Strong Organization Culture - Case Study Example

STRONG ORGANIZATION CULTURE By Student’s Name Code + Name of Course Professor/Tutor Institution City/State Date Strong Organization Culture The culture of an organization can be developed organically or through thoughtful and steady design and action. An organisation’s culture comprises of the behaviours, morals, approaches, and values, which workers use and share daily while at work (Powerful 2003, 20). The culture of an organization defines how workers describe their workplaces, how they comprehend it, and how they perceive themselves as constituting the organization (Schein 2010, 6). Moreover, culture drives actions, decisions, actions, and the ultimate general performance of the organisation. Successful organizations comprehend their culture and assume careful measures to promote and manage it effectively. In this light, the culture of an organization can be weak or strong (Schein 2010, 6). This paper describes the meaning of a strong organization culture, its positive and negative impacts, as well as the leadership role in establishing and managing organizations with strong cultures. Description of a Strong Organisational Culture The description of a strong organizational culture connotes one where most of its members share similar basic values and beliefs, which apply to the organization (Barney 1986, 656). The participants in such an organization may adhere to the ethical procedures and perceived rules that are elementary to the organization, even in situations where such values are not openly specified by the organization. A strong organisational culture can be extremely instrumental for establishing a team where all the members have similar goals (Bass & Avolio 1993, 112). Working as a team to improve communication, or possibly efficiency with the management could comprise some of the objectives of such a culture. A strong culture is where the top management upholds its word, validates appropriate demeanour as the organization norm, and facilitates social reinforcement of integrity amongst its employees. In this environment, the management fosters solid communication. The culture of an organization grows stronger when the upper-level executives generously communicate with the lower-level workers and vice versa (Alvesson 2012, 13). These firms normally adopt an open-door policy of communication with their employees. Good communication between a company and its employees normally averts conflict as workers grind through challenges they may experience. With strong communication, employees and departments can work together better. A combination of these factors enable many organizations to perform better and gain better outcomes. Strong organization cultures produce products at a higher rate and of better quality compared to those with weaker cultures. Companies, which are not transparent and do not pass information well to employees may have a difficult time remaining in business. A strong organization culture is attributed with superior organization performance (Powerful 2003, 23). Whereas this might not always be the scenario, many organizations with strong culture tend to have superior results. With a strong culture, employees and employers are happy. Positive and Negative Consequences from A Strong Organizational Culture Positive: Many early protagonists of organizational culture argue that a strong and pervasive culture is beneficial to organizations. This is because organizations with strong cultures foster sameness, motivation, identity, commitment, and solidarity, which, in turn facilitates internal coordination and integration (Powerful 2003, 22). A powerful organizational culture will lure talent of a higher level. The high-ranking talent joining corporations desire to enter companies that provide opportunities for showing off their talents and for development. The best workers can be choosy, but they are more likely to strongly consider joining companies with positive and effective organization cultures. In such an environment, the workers will be able to get along with one another and they will show unity in their objective of improving the organization. A solid organizational culture is essential to a company as it assists in keeping up the firm’s top-level talent. If employees love their job, they feel like appreciated members of their organization and are therefore unlikely to desire shifting to other organizations. A powerful culture will not merely lure the best fresh talent, but will assist in retaining them thereafter (Barney 1986, 657). A strong culture develops vigour and impetus. By establishing a strong organizational culture, it will gain its own momentum and will assist their employees in feeling valued giving them more freedom to express themselves. The energy and excitement this will generate will eventually bear a positive impact, which influences every aspect of the organization (Schein 2010, 13). Moreover, a successful and strong organizational culture alters the employees’ perspective of work. Most individuals tend to regard work as stressful, boring, aggravating, etc. Rather than considering of work as a routine an employee has to attend, a strong and solid culture can ensure employees always relish working. If the employees like going to the workplace, they are likely to toil harder, and direct their effort into any task. It is everyone’s desire to go to an occupation they adore, and most employees are willing to exert more effort (Powerful 2003, 25). Nevertheless, it is satisfying to put more energy in a job enjoyed by employees rather than one they hate. A positive and strong organizational culture will assist make all workers more successful and efficient. Such a culture benefits all categories of workers from the subordinates to the senior staff. A robust organizational culture can generate success, and its significance should not be underestimated. When firms with strong cultures are working in comparatively stable environments, their main policies and processes are normally in harmony with business objectives. According to Alvesson (2012, 13), in such environments, robust cultures assist organizations run like “well-oiled machineries,” moving along with perfect execution and maybe minor alteration of existing processes within the organization. In situations where the environment turns out unpredictable and extremely volatile, all stakes may be off. Confronted with such scenarios, organizations must develop new procedures and explore wholly new directions to maintain their success. Negative: A strong corporate culture may turn out as a double-edged sword. A strong culture could disadvantageous if its regulations and rules become more significant to the members than the organization’s real goals. New employees joining the organization could turn wilful of being unconsciously integrated into the existing culture, thereby making innovation difficult (Bass & Avolio 1993, 113). Organizations with strong cultures may have a difficult time adapting to immensely volatile situations within their organization. As such, a strong culture tends to make employees hold onto the existing situations making them less willing to try wholly fresh alternatives ways of acting, which may be more effective. When employees strongly embrace the stipulated corporate values, it becomes hard to substitute them with other values (Robbins & Judge 2012, 24). The strength an organization’s culture lies in its leadership’s ability to perfect and consistently execute stable set of processes and procedures. These can nevertheless portend potential dysfunctions. For instance, internalized controls attributed to a strong culture could culminate in employees placing unconstrained anxieties on themselves. Moreover, a strong culture could become a means of co-optation and manipulation (Naranjo-Valencia, Jiménez-Jiménez & Sanz-Valle 2011, 56). It could further lead to displacement of objectives or formation of sub goals, suggesting that ways of doing things and behavioural norms become so vital that they begin to dominate the initial objectives of the organization. A solid organizational culture can be a hindrance for modern business organizations, which require being change-oriented (Ting-Toomey 2012, 6). As such, given that an organization with a strong culture is relatively stable, the organization can resist meaningful changes needed in the modern business environment. Thus, an organization with a strong culture needs to be change-oriented for it to excel. Thus, the culture of contemporary organizations ought to be strong but limited, distinguishing essential assumptions, which are important to organisational success and survival from things, which are merely desirable but not obligatory (Bass & Avolio 1993, 114). Modern organizations, characterized with swiftly changing settings and internal workforce diversity require a solid organizational culture , but one, which is less prevalent in terms of suggesting certain behavioural patterns and norms than may have been before. A powerful organizational culture can lead to aggressive behaviour of participants. A strong value system encourages assimilation of the management philosophy expectations, favoured behavioural designs, rituals and customs of the organization through coercion and compulsion thus generates stress and dissatisfaction among participants. Generally, human propensity to repel any process of integration that go against their co-operation and will (Robbins & Judge 2012, 29).  Employees have the very tendency to adapt to such value models through aggressive behaviour that may go beyond particular levels of suppressive demeanour.  It may grow into burn out in later years. This scenario generate far-reaching effects both at the individual and organizational levels. It culminates to employee unrest, business unrest and dysfunction in the organization. A stronger culture can generate into irrationality of thoughts. Every employee has the likelihood of exposing themselves to frail expectations established by an organization’s work culture. The satisfaction level and related stress to the strong organizational culture is dependent on how employees perceives the new requirements and how they try coping with it.  If the practices and value system do not assist employees in assuming the fresh challenges, they may experience tension and anxiety (Ting-Toomey 2012, 10). A decision to assume challenging situations with anxiety and tension further results in errors and mistakes. In a power-centred culture, there are higher prospects for irrational coping mechanisms than the rational ones as there exists approaches, which are more coercive that makes participants cope with the culture. This often generates more conflicting conditions. The Role of Leadership in Establishing and Managing Organizational Culture All levels of management have a responsibility of facilitating a positive and strong workplace environment. Leaders and other managers must value the attributes of trust and trustworthiness, delegation, empowerment, mentorship and consistency (Cummings & Worley 2014, 23). Leaders have to be trustworthy for their employees to have faith in them because of the belief that the organizational actions will ultimately benefit them. Trust means that leaders have to mean what they say. Their words should be backed by corresponding action (Fullan 2014, 10). In this manner, the leaders will be a good example to be emulated by other staff and in the end, trust will be an attribute of all workers within the organization. Leaders have a role of empowering their employees. Manager can empower other employees by including them in finding solutions to various problems. Today, many managers pursue quick-fix answers to persistent problems, and they fail to perceive the long-term impacts of their short-lived decisions. By empowering their employees, the leaders will be imparting confidence in them to undertake meaningful decisions as pertains certain aspects of work (Fullan 2014, 12). A firm with a resilient culture that empowers its employees is highly likely to attain its objectives. Leaders in organizations have a responsibility of appreciating the diversity gathered from the unique perception and attributes of every worker. The leaders should allow every member to bring their expertise and worldview based on their collective and vital life experience (Cummings & Worley 2014, 28). An organization whose leaders accord such a kind of provision can ensure that it grows towards a culture, which values the important, and usually overlooked, diversity of experience and thought. In a period when “diversity” is most frequently considered as gender or race, experience and diversity of thought can be important “drivers” for leaders to exploit, develop, and use (Fullan 2014, 19). In conclusion, a strong organisation’s culture constitutes the appropriate behaviours, values, attitudes, and beliefs, which are most effective in driving actions, decisions, actions, and the ultimate general performance of the organisation. A strong organizational culture is one where most of its participants share similar beliefs that apply to the organization. Strong organization cultures foster sameness, motivation, identity, commitment, and unity, which, in turn simplify internal coordination and integration of organizations. However, a strong culture can bear negative effects such as making employees rigid on prevailing situations that require adoption of new alternatives that are more effective. Finally, leaders and other managers must value the attributes of trust and trustworthiness, delegation, empowerment, mentorship and consistency in order to influence their employees into developing appropriate organizational cultures. Bibliography Alvesson, M 2012. 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Communicating across cultures. Guilford Press. Read More