Culture as Values of the Organisation - Research Paper Example

?Managing People Contents Managing People Contents 2 Introduction 3 Analysis 3 Reference 8 Introduction Culture has been defined as the capabilities and habits that are learned by the members of a society, a social heredity, and patterns of and for behaviour acquired, and as the totality of complimentary and equivalent learned meaning which is maintained by human populations. Some have also defined culture as a system of shared symbol transcending individuals. The topic that is to be discussed is based on culture and how the concepts of culture would help a manger to adapt easily into his new surroundings. With the phase of time culture has become equally important and adaptation of it helps to survive in any countries or nation. Therefore culture is defined as ‘the way we do things around here’. Analysis Corporate culture is usually described as ‘the way we do things around here’. It is considered as a set of rules that each and everyone in the organisation learns to follow and thereby influences the behaviour of the employees. Corporate culture often determines the behaviour of the people within business and also the level of motivation within its employees. The culture of the organisation can influence how traditional or forward thinking is the way the company operates (Dooley, 2005, p.139). It is the feel of the organisation which is quickly picked up the new members. Culture is ‘the way we do things around here’. It is a powerful tool and is likely to become more visible when organisations implements new strategies. Thus its human nature to resist change in the way they do things and similarly its nature of the human to change the culture in which they work and live (Carroll, 2009, p.95). The key drivers of ‘the way we do things around here’ are multiple. The behaviour of the management is one of the major drivers of culture as the people observe the behaviour of the management rather than on what they say. Culture is deeply embedded within the organisation as it cannot be taken out and dealt in isolation. For cultural change efforts to be successful, organisational leaders must remember that culture is a result of the organisational system and not a component and the system includes many sub cultures such as operational function, history, national culture and so on (Carleton & Lineberry, 2004, p. 31-33). Organisational culture or corporate culture is set of values, beliefs and assumptions which is shared by member of an organisation and also teaches the new member of the organisation to think feel and act in the right way. The cultural perspective of every organisation believes that every organisation develop a unique mixture of standards, values, practise and presumptions of how things should be conducted which later becomes habit (Ashman & Hull, 2011, p.134). Organisational culture comprises of two important components, shared values and assumptions. Values are defined as a conscious perception of what is good and bad or what is right or wrong, values implies what is ought to do. It refers to as a moral compass which directly motivates the decision. Values that exist within organisation are referred to as shared values. These are the values that employees have in common and within the organisation. Assumptions are beliefs or perception that have worked for the organisation in the past and are considered to be correct way to think and act towards any problems and opportunities. These assumptions are taken for granted and are difficult to change (Mcshane, 2008, p. 492). Organisational culture is the outcome of set of dynamics and also acts as an influence of those dynamics. The jargon, ‘the way we do things around here’ is a powerful insight in a company’s culture (Stanford, 2011, pp. 1). Understanding the concept of culture is important for a manager in order to adapt more easily to their new surroundings. Thus managers should learn how to adapt to an environment so that the manager can work effectively. But despite of the manager’s strong desire to understand and adopt the new work culture, everyone experiences a mental confusion while making an effort to enter another culture and adopt it. This termed is referred to as culture shock which the manager’s experiences due to stress and change in behaviour pattern of the new environment. The normal assumptions made by the mangers in their own culture which they often use to interpret the values and believe, does not matches with the new environment, new culture and new people. Thus sometimes culture shock results in confusion or frustration but the managers are competent in such a given situation and finds out means to operate efficiently. It has been found out there are four modes which helps in responding to a new environment. They are assimilation or going native, which means a manager might accept the new culture while rejecting their own culture. Secondly, integration or being a participator where the manager adapts to the new environment and also retaining their own culture, thirdly, being a tourist , maintaining own culture and lastly, being a marginalization which means inability to adapt to the new environment as well as remain loyal to their own culture. Thus the best mode to adopt for a manager is of being a participator. The manager must adapt to the new environment and also retain own culture which allows the manager to work effectively within an organisation. Culture shock can be dealt with regular exercise, balanced diet, rest and management techniques. Language training is an important way to cope up with new environment, knowledge about the traditions of the new culture and exploiting the new environment also helps in adjusting the new culture of the people. However it must be realised that every manager experiences culture shock and this cannot be eliminated though with diligent preparation it can get moderate. Apart from their own preparation to handle the new culture, colleagues can provide support to the managers which results to be much more effective in cultural adaptation. In a new environment or place there are basically two functions that a manager needs to fulfil. One is the functional or technical job such as the manager’s role as engineer, marketing manager, finance manager and other such management responsibilities. The other function of a manager is cultural adaptation, a willingness and ability to understand, recognise and work effectively across different cultures. The manager needs to adapt the new culture successfully because without the adaptation of culture a manager may not get a chance to utilise their functional or technical skills (Lane, DiStefano & Maznevski, 2005, p.187-189). For a manager to remain competent in the global work environment, cultural adaptability is an essential component which every manager must adopt. Employees at different level of organisation brings with them different perspective, values, expectations and cultures. This component defines how an organisation manages, leads and interact with each other and finally how to get the work done. One of the definition of culture sates that culture is shared. Managers should understand the fact that the employees they work with are surrounded with different mindset and have expectations based on different cultural background. Thus managers must interact with bosses, peers, employees from different culture and should handle interactions in an effective way so to avoid any chances of misunderstanding, stress and frustration, however managers are not expected to know exactly how to behave in a new environment but with the help of cultural adaptability the managers can adapt effectively in the new culture and new environment (Deal & Prince, 2011, p.7-9). Managers need to align to the technical and social elements of company and solve the problems within the organisation in order to achieve its strategic goal (Trevino & Nelson, 2010, p.198). A manger needs to adapt to the cross cultural in order to succeed and survive. The three important factors which drive the organization are its shared value, assumptions and artifacts. The organisation believes in these values and will not change in at any given point. Culture is often termed as values of the organisation which it perceives and every individual is expected to adopt with the culture. A new manger would easily adapt to the new surroundings if he is able to think crucially and strategically. This would help the manger to understand the way people around him behave and acts. He must have knowledge about the culture that he is into it, which would help him to adopt more easily with the new environment. The actions needs to be dynamic and must adjust with the nature of work and environment. Therefore, a manger must think about the new culture, must be motivated and confident to perform his duties and finally create actions which are needed to act and prove to be adaptive. Thus the actions needs to be completed as cultural intelligence must involve the abilities to carry out actions which are required in a particular culture. Although new managers are always not ready to adapt the new culture and the environment, the organisation must put an equal effort so to make the managers comfortable in the new culture and work organisation. Reference Ashman, K.K.K. & Hull, G.H. (2011). Generalist Practice with Organizations and Communities. Cengage Learning. Carleton, J.R. & Lineberry, C.S. (2004). Achieving post-merger success: a stakeholder's guide to cultural due diligence, assessment, and integration. John Wiley & Sons. Carroll, R. (2009). Risk Management Handbook for Health Care Organizations. John Wiley & Sons. Deal, J.J. & Prince, D.W. (2011). Developing Cultural Adaptability: How to Work Across Differences. John Wiley & Sons. Dooley, D. (2005). BTEC National Business, Book 2. Heinemann. Lane, H.W. DiStefano, J.J. & Maznevski, M.L. (2005). International management behavior: text, readings, and cases. Wiley-Blackwell. Mcshane, S.L. (2008). Organisational behaviour. Tata McGraw-Hill Education Stanford, N. (2011). Corporate Culture: Getting it Right. John Wiley & Sons. How to Work Across Differences. John Wiley and Sons. Trevino, L.K. & Nelson, K.A. (2010). Managing Business Ethics. John Wiley and Sons. Read More