Running head: WHAT MANAGERS OFTEN WANT WHAT MANAGERS OFTEN WANT What Managers Often Want Name Organisational Theory 26 August 2014 INTRODUCTION For the past number of decades, most academics and practitioners studying organizations suggest the concept of culture is the climate and practices that organizations develop around their handling of people (Schein, 2004). Organizational culture is the basic pattern of shared assumptions, values, and beliefs considered to be the correct way of thinking about and acting on problems and opportunities facing the organization. According to Wilson (2014), it is a rationale for people’s behavior, a guideline for action, a cause for condemnation or praise, a quality that makes a company what it is. In relation to the preceding definition, Arnold (2005) indicates that organizational culture is the distinctive norms, beliefs, principles and ways of behaving that combine to give each organization its distinct character. A clear understanding of organizational culture is virtually imperative in the organisation, as it will help management to understand what the real issues as pertains to the organisation’s operations are, which areas need attention and what can be done to address the identified gaps. There is a need for management to understand the concept of organization culture to better synergy and performance. Social scientists have explored the notion of organizational culture as a perspective in organizational theory over the past decades. According to Zheng (2014) current interests in organizational culture stems from at least four different sources: climate research, national cultures, human resource management and from conviction approaches which emphasize the rational and structural nature of the organization to be unable to offer a full explanation of organizational behaviour. The origin of organizational culture from a national culture point of view is based, among others, on the work of Deal and Kennedy (1982). According to this view organizational culture is seen as being central to organizational success rather than factors such as structure, strategy or politics. As a result the attention shifted away from national cultures and focused more on organizational culture. Interests in organizational culture from the human resource management and performance point of views stems from the fact that organisational culture was perceived to be offering a non-mechanistic, flexible and imaginative approach to understanding how organizations work (Zhang, 2014). Consequently, organisational culture is considered to be the great “cure-all” for most organisational problems (Wilson, 1992). Other theoretical development of the concept organisational culture includes studies conducted within the field of organisational theory. These studies focused on the description and understanding of the concept organization culture by using typologies or classifications, which include the following: i. Deal and.

1. Running head: WHAT MANAGERS OFTEN WANT
WHAT MANAGERS OFTEN WANT
What Managers Often Want
Name
Organisational Theory
26 August 2014
INTRODUCTION
For the past number of decades, most academics and
practitioners studying organizations suggest the concept of
culture is the climate and practices that organizations develop
around their handling of people (Schein, 2004). Organizational
culture is the basic pattern of shared assumptions, values, and
beliefs considered to be the correct way of thinking about and
acting on problems and opportunities facing the organization.
According to Wilson (2014), it is a rationale for people’s
behavior, a guideline for action, a cause for condemnation or
praise, a quality that makes a company what it is. In relation to
the preceding definition, Arnold (2005) indicates that
organizational culture is the distinctive norms, beliefs,
principles and ways of behaving that combine to give each
organization its distinct character.

2. A clear understanding of organizational culture is virtually
imperative in the organisation, as it will help management to
understand what the real issues as pertains to the organisation’s
operations are, which areas need attention and what can be done
to address the identified gaps. There is a need for management
to understand the concept of organization culture to better
synergy and performance. Social scientists have explored the
notion of organizational culture as a perspective in
organizational theory over the past decades. According to Zheng
(2014) current interests in organizational culture stems from at
least four different sources: climate research, national cultures,
human resource management and from conviction approaches
which emphasize the rational and structural nature of the
organization to be unable to offer a full explanation of
organizational behaviour.
The origin of organizational culture from a national culture
point of view is based, among others, on the work of Deal and
Kennedy (1982). According to this view organizational culture
is seen as being central to organizational success rather than
factors such as structure, strategy or politics. As a result the
attention shifted away from national cultures and focused more
on organizational culture. Interests in organizational culture
from the human resource management and performance point of
views stems from the fact that organisational culture was
perceived to be offering a non-mechanistic, flexible and
imaginative approach to understanding how organizations work
(Zhang, 2014). Consequently, organisational culture is
considered to be the great “cure-all” for most organisational
problems (Wilson, 1992). Other theoretical development of the
concept organisational culture includes studies conducted
within the field of organisational theory. These studies focused
on the description and understanding of the concept
organization culture by using typologies or classifications,
which include the following:
i. Deal and Kennedy (1982) identified four generic types of

3. cultures to describe organisational culture, namely the tough-
guy/macho culture, the work-hard/play-hard culture, the bet-
your company culture and the process culture.
ii. Handy (1985) described organisational culture by using four
types of classification, namely power, role, task and person
cultures.
iii. Schein (1985) used three levels to explain organisational
culture, namely artefacts, values and basic underlying
assumptions.
iv. Scholtz (1987) identified five primary culture typologies,
namely stable, reactive, anticipating, exploring and creative.
v. Hampden-Turner (1990) used four types of culture to
describe organisational culture, namely role, power, task and
atomistic cultures.
vi. Hofstede (1991) highlighted that cultures differ based on
five dimensions, namely power distance,
individualism/collectivism, uncertainty avoidance,
masculinity/femininity and confusion dynamism.
vii. O’Reilly, Chatman and Caldwell (1991) presented seven
primary characteristics to describe organisational culture,
namely innovation and risk-taking, attention to detail, outcome
orientation, people orientation, team orientation aggressiveness
and stability.
The mentioned typologies of organisational culture provide
broad overviews of the variations that exist between theorists in
their description of this concept. The variations and differences
have mainly evolved over time.
The theoretical development of organizational culture has more
often than not been characterized by consequent growth of
perspectives that form the foundation for organizational culture
(Schein, 2004). Because of the various theoretical developments
that the concern has had, each idea as prescribe above tends to
have its own individualistic look at the perspectives in which
organizational culture revolves. However for the purpose of this

4. study I focused on Hofstede’s culture dimensions primarily
because of his inclusion of a crucial fifth dimension that pivots
an undue bias in favour of his study. There are however
particular perspectives that are discussed in the organizational
culture theoretical circles that amalgamate all the
metatheoretical approaches of the dimensions and they are;
Historical perspective, Functional perspective, Symbolic-
Interpretive perspective and Modernist Perspective.
Notwithstanding the fact that there are other perspectives the
study will focus on the modernist perspective and the symbolic-
interpretive perspective. These two perspectives are competing
perspectives; whereas the modernist perspective takes culture as
a variable the symbolic-interpretive perspective chooses to look
at culture as a root- metaphor.
According to Symbolic-Interpretive perspective, it describes
how people give meaning and order to their experience through
interpretive and symbolic acts, forms and processes. This
perspective believes that we cannot know external existence but
only what we agree exists in our environments. It therefore
resembles society in words and symbols, focuses on actions and
interactions between people; it is more than knowledge based,
focuses on interpretation, random events transforming
something common into something special; underlying many
studies of culture engineering is the assumption that workers are
completely controlled by the organization. Thompson and
Ackroyd (1995) point out that this has led to an almost complete
absence of accounts of resistance in the context of new
employment practices, thereby forming the assumptions that
management forms the culture, however, this perspective
debunks this assumptions. From this perspective, culture grows
and is spread partly via narratives, theories, symbols, metaphors
and drama, but in a bigger part, it is through experience and
naturally/instinctively. From this perspective, organizational
culture cannot be easily changed by management as it comes as
a natural phenomenon (Wilson, 2014). Culture is actually

5. impossible to change due to its complexity and being deeply
intertwined into the deeper core of the organization
According to the Modernist Perspective, methods and
techniques of organizational control, favors rational structures
and routine practices are driven by objectives despite external
influences of their environment. There is a hierarchical
application of typologies to maximize information available in
set sequential dimensions in an organization. Norms can be
studied, measured, bound and observed physically,
Concentration of people in cities, hierarchical linear
orientation. It is focused on control, Mass production, routine
manufacturing output, Specialization of task and jobs, skilled
labor, now due to this aspects culture can change depending on
the prevailing environment. From this perspective, management
has a lot of influence on the culture of the organization such
that they can manipulate it to their own preference (Clegg et. al.
2011). According to the argument postulated in the piece
‘Inside the World Bank’, there are clear ideas that perspectives
tends to vary in the banking industry, however, what is evident
is that this perspectives being employed are more of the
modernistic perspectives. A notable example being the culture
where bank staffs are now protected by open- ended contract
systems.
The modernism perspective can be countered with the symbolic
interactive perspective to give us the following comparative
arguments; in the modernism perspective, knowledge isgained
through the five senses and can be confirmed through
replication of procedures. On the other hand, in the symbolic
interpretive perspective knowledge is gained through the five
senses and forms of experience that lie outside of five senses, as
do emotion and intuition(Clegg et. al. 2011). The modernism
perspective argues that, truth is discovered through valid
conceptualization and reliable measurement that allows testing
of knowledge against an objective world; knowledge

6. accumulates, allowing humans to progress and evolve; this they
call positivism. The symbolic Interpretive perspective on the
other hand feels that all knowledge is relative to the knower and
can only be understood from the point of view of the individuals
who are directly involved; truth is socially constructed via
multiple interpretations and shifts and changes through time.
According to the modernism perspective, Organizations are Real
entities operating in a real world. When well-designed and
managed they are systems of decision and action driven by
norms of rationality, efficiency and effectiveness for stated
purposes. On the other hand, symbolic interpretive perspective
argues that Organizations are continually constructed and
reconstructed by their members through symbolically mediated
interaction. Organizations are socially constructed realities
where meanings promote and are promoted by understanding of
the self and others that occurs within the organizational context.
Modernism perspective is all about focus of organization
theory. Finding universal laws, methods and techniques of
organization and control; favors rational structures, rules,
standardized procedures and routine practices. Symbolic
interpretive perspective on the other hand would argue that
focus of organizational theory is about describing how people
give meaning and order to their experience and within specific
contexts, through interpretive and symbolic acts, forms and
processes. A good example to portray the two perspectives
would look like this, for the modernism perspective, the best
Example would be a case scenario:when theEmployees are
physically present. Modernists will say that an employee is
working when he or she is physically present. This would be the
only way to really measure if an employee is performing their
jobs.
There are different descriptive models that attempt to diagnose
organisational culture in the field of organisational

7. development. Harrison (1993) presents a theoretical model for
the purpose of diagnosing organisational culture which is
adopted in this study. Harrison (1993,) states that, though the
model is intended to be descriptive rather than evaluative, there
is a tendency to perceive it in evaluative terms. This descriptive
model creates an awareness of the culture gap between the
existing and preferred cultures in an organization (Harrison,
1993). Furthermore, this model maintains that organisational
culture can be diagnosed in four cultural dimensions, namely
power-oriented culture; role- oriented culture; achievement-
oriented culture; and support-oriented culture (Harrison, 1993).
The organisational culture model presented in figure 2.1
indicates that the four dimensions of culture orientation are
measured within two modes of operation, which are
formalization and centralization (Harrison, 1993). Both modes
of operation can be measured on a scale of low or high levels.
According to Martins and Martins (2003), high formalization in
an organization creates predictability, orderliness and
consistency. In other words, a strong culture can serve as a
substitute for formalization. This suggests that the
organization’s formal rules and regulations which act to
regulate its members’ behaviour can be internalized by
organisational members when they accept the organization’s
culture; this takes place without the need for written
documentation (Martins & Martins, 2003). Therefore, low
formalization of rules and regulations could reflect a weak
organisational culture.
Power-oriented culture is a dimension of the organisational
culture model. In any given organization there is a need to use
power in order to exercise control and influence behaviour.
Stokes (2012) defines power-oriented culture as organisational
culture that is based on inequality of access to resources. Zheng
(2014) states that a power culture has a single source of power
from which rays of influence spread throughout the

8. organization. This means that power is centralized and
organisational members are connected to the centre by
functional and specialist strings (Harrison, 1993).
This type of organisational culture can also be regarded as
being rule oriented in the sense that it focuses on respect of
authority, rationality in procedures, division of work and
normalization (Hampden, 1990). The centre is formal authority
and holds the power to control and influence activities within
the organization. In this type of organisational culture a
dominant head sits in the centre surrounded by intimates and
subordinates who are the defendants (Harrison, 1993). In this
regard a personal, informal and power management style
becomes valued. Normally the organisational structure is a web
structure that is hierarchical in nature (Zhang, 2014).
Conclusion
The main function of organisational culture is to define the way
of doing things in order to give meaning to organisational life
(Arnold, 2005). Making meaning is an issue of organisational
culture, because organisational members need to benefit from
the lessons of previous members. As a result, organisational
members are able to profit from whatever trials and errors
regarding knowledge others have been able to accumulate
(Johnson, 2008). Organisational culture also determines
organisational behaviour, by identifying principal goals; work
methods; how members should interact and address each other;
and how to conduct personal relationships (Harrison, 1993).
Harrison (1993), states the following functions of organisational
culture:
i. Conflict reduction. A common culture promotes consistency
of perception, problem definition, evaluation of issues and
opinions, and preferences for action.
ii. Coordination and control. Largely because culture promotes

9. consistency of outlook it also facilitates organisational
processes of co-ordination and control.
iii. Reduction of uncertainty. Adopting of the cultural mind
frame is an anxiety reducing device which simplifies the world
of work, makes choices easier and rational action seem possible.
iv. Motivation. An appropriate and cohesive culture can offer
employees a focus of identification and loyalty, foster beliefs
and values that encourage employees to perform.
v. Competitive advantage. Strong culture improves the
organization’s chances of being successful in the marketplace.
In addition to the above functions, Martins and Martins (2003)
also mention the following as functions of organisational
culture:
a) It has a boundary-defining role, that is, it creates distinctions
between one organization and the other organizations.
b) It conveys a sense of identity to organisational members.
c) It facilitates commitment to something larger than individual
self-interests.
d) It enhances social system stability as the social glue that
helps to bind the organization by providing appropriate
standards for what employees should say and do.
e) It serves as a meaningful control mechanism that guides or
shapes the attitudes and behaviours of employees.
These functions of organisational culture suggest that an
organization cannot operate without a culture, because it assists
the organization to achieve its goals. In general terms,
organisational culture gives organisational members direction
towards achieving organisational goals.
Organisational culture can be either weak or strong. Martins and
Martins (2003) highlight that in a strong culture; the
organization’s core values are held strongly and shared widely.
This suggests that when organisational members accept the
shared values, they become more committed to them. A strong

10. organisational culture therefore refers to organizations in which
beliefs and values are shared relatively consistently throughout
an organization (Deal & Kennedy, 1982). Strong organisational
cultures have a great influence on the behaviour of
organisational members (Martins & Martins, 2003). In other
words, a strong culture is a powerful lever for guiding
behaviour. Strong organisational culture can enable an
organization to achieve high performance.
References
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Rhetorics, The Realities, 2nd edn, London: Macmillan.
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12. Harvard Citation Style Examples for UWA
Material Types:
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Book: Single
Author
(Holt 1997) or
Holt (1997)

13. wrote that...
Holt, DH 1997, Management principles and practices, Prentice-
Hall, Sydney.
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Authors
(McCarthy,
William &
Pascale 1997)
McCarthey, EJ, William, DP & Pascale, GQ 1997, Basic
marketing, Irwin,
Sydney.
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Than 3
Authors
(Bond et al.
1996)
Bond, WR, Smith, JT, Brown, KL & George, M 1996,
Management of small
firms, McGraw-Hill, Sydney.
Book: No
Author
(A history of
Greece 1994)
A history of Greece 1994, Irwin, Sydney.
Book: Editor (ed. Jones 1998) Jones, MD (ed.) 1998,

14. Management in Australia, Academic Press, London.
Book: 2 or
More Editors
(eds Bullinger &
Warnecke 1985)
Bullinger, HJ & Warnecke HJ (eds) 1985, Toward the factory of
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Organisation
as Author
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Bureau of
Agricultural and
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Economics
Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics
2001, Aquaculture

15. development in Australia: a review of key economic issues,
ABARE, Canberra.
2001)
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Chapter or
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A number of
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intrude'
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Workplaces of the future, eds P Thompson & C Warhurst,
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(Drafke, 2009)
Drafke, M 2009, The human side of organizations, 10th edn,
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Hall, Upper Saddle River, N.J
E-book
(Aghion &
Durlauf 2005)

16. Aghion, P & Durlauf, S (eds.) 2005, Handbook of economic
growth, Elsevier,
Amsterdam. Available from: Elsevier books. [4 November
2004].
E-book:
Chapter or
Article in an
Edited E-
book
'Historical
thinking is
actually a
Western
perspective'
(White 2002, p.
112)
White, H 2002, 'The westernization of world history' in Western
historical
thinking: an intercultural debate, ed J Rusen, Berghahn Books,
New York pp.
111-119. Available from: ACLS Humanities E-Book. [14 May
2009].
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Works by
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468-493.
Journal
Article:
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(Liveris 2011)
Liveris, A 2011, 'Ethics as a strategy', Leadership Excellence,
vol. 28, no. 2,
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Improve indigenous housing now, government told, 2007.
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February 2009].
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Date
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Jones, MD n.d., Commentary on indigenous housing initiatives.
Available
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Web

19. Document
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Industry,
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Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources 2006, Being
Prepared for an
Influenza Pandemic: a Kit for Small Businesses, Government of
Australia,
Available from: <http://www.innovation.gov.au>. [28 February
2009].
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(Australian
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Exchange 2009)
Australian Securities Exchange 2009, Market Information.
Available from:
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x.htm>. [5
July 2009].
Blog (Newton 2007)
Newton, A. 2007, Newcastle toolkit. 16 January 2007. Angela
Newton: Blog.
Available from: <https://elgg.leeds.ac.uk/libajn/weblog/>. [23
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Available from: ACM Portal: ACM Digital Library. [24 June
2004].
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Proceeding
Paper:

24. Unpublished
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25. own to their
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[2 February
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out', The New
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26. Video (Effective Effective performance appraisals 1994, (video
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Van Nuys, D (producer) 2007, 'The anatomy of a lobotomist
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Unpublished
(Hos 2005)
Hos, JP 2005, Mechanochemically synthesized nanomaterials
for intermediate
temperature solid oxide fuel cell membranes. Ph.D thesis,
University of
Western Australia.
Thesis:
Published
(May 2007)
May, B 2007, A survey of radial velocities in the zodiacal dust
cloud. Bristol
UK, Canopus Publishing.
Thesis:
Retrieved
From a
Database

31. (Baril 2006)
Baril, M 2006, A distributed conceptual model for stream
salinity generation
processes: a systematic data-based approach. WU2006.0058.
Available from:
Australasian Digital Theses Program. [12 August 2008].
Personal Communication
Material
Type
In-Text Example
Telephone
Call,
Interview, e-
mail, etc.
If the information you are referencing was obtained by a
personal communication such as a
telephone call, an interview or an email that fact is usually
documented in the text and are not
added to the reference list. If desired you can add the
abbreviation pers.comm. to the reference.
t he will be touring Australia in the
middle of next year (Mr M
Ward, 2008, pers. comm., 6 June).
Citing Information Someone else has Cited

32. Material
Type
In-Text
Example
Reference List Example
Citing
Information
that
Someone
Else has
Cited
(O'Reilly, cited in
Byrne 2008)
In the reference list provide the details of the author who has
done the citing.
Guide to the Assignment
Individual Assignment:
Due date: To Be Advised
Length: 2,000 words
Weight: 40%
Aims of the assignment

33. The aims of this assignment are for you to:
1. Develop your understanding of the nature of the key
organisation perspectives and their related theories;
2. Demonstrate an understanding of the key perspectives and the
meta-theoretical assumptions that underpin each;
3. Develop research skills and the ability to assess the strengths
and weaknesses of various debates and arguments;
4. Gain skills in the written presentation of an argument,
including the ways in which scholars incorporate and
acknowledge the ideas of other writers.
Key Criteria for Assessment:
For this assignment your essay will be assessed on the extent to
which it demonstrates:
· Your ability to conduct research and use it to develop an
argument/answer that will discipline your response.
· Your ability to write a clear, compelling, well-presented and
properly referenced response to the question.
· Your ability to directly respond to all of the key issues raised
by the question asked.
· The ability to move past description to analysis; to move past
a focus on who, what, when and how questions to also answer
the associated why questions.
· The ability to provide your own answer to the question in your
own words
The Question To Be Answered:
'What managers most often want to know about their
organization's culture is how to change it......But what is
recommended to managers on the basis of culture theory differs
markedly according to the perspectives adopted' (Hatch and

34. Cunliffe, 2013: 185).
Choose two of the four perspectives and discuss their different
views on organisational culture and how their advice to
managers who are seeking to influence organisational culture
might be different.
Answering the Question:
In answering the question you will need to engage with the
nature of the various perspectives and why and how each
provides different insights into the nature of organisational
culture. You will also need to explain how these different
insights relate to management practice: How do the insights of
each perspective lead to different recommendations to managers
on how they might go about changing organisational culture?
You must focus explicitly on the key issues identified in the
question.
You must consider at least two of the four perspectives.
1. You must make use of required readings.They have been
selected because they provide the essential material required to
answer the question. You will lose marks if you fail to use
them.
Recommended readings have also been provided. Before you
begin to look for additional reading you should first acquire a
good understanding of the basics from the textbook, the
required readings and recommended readings. Once you acquire
this understanding you can then look for other material.

35. Required readings (located on blackboard site):
1.Chapter 6 and pp 311-318 (Hatch and Cunliffe)
2.Fleming, P and Spicer, A. (2003) ‘Working at a cynical
distance: Implications for power, subjectivity and resistance’
3.Wilson, F. (2014) ‘Chapter 11: Culture’ in Organisational
Behaviour and Work, pp. 224-241.
4.Xu, Y., and Weller, P., Inside the World Bank, “The Staff and
Their organizational Culture”, pp. 74-82.
Recommended readings (located on blackboard site):
1.Martin, J. & Frost, P. 2012, ‘Chapter 30: The organisational
culture war games' in Gittell, Jody Hoffer., Godwyn, Mary &
Gittell, Jody Hoffer, Sociology of organizations : structures and
relationships, Pine Forge Press/Sage, Thousand Oaks, Calif., pp.
315-336
2.Zhang, C. & Iles, P. 2014, ‘Chapter 11:Organisational culture'
in Rees, Gary & Smith, Paul, Strategic human resource
management : an international perspective, SAGE, Los Angeles,
pp. 383-439.
A failure to follow this and the following instructions will have
a significant negative impact on your marks.
Presentation/Structure of your answer/essay:
Introduction:
In this section you must provide an overview of your answer to
the question; provide answers to the key what and why
questions of your argument/answer. These should take the form
of direct responses to the key issues raised by the question.
Your argument should be informed by a critical
analysis/engagement with the content of the essential readings.

36. Please keep in mind that in all sections of your response you
must move past description to analysis, this means providing
answers to the why questions that emerge from your key
statements.
Exploration of your argument:
In this section of the essay you need to accomplish two tasks.
First, you must explore the key perspectives showing how each
perspective’s theoretical and metatheoretical approaches lead
them to provide different insights into organisational culture.
Second, having demonstrated an understanding of the
perspectives and their theoretical approaches to understanding
organisational culture you then need to discuss how these
understandings lead to different views on how best to manage or
change organisational culture. In other words what does each of
the perspectives have to say on this issue and why do they say
it? What criticisms do they offer of each other and why?
You can address the above, two tasks sequentially; beginning
with an exploration of the how and why of each of the chosen
perspectives (ontology and epistemology), and second: an
exploration of the positions advanced by two of the perspectives
(modernist, symbolic interpretivist, critical theory and
postmodernism) as they provide different advice to managers on
how to go about changing or managing organisational culture.
In your essay, you must consider at least two of the four
perspectives.
An alternative structural approach is to integrate the exploration
of the how and why of each perspective and how each provides
different insights into the nature of organisational culture and
how best to manage organisational change. For example;
explore the how and why of the modernist positions on

37. organisational culture and then its application to modernist
positions for managing and changing organisational culture. .
On completing the how and why of the modernist position and
its application then move on to the other selected perspective.
The two alternatives outlined above will enable you to present a
clear direct and disciplined response to the question.
The whole response must be informed by an engagement with
essential readings. You must draw upon and evaluate academic
debates and arguments. This is not to be viewed as an exercise
in which you make up a response off-the-top-of-your-head nor
is it one in which you focus on description and ignore analysis.
While you may draw upon examples of organisational culture
in actual organisations this should be done to illustrate
differences in perspectives both theoretically and practically as
they relate to understanding and managing organisational
culture.
Conclusion:
You must conclude with your general answer to the question. It
should reiterate the key argument/answer to the question
provided in the introduction and indicate to what extent it has
been supported or challenged by your analysis of the debates
and arguments of other authors.
Additional Guidance:
1. This essay is designed to develop your knowledge of the
theoretical perspectives, to build your understanding that each
perspective is underpinned by different assumptions that lead to
different ways of understanding organisational culture. Given
their ontological and epistemological underpinnings, each
perspective has different ways of conceptualising how
organisations and organisational culture intersect. Based upon

38. these different understandings of organisational culture the
advice each perspective provides to managers who are seeking
to influence organisational culture is likely to be different.
2. This essay is not an exercise in describing various
organisations and their organisational culture or how
management goes about managing culture. You must
demonstrate your understanding of the perspectives and how
they relate to an understanding of organisational culture. If
empirical examples of organisational culture within
contemporary organisations are introduced they must be used to
illustrate how they are informed by the theoretical perspectives.
3. Please use headings with care. It is better to avoid using them
in an essay but if you must, please keep them to a minimum and
ensure that they enhance rather than undermine your argument.
4. This essay question has been designed to encourage you to
prepare your own individual essay. There is no single ‘right’
answer. Markers will be looking for evidence that you have
read broadly, including the provided material, and have
synthesised the material to develop your own answer/ argument.
The markers will also expect you to answer the question in your
own words.
5. Do not try to cover every single detail; you only have 2000
words so concentrate on the major points rather than fine
details.
6. You can make use of the Web sources but they need to be
reliable sources- Wikipedia is not a reliable source of
information. We encourage you to make use of journal articles
which can be found via a range of library databases. I suggest
you use Expanded Academic ASAP (Gale) database which is
located through the Databases section of the library website

39. because it allows you to search a range of journals using
keywords. Some of the keywords you should consider are:
culture in organisations, organisations and modernism,
organisations and symbolic interpretivism, organisations and
critical theory, organisations and postmodernism, etc. You will
find an enormous amount of relevant literature. You can also
do author searches which can be helpful to locate recent articles
by scholars mentioned in the textbook. We also encourage you
to make use of the references and further reading suggested by
the textbook at the end of each chapter. ‘Citation Linker’ found
through the library website is a useful tool to locate some of the
journal articles mentioned in the textbook. There is a lot of
information out there regarding the topic.
7. Students are NOT allowed to use lecture notes as reference
materials.
8. You should look at the assessment sheet found in the course
guide. It will give you a feel for the sorts of things we will be
assessing.
9. You should also look at the other part of the course guide
which outlines the differences between the grades -i.e. what
separates a ‘P’ from a ‘C’.
10. A key point to remember in answering the questions is not
to be overly descriptive. In answering the question you will
need to develop an argument. An argument requires ‘expressing
a point of view on a subject and supporting it with evidence’
(see http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/argument.html)
The basic components of an argument include:
· Making a claim (informed by relevant organisational
perspectives and/or theories)
· Supporting your claim with evidence
· Recognising and engaging with counterclaims