Organizational Culture in the Economy - Essay Example

 Organizational Culture Introduction Organizational culture is the manner in which an organization organizes its human resources and other resources to meet specific goals and accomplish objectives over a period of time (Alvesson, 2012). Following the approach with which an organization organizes activities and deploys resources, a culture is developed which acts as a defining set of characters for the organization. In addition, the number of aspects that the organization must put into consideration include various levels and types of dimensions for handling external and internal environments. Thus, organizational culture involves three core dimensions that help define the organizational environment and how the organization interacts with the different environments. The customer dimension helps in identifying the driving forces for the company with reference to the type of products and services provided to the customers. However, customer demand as influenced by preferences and tastes tunes the organization towards developing the above-mentioned defining characteristics. The people dimension of culture involves the interaction among organizational stakeholders and how this affects performance of the organization as well as its ability to retain employees, investors, and attracts new investors as well. Finally, the performance dimension of culture is a defining tool of what the organization is involved with and what competitive advantages put it ahead of the completion. With reference to the various dimensions of organizational culture, it is observed that organizational culture, as it borrows from business culture, is an important aspect that aims at defining purpose and relevance of the organization to the economy, target customers, and the organizational culture (Dalkir, 2011). Impact of not Addressing Organizational Culture The impacts of not addressing organizational culture include the inability of the organization to not only lack focus with target customers, but also to develop negative reputation within its market place. Many are the times when the term organizational culture is inappropriately used to refer to positive strategies of an organization. However, while organizational culture is not a set of policies targeting various aspects of the organizational operations, it is considered a set of variables that add up to inform of the organization’s mission and relevance within a defined market place. In this case, three major considerations when addressing organizational culture are of crucial importance to organizational management and other stakeholders. Firstly, the failure to address organizational culture develops an organizational culture of the negative type. Since there are three dimensions of addressing organizational culture, the impact of not addressing it affects the three dimensions hence developing a negative organizational culture. For instance, an organization that does not provide information to customers affects the customer dimension of culture thus destroying the loyalty of current customers and disinteresting adherent customers (Campbell and Goritz, 2011). In this case, the customer dimension would be affected by decreased sales and eventually the profits. Secondly, the inability of an organization to address organizational culture prevents it from exploring a meaningful course thus inviting financial, leadership, and performance issues. Organizations that do not address cultural issues show a weakness in handling business culture and therefore fall out of relevance depending on the market environment the organization operates in. For instance, the American Business Culture and the South East Asian Business culture differ from each other as businesspersons have different but defined set of behaviors they portray within the organizations. Referring to organizational culture without the consideration of business culture produces negative performance and acceptance effects such as Wal-Mart’s case when it first opened a retail branch in China. The organization had all its needed to make a successful expansion into the Asian Market but it lacked coordination of the three dimensions of culture. The business culture of the Chinese involves customers consuming living organisms (marine animals) that they witness being slaughtered. On the other hand, the organizational culture required Wal-Mart to address the people dimension of culture so that the customer dimension can be accommodated into the organization’s business model. Thirdly, the impact of not addressing organizational culture is the inability of the organization to develop strategic and quality decisions as the organizational management would lack the necessary and routinely planning and execution of solutions. Analysis and Discussion Customer Dimension of Culture According to Alvesson (2012), customers have the ability to control the markets depending on the power of the organizations. Organizations that run in a monopoly market structure are able to deal with customers’ influence on their performance. However, organizations that face high degree of competition have no control over customers and therefore, have to reshuffle their strategies in response to customers’ changing trends. Markets such as Chinese pack millions of customers and thousands of organizations looking forward to ensuring that the demand is customers is met. However, due to high number of competitors, the customers are able to shift from one vendor to another thus making customer retention an organizational challenge. Under these considerations, it is clear that the customer dimension of culture should be addressed at all times - prior and after investment. The challenge of not addressing the customer dimension of culture, Alvesson (2012) argues that it makes it difficult for the organization to develop entry, pricing, and customer retention strategies. People Dimension of Culture Campbell and Goritz (2014) point that all organizations – both for-profit and not-for-profit, have routinely activities that they have to undertake at various intervals. The external and internal environments require an organization to consider investors, employees, management, and the overall public in general. The interaction of these aspects enable an organization to identify opportunities from the internal and external environments. While addressing the people dimension of culture, an organization realizes the opportunity to serve a certain segment of the market, secures resources and makes use of them, and develops competitive advantage tailored to meet development goals. For organizations that do not address the people’s dimension of culture, they risk losing their footing within the industry as they may not be efficient at drawing and retaining investors (Dalkir, 2011). Performance Dimension of Culture The relevance of all organizations to the economy or the social settings they operate in is to ensure that resources are secured and deployed to the most beneficial tasks. From human resources to other classes of resources such as time and innovation, the company’s efficiency deploying them defines the company’s priorities and mode of decision-making. Through this approach, a company develops strategies that aim to address the core challenges of operations’ management such as allocation of resources and definition of priorities. According to Flamholtz and Randle (2011), all organizations have strategic approaches to the development of human resources in terms of training, job allocation, job placement, promotion, and compensation of their employees. These aspects define how relevant to the economy the organization is. Organizations that do not address the performance dimension of culture ignore the roles internal and external environments play towards the success of the organizationthus risking their sustainability (Cameron and Quinn, 2011). Recommendations With reference to the research analysis and discussion, it is observed that organizational culture comprises of 3 dimensions among them customer, people, and performance. However, sub-categories of these dimensions should be taken into consideration especially by international and multinational organizations. Sub-categories of customer, people, and performance dimensions of organizational culture include customer differences, management and stakeholder expectations, and cost/benefit tradeoffs. These aspects are important to organizations’ business planning and aid in sustaining the economic, social, and cultural aspects of the business venture (Cameron and Quinn, 2011). Conclusion Organizational culture develops from business culture which is the manner in which different organizations do business or operate within a certain marketplace or region. This indicates that organizational culture is the manner in which organizations operate in their respective industries by controlling both internal and external factors such as customer relations, the stakeholders, and the overall performance. With three dimensions defined as the core aspects of organizational culture, it is recommended that international and multinational companies should consider addressing the sub-categories of the three dimensions. These sub-categories assist organizations to sustain their development in different environments. However, the usefulness of addressing organizational culture involves the seamless acquisition and deployment of core resources such as human capital, time, and innovation. Failing to address organizational culture makes an organization limited in focus, non-strategic, and reactive rather than innovative. References Alvesson, A. (2012).Understanding Organizational Culture. SAGE. Cameron, K., &Quinn, R. (2011).Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture: Based on the Competing Values Framework. John Wiley & Sons. Campbell, J., &Göritz, A. (2014). Culture Corrupts! A Qualitative Study of Organizational Culture in Corrupt Organizations. Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 120, No. 3; pp. 291-311. Dalkir, K. (2011). Knowledge Management in Theory and Practice: The Role of Organizational Culture. The MIT Press; pp. 223-266 Flamholtz, E., &Randle, Y. (2011).Corporate Culture: The Ultimate Strategic Asset. Stanford University Press. Read More