The Role Of Organizational Culture In Organizations

Organizations have become integral part of most societies nowadays, serving the basis for business and other kinds of relations within the frames of the society. Logically any organization should operate on the basis of some basic rules, which finally form organizational culture. Generally the definition for this notion is rather versatile and it has been formulated in different ways. There are two basic points, on which agreement was achieved, that organizational culture does exist, and it is vitally important for relations of people, working in organizations and their behavior.

One of the approaches to defining of the organizational culture is based on the Aristotle’s assumption that “we are what we repeatedly do.” (Parker 2000). There is a portion of truth in this, but it is probably not possible to limit the whole organizational culture purely to habits of people, as it is also important what people think or feel, as this also has certain impact upon their behavior and relations within organization. One of the profound approaches to defining organizational culture was suggested by Michael Watkins, who stated that “culture is the organization’s immune system.” (Parker 2000). This is actually the reflection of one the main functions of organization’s culture – to protect it from various outside and inside situational pressures. Like the immune system of human organism is to protect the state of health of an individual, organizations culture should protect the healthy functioning of an organization. At the same time it is necessary to remember that culture is not static, as it has to adjust to various external and internal factors and influences, which are constantly changing. Cultural chance is a continuous process, which changes along with changing of surrounding. Thus organizational culture “encompasses values and behaviors that “contribute to the unique social and psychological environment of an organization. Organizational culture represents the collective values, beliefs and principles of organizational members and is a product of such factors as history, product, market, technology, and strategy, type of employees, management style, and national culture.” (Cummings, Worley 2004). Culture should be viewed as one of the factors, which could characterize an organization, still it doesn’t remain unchangeable, it could be changed by the leader or members of this organization.

Taking into consideration the number of approaches towards characterizing and defining of organizational culture, this is clear that there were several types of organizations pointed out on the basis of some methods. It is not possible to unite all organizations under one single type. One of the well-known examples of treating organizational culture is that by Edgar Schein, who differentiated between three levels: artifacts, espoused values and basic underlying assumptions. (Watkins 2013). The level of artifacts is associated with superficial attributes of an organization, in other words they include the facts how offices and facilities are operating, how workers are dressed and how they behave generally, how they interact with each other and with people from outside. Other researchers called this level – the level of physical elements. The next level is the one of the values, providing the idea about the concrete aspects of a given organizational structure. Basic assumptions and beliefs are included into this level. The last level, as it is suggested by Schein, is the most profound one – the level of organization’s tacit assumptions. These assumptions represent the elements of organizational culture, which are not seen immediately and hardly belong to the sphere of everyday communication. Sometimes there are even elements, which are not discussed inside an organization at all. They are called “unspoken rules” and are accepted by the members of the organization, without conscious understanding of their existence.  Schein’s model is considered by most researchers to be the best for understanding of the organizational behaviors and relations.

Organizational culture is subdivided into two general types: strong and weak. Strong culture exists in such organizations, where all members cooperate without any problems with each other and are all performing their functions properly with minor adjustments if necessary. Weak culture is characterized by the presence of numerous procedures for supporting of the organizational values and order. Strong organizational culture is utterly important for building motivation of the staff workers, as they are doing the things, which they consider to be correct. Such culture is great for organizations, operating in service sphere, bringing a lot of benefits to the organization, such as for example supporting of workers’ motivation, reaching of team cohesiveness and supporting the efficiency of the organization.

It was already mentioned that it is important to build healthy organizational structure, as only under this condition an organization would improve productivity, avoid staff turnover and be able to build strong business relations with customers and other organizations. Healthy culture is possible in case of presence of a number of characteristics such as appreciation of diversity, respect towards all employees and their achievements, equal treatment of all workers and equal opportunities for them, constant additional training and education for staff workers and so on. Performance oriented organizational cultures are considered to belong to healthy cultures. They usually reveal the tendency towards rapid financial growth of an organization, better involvement of the workers and introduction of innovative approaches.

Kotter and Heskett subdivided organizations into those with adaptive culture and unadaptive cultures. In the first case managers are ready to participate in all activities and take the responsibility for risks of introducing the needed changes at a certain moment of time. In case with unadaptive culture productivity and correspondingly the effectiveness of an organization tend to sink (Watkins 2013).

Another type of organizational cultures is known under the name constructive culture. Such cultures are generally characterized by well-built communication between colleagues and team work is highly appreciated and encouraged there. This culture is a perfect option for those organizations, where members are not simply to perform some routine functions, instead they are to perform complex functions. Constructive cultures are characterized by release of complete potential of the workers, high motivation and satisfaction level, rapid development of an organization and its sales. Passive/defensive cultures could be in a way opposed to the above discussed type of organizational culture, as workers in such organizations are under constant pressure to behave in the way, which is generally considered to be effective. At the first sight it is good if employees are encouraged to cooperate well and avoid conflicts, on the other hand it is not good to put rules and procedures on top of personalities, as it usually leads to lowering of the motivation level and workers’ efficiency. Very close is another type – aggressive/defensive cultures, which are differentiated by the underlining of the task, not the people, who are to fulfill it. This type causes a lot of stress to the workers and they often tend to oppose it.

It was already said that organizational culture is not a static state, it is constantly changing. Sometimes there is a need to introduce changes into organizational culture due to some reason, for example if there is no healthy culture in an organization. Sometimes changes of culture are urgent, in case it is necessary to stop the employees’ turnover for example or resettle the main objectives of the company. In order to make the process of organizational culture change more effective, there were several methodologies along with psychological approached worked out. At the same time it is necessary to keep in mind that there is no unified approach to introducing cultural changes to organization, as strategies are different, depending upon the relations between the actual situation and the needed final result. It is a huge mistake to think that it is easy to change organizational culture, as in reality a lot of time is needed to get the employees adjusted to a new way of organizing. In case the previous culture was strong enough, it would be even more difficult to influence and change it. Before any concrete change could be made to the existing culture, it is necessary to study it and understand it. Usually such methods as interviews of employees, surveys and observation are applied. More thoroughly should be the concrete areas studied, where changes are needed. For an individual, who used to work in one organization and then is moved to another organization, it might be different to get used to the new organizational culture, at least it needs time and effort. The worst situation is in case of merging of two different organizations with different cultures, as each of them had its own unique culture and their combination leads to clash.

Overall, organizational culture plays vitally important role for successful functioning of an organization in general and well-being of each single employee in particular; taking into consideration the variety of organizations and their spheres of functioning, there is no wonder that there were a lot of types of organizational cultures differentiated, each of them having its characteristic features, advantages and drawbacks. Organizational culture is a dynamic state and it could change in accordance with outside and inside factors, as well as be changed by concrete individuals.

 

Works cited:

Cummings, T. G., Worley, C. G.  Organization Development and Change, 8th Ed., South-Western College Pub, 2004

Frost, A. A Synthesis of Knowledge Management Failure Factors. Free paper, 2014

Harrison, R.  Understanding your organisation’s character, Harvard Business Review, 1982

Kilmann, R. H., Saxton, M. J., Serpa, R. Issues in understanding and changing culture. California Management Review, 28: 87-94, 1986

Kim, C.K., Quinn, R. E.  Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture: Based on the Competing Values Framework, Prentice Hall, 1999

Luthans, F. Doh Jonathan, P. “International Management, Culture, Strategy and Behavior”. 9th ed. 2015

O’Donovan, G. The Corporate Culture Handbook: How to Plan, Implement and Measure a Successful Culture Change Programme, The Liffey Press, 2006

Papa, M. J., et al. Organizational Communication Perspectives and Trends (4th Ed.). Sage Publications, 2008

Parker, M. Organizational Culture and Identity, London: Sage, 2000

Watkins, M. What Is Organizational Culture? And Why Should We Care?  2013

The terms offer and acceptance. (2016, May 17). Retrieved from

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"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

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"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

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