Analysis of Definition of Culture by Edward Tylor, IBMs Culture - Case Study Example

Critically discuss how culture is expressed in your organisation and how this expression helps or hinders your organisation’s effectiveness College Name of the Student: Name of the Instructor: Name of the course: Code of the course: Submission date Author note: Culture defined The first anthropologists who attempted to define culture were Kroeber and Kluckhoh in 1952 in America. They reviewed definitions and concepts of culture critically and compiled around fourteen dozen definitions of culture. Four decades later, in 1994, Apte in his Encyclopaedia of Language and Linguistics, which was a ten-volume work, remarked in a terse manner that despite umpteen number of efforts to define culture, anthropologists had had not any major breakthrough in reaching a confirmed agreement regarding its nature. This is probably because culture, over the last century, has been seen from the perspective of the terms used to define the same. Nineteenth century found widespread use of these terms and the difficulty in defining the same actually stemmed from three different ways culture was attempted to define. These three ways are prevalent even today. Culture was referred to special artistic and individual endeavours in Culture and Anarchy by Mathew Arnold (1867). Today, this is termed as high culture; one before this was termed as popular culture, which was more folkloric in nature. This sort of culture is more aesthetic than social in nature. To this stand on the definition of culture, Edward Tylor gave a reaction in his Primitive Culture in 1870 in which he stated that culture could be defined as a quality possessed by all people in settings that are social in nature. In his definition, he espoused the transition from savagery to barbarism and finally to civilisation. Tylor's definition became, to some extent, the founding principle of defining culture. In order to convey the actual essence of his definition of culture, it would need to be reproduced here in its entirety. He said: “culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society”. This contradicted Arnold's view on culture since it argued that everyone has culture, which he or she acquires by virtue of the affiliation with a specific group taking in its stride habits, knowledge and capabilities that group possesses. "Complex whole" formulation in Tylor's definition is still seen as an important component of defining culture. The third usage was a reaction to Tylor's stand on culture by Franz Boas, another anthropologist, in twentieth century, most of which was found to have its roots embedded in Johann von Herder's eighteenth century writings. Boas said it should not be taken as something out of place if it is said that different societies have different cultures. He even said there was nothing as something as savage or civilised. Taking these three usages as the basic definitions of culture, several anthropologists, at different moments of time, have provided their own insight into how culture can be defined. Schwartz (1992) has stated that derivatives of experience, either more or less organised, is what culture is composed of. These could either be created or learned by individuals. Hofstede (1994) said that when a collective programming of mind exists, member from one category or group is differentiated from member of another group or category. This is why one set of people are supposed to have one culture and another set of people another culture. Matsumoto (1996) has remarked that culture is a set of values, attitudes, behaviours and beliefs which may vary from one person to another or one group from another. Most recent definition of culture has come from Spencer-Oatey (2008) who said that it is a fuzzy set of basic values and assumptions, policies, beliefs behavioural conventions and orientations to life. Organisational culture When some of these assumptions, values, policies and beliefs seep through an organisation, they tend to be part of what forms organisational culture. Over the past few decades organisational culture has been taken as a perspective in organisational theory. At least four different sources have been identified that are said to give rise to organisational culture. These are national cultures, climate research, formation of convictions and human resource management (Brown 1998). These make sure that organisations work in a structured and rational nature to give it a specific behaviour. As a result of this organisational culture forms the central pivot around which the functioning of an organisation revolves. This is sort of a shift from national to organisational culture. Organisational culture in current globalised world is considered to be an important component of human resource management and is widely linked to performance of the organisation. Better the culture, it is supposed, better is the performance index. It is because it offers a flexible, non-mechanistic and imaginative approach to how work is performed in an organisation. For most of the organisational problems, states Wilson (1992), organisational culture is a 'cure-all' recipe. Theoretical developments Several theoretical developments have taken place in connection with organisational culture in recent years. These theories have rested on several classifications and typologies to understand the organisational culture concepts. Handy (1985) has used four classifications to understand organisational culture, which are role, power, person cultures and task. Deal and Kennedy (1982) again identified four culture types that include the bet-your company culture, tough-guy/macho culture, the process culture, and work-hard/play-hard culture. Schein (1985) identified three types, namely values, artefacts, and basic underlying assumptions. Scholtz (1987) said there are five primary types stable, anticipating, reactive, creative, and exploring. Yet the quest for having a basic definition of organisational culture remains and Martins (2003) attempted to fill that gap. He provided a general definition which stated that organisational culture is such a system in an organisation by virtue of which members of an organisations stick to certain shared meanings that identify that organisation and distinguish it from other organisations. Arnold (2005) has seconded this definition and stated that distinctive behaviours, principles, beliefs, and norms are what give an organisation its distinctive culture. Each organisation, thus, has its distinctive culture and it can be said that what a personality is to an individual, organisational culture is to an organisation (Johnson, 1990). In other words an organisation follows a basic assumptions’ pattern, which is either developed, invented or discovered in order to result into better integration and adaptation. In Focus: IBM Overview Today, IBM as a company is a name to reckon with. With operations in more than 160 countries this international corporation has operations in countries as far away as Thailand, Hungry, Singapore, Israel, and Brazil. This is clearly a company where no single organisational culture can exist as several variables of regional, linguistic, cultural and national abound. Born in United States of America and having worldwide presence, IBM is an amalgamation of organisational culture that is derived from seven key characteristics. These include innovation and risk taking, detail, outcome orientation scores, people orientation and team orientation, aggressiveness, and stability. Overall, the organisational culture at IBM offers a pleasant job experience that is bound by a strong sense of shared meaning among cross-functional teams, wide expanse of control and empowered employees. For new employees the entry is highly socialised, collective, informal, fixed instead of variable, investiture and serial. There is little occurrence of being outrageous and greater level of being groomed, supportive framework and professionalism. Nature of culture The company has been doing business for over hundred years now and the strides that it has made are being attributed to its high level of organisational culture, organisational structure and impeccable business development. IBM's success can be attributed to at least two major components; stimulate progress and preserve the core. This has helped the company develop deep primal human distinction, which, again, rests on two components: one the company's need to create and two, its need to believe. It is these core values that IBM has used over the decades to develop its core values and define business culture. The company ranks high on its service, sales and customer satisfaction graph owing to its dedicated focus on managerial development through rigorous programmes and orientation process for its new employees that are extensive. Soon after their entry into the IBM teams, these new entrants are immediately moulded into its work culture. The company does not think twice before encouraging the best talent and bring it up the management ladder. Collins (1990) has remarked that one reason why IBM is successful as a company is because it embodies culture guidelines, preserves culture and enforces achievement. Since the company has attaches greater value to customer satisfaction, values determining the same get transpired to its employees too, they never want to be seen lagging behind. Lot of this success is being credited to Lou Gerstner, the CEO, whom IBM appointed in 1993. With his entry a new culture was born at IBM, which is now encouraging creativity and motivation, team spirit by allowing different teams work on the same problem simultaneously, and accommodating individualisation and flexibility. These changes at IBM have given it an edge over the rest in its segment by virtue of embracing creativity and innovation, two important functions that are directly linked to productivity in domains as sales, engineering, information technology, and product design (Malone, 2004). Culture at IBM IBM takes workplace flexibility in a serious manner. This is clear from the point that at any given time of the day as many as one-third of total IBMers are working remotely. IBM believes that flexible work options, the same it has given to this culture, serves customers better and effectively. At the same time IBM ensures that it does not trespass its people's work/ life balance and gives them enough of time for their personal and domestic needs. This culture goes a long way in making IBM employees put in their best in whatever time they have in hand and wherever they are working from. This is seen as a founding culture that helps the company achieve three critical goals. In this way the company attracts superior talent and develops correct leadership rather than mere managers. These leaders tend to become the ones that develop interactive skills and are adept at facilitating development. Further to this the culture helps them strengthen the retention as it promotes self-management skills and creates a high contribution workplace. Last but not least the culture helps the culture imbibes in its employees a feeling of being partnered so as to manage workload better. This is because they develop a behaviour that tends them to get focussed, prevent burnout and even over time support personal life style choices. In fact the culture at IBM is such that it keeps on re-inventing, in a manner that is so cutting-edge, that when, how and where should its employees contribute to the company’s growth. The company has developed six flexible work options, which not only are seen as mere options but a means to educate them, work towards improvement of culture and provides latitudes that can strike work/ life balance. Personal obligations of IBMers are as important for the company as are its financial successes (Boston College Centre for Work and Family, nd). What sets an IBMer apart from any other employee in similar segments of work as IBM is into is that each and every IBMer is treated as a Global IBMer. That means an IBMer transcends borders irrespective of where he is. This helps seamless collaboration of business and sharing of resources without hurdles. This also develops a knack in an IBMer to reach out to, interact with and solve problems of a diversity of clients, both at simple and complex levels. It is noteworthy that in order to strengthen its unique culture, IBM holds an annual fest called Cultural Intelligence Awareness Week to increase awareness of the entire organisation about its cultural intelligence. The fest, again, runs through IBMers at all levels - most recently hired are as important as its most senior executive. Since this culture has pervaded at every level in the organisation, its leadership tries to manage employees and issues in line with the predefined set of beliefs and values. Communities and governments are also engaged in line with these values. Culture’s impact on IBM Since IBM has been able to express culture both within and outside of its offices so explicitly, it has, over the years, emerged as a social business. No doubt in this endeavour it has taken as much help from technology as possible. Empowered by a strong in-house culture such moves have lead the company become one of the top, productive and efficient companies. Employees, who have sort of internalized this culture, are at the forefront of this change and seen as founding pillars for this success. Development of this unique culture has enabled IBM to be known as a company in which 'people are the platform' - people both within and outside of its walls. The positive side of this concept has shown on many fronts. For example, IBM is considered as a company having deeper relationships with its stakeholders, including employees, customers, suppliers and partners. The company is more agile and transparent, has expressed higher satisfaction and productivity among its employees, increased feedback and engagement from its customers and better intellectual capital use and accelerated innovation. This has further acted as a catalyst for employees who feel being more empowered, visible outside and inside the organisation and of course productive. Through community participation customer feel more involved and partners who invest into the organisation feel greatly recognised and supported. Conclusion As is clear the definition of culture does not fit itself into one mould. It assumes different connotations in different circumstances and several nationalities. Culture in organisations is, however, a uniform code of conduct and a predetermined set of values that flow from top to bottom of the leadership pyramid. Though culture at IBM is taken as a role model in the sense that it envisages to build leaders than managers who, in turn, empower their teams to be more productive and efficient. Given this background IBM has reaped maximum benefit from the culture that it has developed through all its locations worldwide. References Arnold, J. (2005). Work Psychology: Understanding Human Behaviour in the Workplace, 4th edition. London: Prentice Hall Financial Times. Apte, M. (1994). Language in sociocultural context. In: R. E. Asher (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Vol.4 (pp. 2000-2010). Oxford: Pergamon Press. Boston College. (nd). Creating a Culture of Flexibility: What it is, Why it Matters, How to Make it Work. Available http://www.american.edu/hr/upload/bccwf-flexibility-ebs.pdf. accessed August 12, 2014. Brown. A. (1998). Organisational Culture. (2nd ed). Pitman Publishing. pp. 9, 33, 176. Collins, R. (1990). Television: Policy and culture. London: Unwin Hyman. 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