Organisation Culture Expression and Its Effectiveness - Essay Example

Organisation Culture Expression and Its Effectiveness Name Course title Date Introduction The diversity of cultures has led to advent of workplaces that are multicultural in several organisations. Realization of the impact of culture in the organisation is significant to the effective and efficient operation in any given organisation. The withheld values within the location of any organisation affects the organisation values and plays a greater role in determining which values to embrace for the better of the organisation and the society surrounding it. These societal values are influenced by the culture of the people thus affecting the organisational culture, individual culture as well as organisation tasks and objectives (Bardi & Sagiv, 2003). For an organisation to have an impact in a society, the organisation undertakings must be in line with the culture of the people in the society as well as have a standard code of principles that govern the workplace culture. Globalization has affected workplace cultures since people from different backgrounds are united by the core purpose of achieving the organisations goals and objectives. This calls for a clear understanding and mutual respect in reference to individual culture while upholding the organisation culture that equalizes all employees; creating a platform that is standard to all the employees as well as the management. Discrimination that arises due to conflict of cultures should always be avoided in the workplace since they significantly affect the productivity of the organisation (Cameron & Quinn, 1999). This paper seeks to look into how culture is expressed in our organisation and how this expression helps or hinders our organisation’s effectiveness. Organisational hierarchy values Adkins and Caldwell (2004) allege that, cultural values in an organisation express sharing of beliefs, practices and a code of ethics that bring about social collectiveness to achieve a desired environment for the wellbeing of all involved stakeholders in an organisation. The commonly shared rituals, norms, symbols, and practices reference to cultural values upheld in any organisation. They act as a guideline to help employees pursue set goals and objectives in additional to justification of activities. The set values also govern how to relate with the non-employees as well as while building relationships with the members of the society. A research conducted in an organisation that laid more emphasis on hierarchy values showed that, its norms and practices were a hindrance to clients who were seeking help in case they visited the organisation for the first time. Black (2003) claims that, the bureaucracy followed when providing help to a client who needs information about the organisation, their products and services is complex and tiresome leading to many visitors shying away. In our organisation though there are hierarchy values, addressing client’s needs stands above the values but decisions made concerning their needs follow the correct hierarchy to avoid conflict of interests. These set norms and practices require first you show concern to the clients regardless of their colour, religion, race or ethnicity for the emphasis of creating a favourable environment to address their issues properly and effectively. This helps to give guidelines, information as well as assist them by identifying their needs and realize which department caters for such and this helps the organisation grow and expand progressively. It also binds the various teams together requiring every employee have the basic understanding of what every department undertakes; this if for proper issuance of information to the clients (Bardi & Sagiv, 2003). This has helped improve the effectiveness of the organisation by putting the customer’s needs ahead of their culture. Standardization of norms and practices Cummings and Worley (2004) assert that, standardization of norms and practices such as beliefs, status, colour, and ethnic are achieved by symbols in different organisations. Research conducted in elementary schools showed that the use of uniforms as a symbol in the organisations obscured the social status in terms of wealth among the students. The uniform acted as the main platform that equalized the students helping in initiating interactions among themselves. This avoided neglecting certain groups and favouring others hence the students from well of families could interact with students from humble backgrounds; uniforms disguised the gap between the poor and the rich in the society. Likewise, in our organisation in order to obscure such financial differences, there is a preferred distinct uniform issued according to the rank one holds. The uniforms are in form of lab coats but with different colour codes and designs, this helps to identify certain department members as well as differentiating ranks in the organisation. This helps to obtain help and information easily hence saving time that improves the effectiveness of the organisation. It also helps interaction between members of staff and employees in additional to strengthening departmental interactions. It conceals the financial status within the workplace, equalizing all workers for improved productivity (Jex, & Britt, 2008). Communication: Standardization of Language Since communication is a key contributor to success or failure of any organization, it is of paramount importance to address issues pertaining to communication. Culture is conveyed through communication by use of words, symbols and signs amongst the members of the department or organisation. Scholars have differentiated the different forms of communication into three categories namely traditionalism, interpretivism and critical-interpretivism (Deal & Kennedy, 2000). Traditionalism emphasizes culture through conversations, stories, symbols, and myths while interpretivism emphasizes on shared meanings of certain objects within an organisation and they may differ from one organisation to another. Critical-interpretivism emphasizes culture through a series of objects with conflicting meanings. The mostly referred type of communication is the traditionalism perspective. The way people interact in an organisation is nurtured by the form of verbal communication in most occurrences hence language is a significant factor in determining the effectiveness of an organisation operation. Due to globalization, most workers are from different ethnic groups and this creates a multicultural environment where a uniform language must be embraced for effective communication. The fact that embracing a certain ethnic language as the standard language in an organisation discriminates other ethnic groups hence a need to a universal language. In our organisation, we have embraced the use of English as the standard language and prohibited the use of other ethnic languages within the workplace environment. This promotes healthy relationships and endorses diversity in the working place since it ensures the composition of the employees is not from a certain ethnic group (Cummings & Worley, 2004). The prohibition of ethnic languages within the organisations ensures that all the employees participate fully in discussions and decisions made for better achievement of goals and objectives. It also helps to nurture a sense of belonging and identity in the organisation since one does not feel neglected by the language barriers. Therefore, productivity and participation is fully realized from all workers since the environment is conducive for everybody. Language barrier has been identified as one of the greatest hindrances to any organisations growth and expansion since it divides employees in additional to raising ethnic superiority in the workplace discouraging productive workers from minor ethnics (Adkins & Caldwell, 2004). Standardization of language has helped raise a team of experts who respects the ethnic differences by knowing the communication boundaries. Religion aspect Furthermore, globalization has brought people of different faith in to different organisations to earn their living. The beliefs, practices and norms of various religions differ significantly and stimulate mixed reactions over different issues hence care needs to be taken in workplace environments. Embracing one religion and shunning the other creates indifferences in the workplaces since the embraced religion will feel superior to the rest. Therefore, for equality purposes religion should be locked out of the organisation and general prayers conducted during organisation meetings from people representing different religions (Deal & Kennedy, 2000). If religious beliefs were so much adhered to, organisations would break and their market reach restricted to certain areas hence poor productivity and lower profit margins. Organisations should act neutrally on religion issues so as to be able to serve all the customers from all religious backgrounds as well as maintain their employees from different backgrounds. In our organisation, religious issues have raised mixed reactions on critical issues in the past and management saw it fitting to be neutral on the issue. Services and operations are conducted regardless of the religion belonging for easy penetration to the market. Where need be in case the client is of a certain religion and we realize we are experiencing problems handling him or her, we allocate an employee of the similar religion to handle the case. Although these occurrences are rare, whenever they arise we do our best to satisfy the customer’s needs in order to create a perfect brand image (Jex, & Britt, 2008). This has helped attract and retain clients whom we could have lost in case assumptions were taken; we have learnt that service to all without discrimination yields the best fruits. This has helped the operation of our organisation to increase profit margins as well as having established customer relations. Decision-making: Power culture In addition, decision-making is another significant issue that affects how organisations are run and determines how effective they are in the region they are located in or rather in their market. In some organisations, decisions are made by the management and implemented by the employees to achieve the set goals and objectives. Contrastingly, in other organisations the management and all the stakeholders make the decisions but the final decision is reached by the management after considering all the viable options. This trend determines how the power culture is practiced in the organisation for effectiveness and profitability. The way the organisation operates from the formation stage influences how power culture is distributed and carried forward. To some organisations where critical and very delicate formulas and strategies are used to produce products, decisions are made by the top management and instructions submitted for implementation (Hartnell, Ou, & Kinicki 2011). On the other hand, where creative and production strategies keep on changing to fit the customer requirement in the market, it requires participation of all stakeholders for effective decision to be arrived at. In our organisation, the later method is embraced as the best approach to be able to produce goods with a competitive edge over competitors. This helps in integration of new designs, strategies and technologies in our products and services all for the effectiveness of the organisation and realization of increased benefits. This has helped to instil the sense of belonging to the employees since they contribute significantly to realization of the final product (Zhang, 2009). This has helped the management have various production strategies as well as increase the diversity of products produced for several market needs. Our organisation power culture has always been our strength and a stronghold in the market share hence realization of maximum benefit for the wellbeing of all stakeholders. Environmental responsibility Given that organisations are located in the midst of the society, it has to conform to the societal culture of the residents to have aces to labour, raw materials in additional to other resources at their disposal. The societal culture acts as one of the strongest influencers of the organisational culture hence the impact and success of an organisation is intertwined with the surrounding culture. Any organisation faces the challenge of justifying their undertaking as worthwhile and beneficial to the whole society else it faces criticism, rejection or even denial to resources forcing it to close down. The organisation must work to conserve the environment at part of their culture; any organisation that threatens the environment is viewed as disastrous and risks the lives of the residents. The culture that puts emphasis on its vegetation requires the organisation to fix in their schedules how to support the same undertaking maybe through tree planting day in the society (Zhang, 2009). Likewise, any organisation must have strategies that preserve and minimize pollution in the area rather than heightening it; this wins the hearts of the society and supports its undertaking. There is need to give back to the society therefore an organisation should have strategies to contribute positively to the residents by uplifting of their living standards. In our organisation, we have incorporated the modern technology strategies to reduce air pollution by a greater extent hence assuring the residents that we are committed to improving their living and promoting healthy living. We also organize tree-planting days so that we can take care of the environment and transform the landscape of the society to the better. Our cooperate responsibility in the society is to educate them issues relating to new technology, providing scholarships to students who have performed better in their studies in additional to celebrating anniversaries together (Ravasi, & Schultz, 2006). The expansion of the organisation is for the benefit of both the organisation as well as the society since job opportunities will arise. This calls for the organization culture to correspond the societal culture to avoid conflict of interests. Market needs Likewise, since market is an integral entity to any organisation, it must be available in the population where it is located. The products and services offered must be in line with the beliefs and norms of the society for smooth integration and significant impact in the society. The products and services should respect the cultural practices for easy penetration in the market for maximum benefit realization (Ravasi, & Schultz, 2006). An example of culture crash is setting up a pork product-manufacturing firm in a society inhabited by a majority of Muslims; this will cause conflicts and rejection from the society leading to closure. Therefore, it is the task of every organisation to conduct a research to identify factors that may hinder productivity of the organisation as well as arising conflicts due to culture differences that cannot be overlooked. According to the operation of our organisation, our products and services are in line with the societal culture hence market is available. Determining the organisation undertaking and making them clear has helped us to achieve greatly in the society to secure market and be an influential entity; a force to reckon with in the society. Conclusion Finally, Culture is diverse and it incorporates different aspects more so when looing it from an organisation perspective. It requires thorough understanding of the history of the given society as well as their needs to measure the influence it can harness in that society. It can be concluded that it requires more than capital, labour and raw materials to set up an organisation; more critical issues concerning culture need to be cultivated. The organisational hierarchy values helps cultivate understanding in the organisation culture and draw boundaries on decisions made and information provided by employees to clients. Standardization of norms and practices helps to create an atmosphere that favours everybody without favouritism or discrimination. Invention of a common language for communication purposes within the organisation helps curb discrimination that arises by embracing a particular ethnic language hence creating equality. Moreover, religion is a factor that can lead to disintegration of a potential organisation due to fierce reactions that emanate from different religious aspects. In addition, power culture determines who has influence the decisions made in an organisation to influence effectives. Finally, the environmental aspect of the societal cultures considerably affects the effectiveness of an organisational culture. Last but not the least, market needs are substantial in measuring the effectiveness of an organisation in relation to its culture, to avoid culture conflicts. Whenever all these factors are considered effectiveness is realized for the maximum benefits of all the stakeholders. References Adkins, B. & Caldwell, D. (2004). Firm or subgroup culture: Where does fitting in matter most? Journal of Organizational Behavior, 25(8) pp. 969–978. Bardi, A. & Sagiv, L. (2003) The European Union and Israel: comparison of cultures and implications: Europe and Israel, Deutscher Universitätsverlag,Wiesbaden, pp.13–36. Black, Richard J. (2003) Organizational Culture: Creating the Influence Needed for Strategic Success, London UK, ISBN 1-58112-211-X. Cameron, K. & Quinn, R.E. (1999) Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture: Based on the Competing Values Framework, Addison Wesley, New York. Cummings, T. G. & Worley, C. G. (2004), Organization Development and Change, 8th Ed., South-Western College Publisher. Deal T. E. & Kennedy, A. A. (2000) Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life, Harmondsworth, Perseus Books. Hartnell, C. A., Ou, A. Y., & Kinicki, A. (2011). Organizational Culture and Organizational Effectiveness: A Meta-Analytic Investigation of the Competing Values Framework's Theoretical Suppositions, Journal of Applied Psychology (online publication). doi:10.1037/a0021987. Jex, S. M., & Britt, T. W. (2008) Organizational Psychology, A Scientist- Practitioner Approach, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 978-0-470-10976-2. Ravasi, D.& Schultz, M. (2006), Responding to organizational identity threats: exploring the role of organizational culture, Academy of Management Journal, Vol.49, No.3, pp.433–458. Zhang, X. (2009). Values, Expectations, Ad Hoc Rules, and Culture Emergence in International Cross Cultural Management Contexts. New York: Nova Science Publishers. Read More