition has emerged. However, there is a general agreement that it does exist and that it plays a critical role in shaping the behaviour within an organisation. As Scholl (2003) states, there is no denying that each organisation has its own unique social structure which drives individual behaviour in any organisation. Organisational culture is said to be influenced strongly by employees’ strengths, weaknesses, beliefs, values, real-life experiences, education and upbringing. Executive leaders in an organisation depict the organisations culture through their actions and different leadership styles and management approaches. Thus it can be said that all employees contribute to the organisations culture and can have a powerful effect on an organisations well-being and success. Driskill (2004) defines culture as “strong values, norms, and beliefs that guide action” and explores further when saying “…culture is a powerful determinant of the definition of situation and of rituals and procedures: Who speaks to whom? Who listens to whom, when and why? Corporate culture contributes many of the interpretive standards that affect writers’ choices of content, persuasive approach, and word choice.” As Price (2011) states, an organisation is both a formal and informal entity. The formal aspect is whereby the official structure and public image is visible in the organisations charts, records and reports. Parallel to this is the reality of action and power that is described as the informal aspect of an organisation. It too is seen as an elusive concept, making reference to the complex network of socia... ... middle of paper ... ...tions constitute the basis of the values, and the values in turn affect employees’ behaviour through norms”. Works Cited Brady, K. (2011). Freelance technical writers and their place outside corporate culture: high and low corporate culture styles. Technical Communication Quarterly, 20(2), 167-207. Campbell, J.-L.,& Göritz, A.S. (2014). Culture corrupt! A qualitative study of organizational culture in corrupt organizations. Journal of Business Ethics, 120(3), 291-311. Price, A (2011). Human resource management. United Kingdom: Cengage Learning EMEA. Schein, E.H. (1992). Organisational culture and leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Scholl, R.W. (2003). Organizational culture. Retrieved March 23, 2014, from The University of Rhode Island, Charles T. Schmidt, Jr. Labor Research Center. Web site: http://www.uri.edu/research/lrc/scholl/webnotes/Culture.htm

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