The Influence of Organizational Culture on Business Strategy - Essay Example

Organizational Culture Table of Contents Introduction. 2 Research Questions 2 Aim 2 Objective 2 Literature Review 2 Discussion 4 Organizational culture on internal structures. 4 Organizational culture on external factors. 6 Organizational culture in relation to other enterprises 7 Conclusion 8 References 10 Introduction. Organizational culture has in recent times been seen as a backbone of business enterprise, this has a ripple effect on the business strategies employed in the said environment. This has led to the purpose of this paper, to analyze the influence of organizational strategy in the Kenyan market under the following aspects: Organizational culture on internal structures, Organizational culture on external structures, and Organizational structure on correlation terms. Research Questions 1. What is the impact of organization culture on business strategy in Kenya. 2. Is the business strategy influenced by the organizational culture in Kenya 3. What are some of the organizational culture that influences the business strategies? Aim To Critically find out the influence of organizational culture on business strategy in Kenya Objective To assess how the organizational culture can help in coming up with business strategy To evaluate the relationship between the organizational culture and business strategy To recommend the better organizational culture on business strategy Literature Review The smooth running of an organization is based on its values, the more the values upheld by the employees the more likely successful the will be. Ouchi (1981) a clear, well-designed, and strong organizational culture can reveal to be particularly useful to enable organizations to better integrate individuals into businesses. In addition to that, Deal and Kennedy (1982) defining organizational culture as “the way we do things around here, put even more direct emphasis on the behavioral side of culture. For instance Kenyans are known to lend out a helping hand no matter the situation thus an enterprise for example medical sector will needed to be strict in order to achieve said services and minimize the effect of this value to exploit it in its bright side only Moreover, looking at the system in which organizational culture develops is agreed with Boddy (2008) that when people start to work and interact they consequently find common ground, things that work for all of them in the name values. These shared values represent a fabric that the individual with more values in common lead to a more competitive business. In the Kenyan scene, individuals who went to the same school, or have more in common than just being work mates have proven to be a forced to reckon with since they provide concrete result. The underlying factor here being the fact that they concentrate solely in the task rather than feuds at the work place. Equity bank in Kenya is a case study, all its success is attributed to the strong and supportive staff that are trained to work for them from mostly high school level. It is important to note that organizational culture is about unwritten norms, which are actually intended to mould the behavior of all the individuals of a group both when interacting the one with the other and when interacting with people who are part of the external environment. It is a common practice that a relationship between workmates is not encouraged in any business environment but it will not be said or put in a memo. The good result posted by these behavioral unwritten norms that is successes will clearly encourage the importance to uphold the values and beliefs on which these norms are based. Shared values, beliefs and norms at the basis of corporate culture generate a close nit which provides a shared system of meanings representing the basis of the internal communications system and mutual understanding .more over it creates a bond of brotherhood and a feeling of belong which is central to human nature. These activities need to be properly monitored and carried out; organizational culture may suffer a setback on organizational performance, Furhnam and Gunter, (1993). The effect of corporate culture on organizational performance has recently been under microscope by many academics and business leaders as well. Overall growing interest in organizational culture is just actually based on this belief. Storey (1992) claims that in managing climate and culture an elaborate approach typical of human resource management in managing conflict. This is not according to reach temporal truces that are associated to industrial and personnel approach. For instance, for an organization to have a going concern, it needs to have a close partnership with other industry leaders in order to realize their goals. Discussion Organizational culture on internal structures. Ravasi and Schultz (2006): states that organizational culture is a set of shared mental assumptions that guide interpretation and action in organizations by defining appropriate behavior for various situations. A company may have its own unique cocktail of culture, which is largely attributed to the nature, and nurture of the employees. Organizational culture may affect employees. A company is a collection of individual values agreed upon by most of the employees and is not necessarily written down but lingers in the conscience of the employees. Additionally, there are vast importance connected to the implementation and strategy of the organization, the leaders of businesses, academics, and human resource practitioners. The named groups have grown interest and culture towards the attention of cultures. Depending on the ambitiousness of an organization it can be said that business strategy is concerned with the ‘what’ while organizational culture is the ‘how’ things need to be done. strategy is concerned with the determination and identification of the objectives employers want to achieve, culture is mainly concerned with the behavior employers are expected individuals will conform to in order to achieve those objectives and a competitive edge. Any entrepreneur in the Kenyan scene has to pay attention to the above to succeed. The fact that a company is a collection of people with a particular objective comes to life in the sense that a value upheld closely by an employee but loathed by the employer may bring bad blood; in kericho, the collection of tealeaves by independent contractor has upset the system of bonuses. The business of intermediary ship by independent contractors downplays the bonuses of the farmers thus leading to the refusal of farmers to cooperate with them. The contactors do not see value of loyalty accumulated over the years by the farmers’ though their hard work. This has led to most of the contractors closing their doors. Armstrong (2009) claims that the impact of organizational culture on individuals’ behavior is so relevant that it needs “to be taken into account as a contingency factor”. This is in reference to every plan concerned with businesses’ development and in all of the HR practices intended to sustain and facilitate that process. In Kenya, it is a known fact that certain cultural stereotypes affect businesses more food and recreation industry is majorly exploited by the luhyas of western region, education by the luo banking by kikuyu and transport by the kisii. This mainly boils down to interest and talent in the said fields by the said people. When everything that can fail to work does so, organizational culture, which is woven in the employees, shines brightly since it lays the foundations of any business Organizational culture on external factors. Business strategies do not exist I a vacuum, they develop in an environment defined by many factor that affect them adversely on both ends of the spectrum. Organizational culture is a fruit of a rather long intricate process during which these values become the backbone of the organization. organizations based on honesty and trust such as banking an medical industry in Kenya have been seen to crumble when one of their core values is breached, uchumi super market underwent a meltdown in recent years attributed to the massive counterfeit and substandard items . The values of a particular enterprise have to be upheld by all its workers in order to achieve profits and ultimately success. Furnham and Gunter (1993) asserts that corporate culture is not particularly dynamic and ever-changing, in that they assume that culture is an entity of organizations’ internal context which is relatively stable in the short run and which is much more likely to be influenced by the internal context. The fact that altering corporate culture is long and cumbersome; does not mean that external forces are weak that external forces are weak, but that it takes much more efforts and resources to implement cultural changes. It should be noted that internal structure is strongly affected by the external. Technological change poses the greatest external factor to business strategies, keeping up with relevant technology is not only expensive in terms of infrastructure but also labor. It is common knowledge that most people are opposed to change. As explained above organizational culture alterations are very costly and recognized as one of the most difficult change processes. Since culture has to do with the way we do things around here difficulties arising during these type of change programs implementation are numerous and remarkable in strength. Furhnam and Gunter (1993) roots for this and state that the same time used to set up is the same needed to alter. Policies implemented by the government are usually brought into place slowly to avoid a meltdown, the requirement to register sim cards directive by the Kenyan government saw a reduction in the number of mobile phone users. Likewise, Armstrong (2009) claims that a culture developed over a long period of time and firmly embedded within an organization could reveal to be particularly tricky to change quickly, if at all. Businesses have been known to fail in Kenya by simple change of values and even names, an enterprise in central Kenya closed its doors after a change of values to embrace a more radical figure in a conservative society. Organizational culture in relation to other enterprises The telephone services company such as safaricom and equity bank is currently head over heels in a legal battle over the multi lying of sim card. The equity bases its case on the ease to access to clients’ money over the thin Sims ,the publicity involved may be deemed desirous but is actual informative to customers who in most cases subscribe to services from the two providers .Going back to organizational culture to manage misunderstands has been lately a key tool in managing misunderstandings. The organizational culture resides on the shared beliefs and values. The unwritten beliefs and values are developed by the embedded and underlying values that are widely respected and accepted by the concerned. This is one of the fact individuals’ should behave in a way which should not give raise to any conflict could be considered obvious. The agreement reached on the case that they offer a six-month trial period in the above case is an example of such (Cameron & Quinn, 2009). An investigation carried out by Nairobi University reveal over 100 organizations, revealed that the role played by culture was in practice much weaker than expected., organizational culture impacts greatly on performance. Parker (2000) does not drink from the cup that strong organizational culture leads to performance asserts that it contributes to define a valuable language, which can be used to represent organization and organizing. Organizational culture consistency with the overall business aims and objectives is important for any kind of enterprise. In particular they highlighted cases of co-operations that were mostly not giving require importance to organizational structure; this has been seen to have disastrous effect in the Kenya scene such as the coffee board of Kenya and the national cereals and produce board. Watson (1994) claims that people are happy to share values, myths, and legends supporting corporate culture in sharing they find meaning in the intricacies of life. The bottom line aspect to a successful cooperation between enterprises is respect to the values up held by individual enterprise in that cooperation. Conclusion Academics and business leaders consider the interaction between organizational culture and business performance remarkable and likely to positively affect business performance. Numerous subsequent human resource management systems have considered this. For instance, Kenya Commercial Bank has deep values, which are employed in their system. Since time in memorial, it has served to build trust in its clients over services it offers, this is evident in the glow evident in its works .the it cannot be said to be upcoming banks that have still an uphill task to build trust and confidence in their customers. The influence of a close nit business community packs nuclear power in production, services, and longevity of the enterprise since all the entities are working in unison with a common goal and objectives. Business strategy needs to be inculcated deeply with organizational culture to reflect positively on the desired goals and achievement of competitiveness in the markets sort after. Business strategy and organizational culture have to be consistent and coherent to wear an air of integrity. In the Kenyan sector, the need to incorporate strong and consistent organizational culture in business strategy will have profound effect in the growth of the common market leading to the development of the business to achieve competitiveness in the cutthroat business environment that is the Kenyan market (Martin, 2002). References Cameron, K. S., & Quinn, R. E. 2009.Diagnosing and changing organizational culture: based on the competing values framework. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley. Deal T. E. and Kennedy, A. A. 1982, 2000 Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1982; reissue Perseus Books, 2000 Furnham, Adrian. & Gunter, Barrie. 1993, corporate assessment: auditing a company's personality Routledge London; New York. Hofstede, Geert H. 2001. Culture is Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions, and Organizations across Nations. Sage Publications. Kennedy, D. a. 1982. Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life . longman publishers. Martin, J. 2002.  Organizational culture: mapping the terrain. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Ouchi, William G. 1981. Theory Z. New York: Avon Books. Ravasi, D., Schultz, M. 2006, responding to organizational identity threats: Exploring the role of organizational culture. Academy of Management Journal, 49(3), 433–458. Schrodt, P. 2002. The relationship between organizational identification and organizational culture: Employee perceptions of culture and identification in a retail sales organization. Communication Studies, 53, 189-202. Read More