- Organizational culture refers to the dominant set of shared values within an organization that guide employee behavior. - Subcultures can also exist within departments or units that modify the dominant culture values to fit their specific needs. - A strong organizational culture has widely shared and intensely held core values that influence employee behavior, while a weak culture lacks these qualities.

2. • ‘Culture’
• “the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the
members of one group or category of people from others” (Hofstede,
Hofstede and Minkov 2010, 6).

3. • Dominant Culture
• Sub culture
• Strong and weak culture
• Mechanistic and Organic Cultures
• Authoritarian and Participative Cultures
• National Culture vs. Organisational Culture

4. Dominant /Organizational culture
• A dominant culture is a set of core values shared by a majority of the
organization’s members. When we talk about organisational culture,
we generally, mean dominant culture only. The dominant culture is a
macro view, that helps guide the day to day, behaviour of employees.

5. Sub culture
• A sub-culture is a set of values shared by a small minority of
organization’s members. Sub-cultures arise as a result of problems or
experiences that are shared by members of a department or unit of
the organisation. In the subculture, the core values of the dominant
culture are retained but modified to reflect the individuals unit’s
distinct situation. For example, the marketing department may have
its own sub-culture; the purchase department may have its own sub-
culture depending upon the additional values which are unique to
these departments only

6. • It is necessary for every organisation to have a dominant culture
because if there are only numerous sub-cultures, the value of
organisational culture as an independent variable will lessen and the
concept of Shared Behaviour will no longer be effective. Moreover, if
sub-cultures come into conflict with the dominant culture, these will
weaken and undermine the organisation. But, many successful firms
have found that most sub-cultures help the members of a particular
group deal with the specific day to day problems with which they are
confronted. These members may also support many, if not all, of the
core values of the dominant culture.

7. Strong Culture and Weak Culture
• A strong culture will have the following features:
• (i) Strong values and strong leadership.
• (ii) A strong culture is always widely shared. Sharedness refers to the
degree to which the organisational members have the same core values.
• (iii) A strong culture is intensely held. Intensity refers to the degree of
commitment of the organisation’s members to the core values.
• A strong culture will have a great influence on the behaviour of its
members because high degree of sharedness and intensity create an
internal climate of high behavioural control. A weak culture is just the
reverse of strong culture in every aspect.

8. Benefits and limitations of strong culture
• Benefits
• reduced turnover
• positive employee attitude.
• high agreement among members about what the organisation stands for.
• builds cohesiveness, loyalty and organisational commitment.
• turnover is low and
• employees have a positive attitude towards the organization
• limitations of strong culture are that it will lead to “group think”, collective
blind spots and resistance to change and innovation.

9. Mechanistic and Organic Cultures
• In the mechanistic type of culture, the values of bureaucracy and
feudalism are exhibited.
• People restrict their careers to their own specializations only and
organisational work is concerned as a system of narrow specialism.
• It comprises of a traditional form of organisation where the authority
flows from the top level of the organisation to the lower levels.
• Communication channels are also well defined and prescribed.

10. • The main limitation of this method is that though the people are loyal
to their departments but interdepartmental rivalry and animosity is
always there. This sort of culture resists any type of change as well as
innovations.

11. • Organic culture is just the contrast of mechanistic culture. There are
no prescribed communication channels, departmental boundaries,
hierarchies of authority or formal rules and regulations. In this form
of culture more stress is on flexibility, consultation, change and
innovation.
• There is free flow of communication-both formal and informal. Much
emphasis is laid on team work and task accomplishment. There are
no rigid departmental boundaries and the whole staff understands
the problems, threats and opportunities faced by the organisation.
The whole staff as a team is willing and prepared to take appropriate
roles to solve the problems.

12. Authoritarian and Participative Cultures
• In authoritarian culture, power is centralized in the leader and all the
subordinates are expected to obey the orders strictly. Discipline is stressed
and any disobedience of orders is severely punished to set an example for
the others. This culture is based on the basic assumption that the leader
knows what is good for the organisation and he or she always acts in the
organisational interests.
• The participative culture is based on the assumption that when all the
people working in the organisation participate in the decision making, they
are likely to be more committed to the decisions rather than to those
decisions which are imposed on them by one authoritarian leader. Group
problem solving always leads to better decisions because several minds
working together are considered better than one mind working alone. If we
discuss something new, points and information emerge, which help in the
decision making.

13. National Culture vs. Organisational Culture
• Organisational culture is always influenced by the culture of the land,
irrespective of the origin of the company. Or in other words, if there is a
clash between the organisational culture and the national culture, the
organisational culture generally prevails. For example, any company
operating in India, whether Indian or foreign, observes the local culture.
• They declare the same holidays, celebrate the same festivals and organize
the same functions and cultural activities as reflected by the Indian ethos.
But research also indicates that though organisational culture is important
in understanding the behaviour of people at work, national culture is even
more so.
•

14. • Management can never change a national culture, it can only
understand and use it. It can create and sometimes change an
organizational culture.

15. • International companies and international organizations always
consist of members with different national values. The way they
function is through a shared company or organization culture based
on common practices. Establishing, monitoring and adapting
corporate or organizational practices is a core strategic task for
international management. Proper practices are what keeps
multinationals together.