Organizational Culture.

1. What is "Organizational Culture" and why is it
important?
For example, if a friend ask us to describe the new organization we have just joined, it is more likely
that we will begin to describe the culture of the organization. For instance, we might say that the
office appears friendly, no one is pressurizing for the completion of the job, so as long the job gets
done we can fill our work hours as we like. People laugh and have a joke and the work gets done
just the same. All of these aspects describe the culture of the organization.
Although most of us will understand in our minds what is meant by organizational culture, it is a
general concept that is difficult to define or explain precisely. In 1988, Cleland defines organizational
culture as: "The pattern of beliefs, values and expectations shared by organizational members."
Organizational culture can be described as the norm of behavior in that particular environment. In
other words, that the action of the organization is expected because that's the way that this particular
organization works. For example, an organization like MacDonald's, their culture is expected, is to
deliver fast food. That's the norm of the company, that's their culture.
Although that each organization has its different culture, (Handy 1985) suggest that there are four
main types of organizational cultures: power culture: such as small building companies or some
newspapers with dominant proprietors. Role culture: such as civil service or retail banks. Task
culture: such as advertising agencies or consultancies. Person culture: such as management's
consultants or architects and engineers.
According to Handy, he suggests that "different people enjoy working in different types of
organizational culture and they are more likely to be happy and satisfied at work if their attributes
and personalities are consistent with the culture of that part of the organization in which they are
employed".
On the other hand, organizational culture can be something very important because it identifies the
importance of creating appropriate systems of shared meaning to help people work together to
achieve targets. Deal and Kennedy (1982) argue that culture is the single most important factor
accounting for success or failure in organizations. Edgar Schein (1999) suggests that organizational
culture is even more important today than it was in the past. Increased competition, globalization,
mergers, acquisitions, alliances and various workforce developments have created a greater need
for the attention on culture in an organization.
Goffee and Jones (1998) argue that no business strategy or programme can or will succeed without
the appropriate organizational culture in place. Mullins (1999) argues that organizational culture
helps to explain why different groups of people perceive things in their own way and perform things
differently from other groups. He also suggests that there is nothing accidental about cultural
strengths, there is a relationship between an organizations culture and its performance. To supp ort
that point, Peters and Waterman (1982) in their book "In Search of Excellent" they suggested there
is a psychological theory of the link between organizational culture and business performance.
These models and theories are not common sense instead they are evidence that support the
arguments in which the concept of organizational culture is important.
Why "Organizational Culture" is important to
managers?

2. Managers need to have a solid understanding of the dynamics of culture and how to change it so
that they can direct activities in a manner that gets results. Mullins (2005) suggests that it is
important that managers understand the organization culture of the company as it is the heart of
organization development and improved performance. Managers need to continually transmit the
values of the culture through efforts such as rituals and social events as well as consistent positive
feedback that gives each member of the organization a sense of importance.
Organization culture differs in the type of organization, therefore it is important that mangers
understand the organizational structure. For example, Lou Gerstner who was the chief executive
officer of IBM 1993-2002, he believed in order for IBM to remain successful, he should transform the
culture of the organization. Some of the changes he made were to cut back on employment, reduce
expenses and build a strong customer service. However, these changes had a massive impact on
the culture in the organization. For instance, since employment would be cut back that means that
the workers that did stay would have longer hours. IBM employees were competing more within
themselves than with external competitors. He forgot to change the mindset of the employees that
customers drive the market and no one else. All of these reasons were affecting IBM from reaching
the outstanding performance that it once achieved.
The culture in M&S was created around one family atmosphere, until 1991 there had never been a
chief executive of M&S who had not been a member of the family. They also had other problems
such as not understanding the customers directly. As M&S were selling women products such as
clothing they never had a woman who worked as senior management. These were all symptom of
an organization removing itself from immediate contact with customer need.
A very simple example is that if somebody today wants to work in a Chinese restaurant; would the
manager of the Chinese restaurant employee somebody who is not Chinese? Unlikely! It is not
discrimination but someone who is not Chinese would not fit in the environment of the restaurant,
would not fit into the culture of the restaurant. Therefore, managers need to take a lot of
considerations around the environment in which they work in order to consider whether a change is
or is not required so they can get the best out of their employees.
IBM and M&S could have avoided this by analyzing the strategic decisions which made by senior
managers such as what aspect of the current situation might aid change in the desired direction and
how might these be reinforced, or by identifying the existing culture and that's by using a method
such as "The Cultural Web".
For any manager the cultural web is a useful method of bringing together the basic elements that
are helping in analyzing the culture of an organization and its relationship to organizational strategy.
Thank you.
Sohail Karim
Id:12180