Theoretical Background and Types of Organisational Culture - Essay Example

Name: Professor: Course: Date: Introduction The term organisational culture is widely used in management circles and management studies as well. The term however comes with a lot of ambiguity since many scholars and business managers have varying understanding of the term and the concept too. Culture is defined as a way in which people do things (Denison & spreitzer, 1991). It’s a way of life; their beliefs, their values, and behaviours. As such culture serves a lot of functions in a society or an entity. Culture provides a framework that guides the actions and ambitions of a people (Denison & spreitzer, 1991). It defines to what extent certain behaviours can be tolerated and to what they can’t. But most importantly culture defines people and gives them as sense of belonging. Culture in an organisation can be viewed as serving the same objectives and in essence ensures that the organisation has a direction and has a way of doing things (Brown, 1998). This paper will seek to define organizational culture, analyse theoretical background and types of organisational culture, its importance and how it can be expressed in an organisation. Defining organisational culture Organisational culture can be defined as a system of shared meaning held by members of an organisation that distinguishes them from other organisation (Denison & spreitzer, 1991). From this definition it can be seen that culture is viewed from the perspective of a phenomenon that differentiates members of an organisation from the rest of the organisations. It simply gives them an identity or a sense of belonging. This is may manifest itself in distinctive norms, beliefs, principles and behaviour that gives the organisation its own culture. In essence we can deduce that organisational culture is to an organisation what personality is to humans (Grey, 2005). Schein (1985) defines organisational culture as a pattern of basic assumptions developed or discovered by a given group in the society as it learns to cope with its problems from external environment and internal integration issues. This pattern has worked well with the organisation and is therefore considered valid and can be taught to new members of the organisation as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to the above stated problems. From this definition it, (Schein, 1985) argues that organisational culture is built on assumptions which are an accepted way of going about daily business of the organisation where problems are expected and as such the organisational culture is the guide to navigate through the problems. Any new employee to the organisation will therefore have to learn the assumptions in the organisational culture of the company. The definition of organisational culture which seems more holistic for the purposes of this paper is by Harrison (1993), he defines organisational culture as “a distinctive constellation of beliefs, values, work styles, and relationships that distinguish one organisation from another. This definition points to the main aim of organisational culture which is to provide a climate and practices that organisations develop around its people. The result of which may be manifested in the organisation’s power, roles, achievements and support structures. Theoretical background of organisational culture Organisational culture has been the subject of study by many scholars in the field of social science. As a result there are varying perspectives from which different scholars build their views on organisational culture. Hofstede highlighted five dimensions through which organisational culture can be viewed (Hofstede, 1991); Power distance- by this he meant that people in organisations have different powers depending on their levels in the organisation, Individualism and collectivism- by this Hofstede argued that some cultures such as US and Canadian cultures have the individual as the priority while other cultures especially in Asia, society and groups come first, Uncertainty avoidance - a culture may be defined by high uncertainty avoidance whereby predictable outcomes are preferred. Others may not be troubled by situations where risk and unconventional methods are necessary. Masculinity/femininity-this dimension puts culture into to different positions. The masculinity position calls for assertiveness and competition to succeed. The femininity position is more concerned with personal relationships, empathy and high quality of life. Long-term and short-term orientation- from this dimension, culture can be viewed from two perspectives, one interested in long-term focus where immediate returns on investments are not so much desired. The short-term is the opposite of the long-term focus in that immediate results are sought and the general contention is that we live in the present. Organisational culture is very important for an organisation as it can be seen from the discussion so far. Brown (1998) notes the following as the functions of an organisational culture: Conflict reduction in an organisation since there is a common culture which promotes consistency of perceptions, how issues are approached and analysed, how problems are solved and also how matters are given priorities in the organisation. Coordination is also enhanced by an effective organisational culture due to the consistency of perceptions, priorities and issues. As such processes are well coordinated and easy to control as there are common goals understood by everyone. Having an organisational culture also sets a cultural mind frame which makes it easier to make rational decisions. Employees and managers alike have little or no anxiety as they perform their duties in the organisation. A cohesive Organisational culture also serves to motivate the employees and management to perform to their level best. It fosters beliefs, vales and norms that bind the members together as a team towards their top price. A strong organisational culture makes an organisation to be more competitive in its field since the organisation is able to face its challenges appropriately and has a framework of working towards getting the best out of the opportunities they come across. Types of organizational culture Companies and organizations are faced by different sets of dynamics in the environments that they operate in which define their organizational culture (Daft, Murphy, & Willmott, 201). The nature of a company’s activities and its capabilities also define the kind of an organizational culture it will adopt. A multinational company like Coca-Cola will have a very different organizational culture from that of a small start up company operating within a city or a country (Ireland & Hitt, 2001). It is therefore very important to note that there is no one single best organizational culture that can be adopted by all companies. This is in line with one of the main functions of an organizational culture which is to differentiate an organization from the rest. According to Grey (2005) a single organization might also have more than one organizational culture depending on how it has spelt out its strategies. Bradley & Parker (2006) classify organizational culture basing on the Competing Values Framework, to come up with the following types of organizational culture. Hierarchical Culture This type focuses more on internal processes of an organization. Stability and control is vital and can only be achieved through efficient utilization of information and communication. It is basically a representation of the traditional management style which is full of bureaucracy because it involves strict reinforcement of rules, policies and attention to details to achieve formality of doing things (Bradley & Parker, 2006) Development culture This is based on an open systems model which is more flexible and accommodating to individual creativity. In this culture preparedness and adaptability are enhanced to achieve growth and exploitation of external opportunities. It is associated with innovative and charismatic leaders who lead their organization to its vision by keeping a close look at both the external and internal factors affecting their organization. This kind of culture is more common with highly entrepreneurial firms whose owner-managers are high risk-takers. Individuals are rewarded for their efforts based on tangible results (Bradley & Parker, 2006) Group culture This type of organizational culture is based on human relations model which focuses more combination and utilization of human resources to achieve cohesion, employee morale and organizational effectiveness. In this type, team work and trust amongst employees is vital in keeping the organization on its course to achieve its objectives. The managers continuously try to encourage and mentor their employees through motivational talks, team-building activities and bonding sessions to ensure the employees stay together as a family. The organization is driven by the human bonds between its employees (Bradley & Parker, 2006) Rational culture This culture is based on the rational goal model which focuses more on planning and goal setting to achieve the productivity and efficiency of an organization. The culture lays emphasis on nothing else but targeted outcomes and fulfillment of set goals and thus it is referred to as rational culture (Denison & spreitzer, 1991). The organizations which mostly adopt this kind of a culture are mainly production entities, the managers organize and motivate their employees in pursuit of set goals and objectives. The employees are rewarded depending on the outcomes of the production activities (Bradley & Parker, 2006) The importance of organizational culture In many instances, performance can be directly linked to organizational culture. An effective organizational culture can be linked to the success of an organization and vise-versa for an ineffective organizational culture (Val, Fuentes, & dobon, 2012). According to Ireland & Hitt (2001) when a company analyzes both its internal and external environment, it can be able to decide which type of organizational culture to adopt that will boost its effectiveness and help it achieve its long term objectives. Implementing institutional reforms and policies is also very reliant on the culture of an organization. Reforms and policies go beyond changing processes; it involves changing the mindset of a people to ensure they conform to doing things in a different way and have entirely or partially new objectives and priorities. When managements focus on culture change more than they do on processes, they create self-sustaining situation whereby the employees are involved and as such have some sense of responsibility and ownership of the company’s policies and objectives. Changing culture is therefore more effective than changing systems and expecting humans to follow bearing in mind that humans have a strong need to express themselves and show their identical personalities whenever they feel someone is imposing things on them (Val, Fuentes, & dobon, 2012). How culture can be expressed in an organization Culture is a way of doing things that an organization adopts. As such culture is expressed through various ways in an organization as its people go about their daily activities and also as the organization seeks to achieve its objectives; both sort-term and long-term (Brown, 1998). Culture expression in many organizations is expressed through the following ways although it may also be achieved through various other ways; Through leadership Leadership can be defined as the ability to influence others towards achievement of goals and objectives. In organizational culture leadership plays this vital role too since people follow by example. A leader cannot point to a direction where people should go and then head the opposite direction. The leadership of an organization is therefore tasked with creating an organizational culture that fits into the circumstances of an organization and go ahead to show through their actions what the organizational culture is all about (Schein, 1985). The culture will be reflected in how they communicate with employees, how they go about their activities and also how they handle crucial issues in the organization. Through systems Organizational culture is also expressed through how systems work in an organization. If for example the culture is all about giving the best quality products. It should be seen at how products and services are produced in the organization. It should be seen in the strict attention to quality issues (Daft, Murphy, & Willmott, 2001) Through relationships How employees relate and even how senior management relates with the employees tells a lot about the organization’s culture. If for example a culture focuses on making all its employees feel appreciated and having everybody’s contribution recognized, it should be seen in its personal relations with employees. This way the organization will be expressing its organizational culture (Val, Fuentes, & dobon, 2012). The relationships are not limited in employee-employer basis but also on how an organization relates with its customers and suppliers alike. The kind of approach adopted to define the relations with these two important stake-holders expresses an organization’s culture. An organizations culture is also very well expresses in its vision, mission and core values statements. This is a very effective way of communicating a company’s culture to its employees and customers alike. When employees read the statements they are reminded of their organizational culture and the customers too can read and understand how an organization goes about its activities (Ireland & Hitt, 2001). Conclusion From this discussion, it has emerged that a company’s organizational culture is a set of beliefs and assumptions that define how it goes about its business and what identifies it from other companies. Although the discussion is quite wide regarding this topic, a general contention is that an organizational culture is a very important tool for an organization to rally all its members towards a common objective. Managers should learn how to formulate their organizational cultures and how to express them as there are many benefits a company can gain from an organizational culture for example cohesion and team work amongst employees and as such an effective organizational culture is very beneficial to an organization. References Bradley, L., & Parker, R. (2006). Do Australian public sector employees have the type of culture they want in the era of new public management? Australian Journal of Public Administration , 65 (1), 89-99. Brown, A. (1998). Organisational Culture. London : Financial Times Pitman Publishing. Daft, R., Murphy, J., & Willmott, H. (201). Organisation theory and design. Cengage Learning EMEA. Denison, D. R., & spreitzer, G. M. (1991). Organizational culture and organizational dvelopment. research in Organisational change and Development , 5, 1-21. Grey, C. (2005). A very short fairly interesting and reasonably cheap book about studying organisations. London: Sage. Harrison, R. (1993). Diagnosing Organizational Culture: Trainer’s Manual. Amsterdam: Pfeiffer and Company. Hofstede, G. (1991). Cultures and Organizations . London. : McGraw-Hill. Ireland, R., & Hitt, M. (2001). Integrating entrepreneurship and strategic management thinking to create firm wealth. Academy of Management Executive (15), 49-63. Schein, E. H. (1985). Organizational Culture and Leadership: A Dynamic View. San Francisco: Bass Publishers. Val, M. P., Fuentes, C. M., & dobon, S. R. (2012). Participative management and its influence on organisational change. Management Decision, (50)10 , 1843-1860. Read More