Organizational Culture: its Impact Effectiveness in RedBalloon - Case Study Example

Title: Name: Institutional Affiliation: Date: How organizational culture is expressed and it’s impact on organizational effectiveness in RedBalloon Introduction Culture is a people’s way of life. It defines how people behave, their beliefs, what they values and what to them is unquestioned knowledge and norms. Culture is communicated and imitated from one generation to another one over time. Culture is not static it changes over time but culture change is a slow process which can take years or even decades to achieve a minimal change (Schwartz & Sagiv, 2007). Culture is then what we can rightfully consider to be a people’s identity since every group of people has a culture that dictates their way of life and differentiates them from the rest. It is the same for organizational culture; it defines an organization and spells out how things are done in an organization (Hofstede, 1991). This paper will seek to define organizational culture, analyze how organizational culture is expressed in my organization and finally evaluate the effectiveness of how organizational culture is expressed in my organization. Organizational culture Organizational culture can be defined as a collection of beliefs, norms, values, work ethic, and relationships that identify an organization from another. Schein (1985) defines organizational culture as a pattern of shared assumptions discovered or developed by a group of people. The pattern has been accepted over time as the group learns to grapple with external and internal dynamics to solve its problems. According to Schein (1985) the organizational culture can then be taught to new employees so that they can understand how things are done within the organization they are joining. Organizational culture is therefore like a constitution of conduct within an organization to help it solve its short term and long term conflicts and problems and steer it towards its goals and objectives. More importantly the organizational culture serves to put the organization’s people in a common mind frame that they can pursue a common interest of the whole organization (Schwartz & Sagiv, 2007). Brief overview of my organization Redballoon was established in the year 2001 by Naomi Simson. The company has seen a massive growth since then which can be attributed to the founder and CEO and the team which she constituted. The company is a gift site which offers memorable experiences to its clients through hot air balloon trips, car racing or even sailing. The company also caters for the corporate market through products such as reward programs, recognition programs and team building activities. The service has been incredibly good making the company grow its profits and capacity astronomically over the past couple of years (RedBalloon, 2013). The job makes the work environment exciting, fast paced and demanding too but at the end of the day one feels a part of the family at the company. In fact the employees and the management in general refer to themselves as the Redballooners. The organization values integrity, generosity, Leadership, sense of humor and confidence. This is all captured in the company’s statements and commitment to welcoming warmly its new employees, ensuring good flow of communication, facilitation of growth and development of employees, appreciation of employee contribution and provision of opportunities for employees to develop holistically in all spheres of life (RedBalloon, 2013). How organizational culture is expressed in my organization Organizational culture is an effective tool of achieving organizational effectiveness if well developed and expressed within an organization. Most successful organizations have a very strong organizational culture which can be seen in several aspects of the organization. A strong organizational culture is associated very closely with the success of the organization (Schein, 1985). It is therefore a very important element to be expressed and well articulated to meet its objectives in as far as organizational effectiveness and profitability is concerned. In Redballoons, culture is expressed in the following ways which have been exhaustively analyzed under respective topics. The analysis also evaluates how effective the culture has been to the organization. Organizational structure Redballoons management endeavors to ensure that all its employees are intensively involved in decision making and day to day running of the organization. The organization seeks to eliminate any bureaucracy that may hinder the organizational effectiveness. It is part of the organizational culture to have the organization working as a team as opposed to a situation whereby the employees, middle level managers and the top management are reading from different scripts. To achieve this, the organization’s top management has adopted an open doors policy whereby the top executives are always available for all employees to access them and share any problems or ideas they maybe having. It is in a way a flat organizational structure where hierarchy is not so vital but team work and an environment that encourages innovation, creativity and harmonious working amongst the organization’s people. The management regularly constitutes teams composed of members from all the departments to work hand in hand on important company’s projects. The synergy achieved helps in ensuring decisions made are well informed and are not in conflict with the specific objectives of every department. It is a complete opposite of over-the-wall approach to handling projects where different teams work separately and pass their work to the next group to do their part. This kind of working which is influenced by the organizational structure ensures that team work is enhanced and that the organization is much effective in making the best out of opportunities and also well prepared to absorb external shocks. Organizations adopt different organizational structures which are a reflection of the organization’s culture (Deal, 1999). To this organization, the flat or entrepreneurial structure is very effective in helping the organization achieve its short term and long term strategies. The organizational structure is very flexible and adaptive to many factors that may face the organization. The fact that everybody is listened to and creativity is allowed to freely thrive in the organization, helps in decision making since informed and accurate decision can be made to solve problems or take advantage of opportunities that will propel the company to its next level of success. Communication Communication is very important in any organization. Through communication, an organization is able to coordinate its activities and also ensure that its members understand what are the short term and long term objectives of the organization (Madu, 2008). The communication style in RedBalloon expresses the culture of the organization in several ways. RedBalloon has its vision and mission statements well articulated and communicated in almost every visible space of the organization. This is intended to remind the employees what the organization is all about and as such the employees continually focus their energy towards achieving objectives that will help the organization meet its goals. The communication between employees and the management is also very efficient since all the bureaucratic barriers have been eliminated at least where necessary. The flat management style ensures that all the levels in the management structure communicate effectively. Information flows smoothly from top to down and from down to top. What this helps to achieve is to reinforce the organizational culture commitment to team work and innovation in helping the organization meet its goals. The organization also demands that all its customers get appropriate responses whenever they query something. It is a policy of the organization that the customer is the most important person for the organization and as such should be treated with respect and everything done to please them. There is a; customer support desk that continuously analyses its customer satisfaction ate using different tools to ensure it communicates effectively with customers to offer them solutions and response to their problems I believe effective communication achieved by this style of organizational communication has gone a long way in expressing the organizational culture of my organization. It has helped the organization use its organizational culture to achieve its goals and objective in terms of customer satisfaction and profitability. The management in this organization has done an effective job of ensuring that employees communicate efficiently amongst themselves and also with the management so that problems can be realized early enough and tackled. This is in line with the aim of the organizational culture of achieving synergy and fostering team work within the organization so that it can take advantage of opportunities and turn threats in opportunities through creativity, informed decisions and combined effort. Human Resource The human resource is the main target of any organizational culture. Culture is all about people since what is targeted is the human brain; to change it or train it to conform to a certain way of doing things. Organizations that have identified an effective way of getting the best out of their employees are very competitive in their markets and achieve more than they had anticipated in the first place (Pfau & Kay, 2002). In RedBalloon, employees are a very important part of performance and success, the organization recognizes this by putting the employees as the focus of their organizational culture. The culture is reflected first in how the organization hires its employees. It is usually a competitive recruitment process where the human resource through its own recruitment personnel seeks to get the best employees in the industry who mirror the values and competencies the company is looking for. A potential employee is expected to understand the vision and purpose of the organization and how he/she can help the organization in achieving its objectives. Once recruited, potential employees are taken through the company’s culture to understand what it values and what is expected of them and how they can work hand in hand with the rest of employees in achieving the company’s objectives and theirs as too. Employees in my RedBalloon are given room for development in terms of innovation and development of solutions for the company’s problems. The company tolerates creativity on the side of the employees in line with its entrepreneurial culture of rewarding creativity and bringing everybody on board to contribute to the success of the organization. This phenomenon helps the organization to get all its employees to work together in harmony. Employees are also able to achieve their full potential when they feel free to be creative and innovative in the organization. I believe this form of culture expression is very instrumental in achieving cohesion and team work in the company. The employees are also allowed to pursue personal development through training and development programs facilitated by the company. The programs help to make an impression in the mind of employees that the company is not only interested in their output but also in holistically developing their employees so that they can be productive and acquire essential skills. It is also an indication of the company’s position of the team working together for the betterment of everybody. Working environment The productivity of a company is in a way attributable to the kind of work environment it offers its employees to work in. favorable work environments motivate employees so that they can deliver their full potential. Management does not have a hard time controlling or working with the employees in such environments. It is however very difficult to manage employees in unfavorable working environment. The employees also have very low productivity which in turn impacts on the overall productivity of the organization. Working environments are determined greatly by the kind of organizational culture adopted by a company. They are actually an expression of organizational culture (Knafo & Sagiv, 2004). The working environment in RedBalloon is one characterized by harmonious working together between the management and the employees alike. The hierarchical kind of relationship is not promoted in RedBalloons. Employees interact amongst each other and with the management freely. It ensures that there is a casual relationship which is vital in ensuring that every body is a part of the team and is free to express dissatisfaction or suggest a better way of doing things. The environment also spurs creativity and innovation in employees to a very large extent. Teams are regularly mandated to solve problems or come up with strategies to beat competition. The kind of responsibility given to the employees and the relevance they are accorded makes them own the solutions or strategies that are formulated. When it comes to implementing them and monitoring them then the job is very easy for the management. In a way then I would say that the organizational culture of innovation, creativity and team work is expressed in the kind of working environment we have at the company and it helps so much in making the organization respond rapidly to changes and achieve its full potential. Leadership Leadership is then act of influencing others towards a desired direction. Leadership styles differ from organization to organization depending on various factors including the personality of the leader or leaders in an organization. In many organizations though, it is influenced by the goals and objectives of the company which are embedded pin the organizational culture of the company (Murray & Grant, 2006). It is important to note that organizational culture starts and ends with the leadership of the organization. By this, the assumption is that, leaders are required to develop cultures that are appropriate for their organization and see to it that the culture is adopted and also lead by example in regards to organizational culture adherence (Schein E. M., 2004). In RedBalloon, the leadership is very vital in keeping the team focused on the goals of the company. While it is good to keep an entrepreneurial culture where innovation and creativity is treasured, the challenge is ensuring the creativity and innovation and freedom is all used for the betterment of the organization. The management ensures that they communicate regularly with the employees regarding the projects and the progress of the organization. They regularly engage with the employees to show team work and support for what the employees are doing by doing so they interact directly with the employees so that nobody feels intimated by them by rather motivated. This kind of management style which puts the management near the employees has been able to express the organizational culture of the organization which fosters creativity and team work across all levels so that employees can give their best to the company and also that the organization can remain focused to its short term and long term goals. The management has also been very focused on rewarding hard work and creativity in the organization. This is done by recognizing team or individual efforts in solving problems or coming up with brilliant strategies for the organization. The effect of this is to encourage healthy competition pin the organization. It is also a way of staying true to the organization’s culture of fostering creativity and encouraging innovation and hard work. Conclusion From this paper it can be concluded that organizational culture is very important to an organization not only to identify the organization from another organization but also to define how an organization goes about in its business. It might be the defining factor between the success and failure of an organization and as such should not be taken for granted at all. Redballooners has adopted an entrepreneurial organizational culture expresses through various ways as analyzed in this paper. The culture has gone a long way in helping the organization achieve its objectives and goals and I believe it is the appropriate culture for the organization considering the kind of service being offered by the organization. References Deal, T. E. (1999). The New corporate Culture. New York: Peruses. Hofstede, G. (1991). Cultures and Organizations . London. : McGraw-Hill. Knafo, A., & Sagiv, L. (2004). Values and work environment: mapping 32 occupants. European Journal of Education and Psychology , 19, 255-273. Madu, B. C. (2008). Organization culture as driver of competitive advantage. Journal of Academic and Business Ethics , 1-9. Murray, P., & Grant, J. (2006). contemporary Issues in Management and Organisational Behavior. Routledge. Pfau, B. N., & Kay, I. T. (2002). Theories of Executive Human Resource Management. McGraw-Hill. RedBalloon. (2013). About Us - RedBalloon. Retrieved August 12, 2013, from RedBalloon Website: http://www.redballoon.com.au/about-us RedBalloon. (2013). Amazing Careers - RedBalloon. Retrieved August 12, 2013, from RedBalloon Website: http://www.redballoon.com.au/careers Schein, E. H. (1985). Organizational Culture and Leadership: A Dynamic View. San Francisco: Bass Publishers. Schein, E. M. (2004). Organisational culture and leadership. Jossy-Bass. Schwartz, S. H., & Sagiv, L. (2007). cultural values in organisations: insights for Europe. European Journal of International Management , 1 (3), 176-190. Read More