Organizational Culture at Benefice Charities - Case Study Example

Insert Title: Name: Instructor: Institution: Module: Date: Organizational culture Introduction George was appointed to assist in the operations of Benefice Charities which was facing many problems ranging from communications, funding and maintaining organisational values to determining the best way for the organisation to go forward. They were making tremendous losses due to the existing problems. George’s challenge was to change the organisational culture to increase productivity, job satisfaction for the employees, communications, maintain organisational values and financial management. He identified the following areas that were to be dealt with. Participation The staff, including all 350 personnel, needed to be engaged in an accessible, multi-level, participative and responsive communication system. George decided to involve the managers in a dialogue to discuss various ways to improve the company’s operations. The discussions lead to the managers having more confidence in George. Productivity A new communication system was employed to achieve the vision and the implementation of the new strategy. George started with a situational analysis that dealt with income and expenditure, as well as the current status of competencies and skills. Employees During the second year of restructuring, a significant number of people were being served by the organization and funding bodies were deciding to increase their grants to Benefice. Organisational values George wanted to promote open communication, honesty, competency and fairness. The values held before had not been discussed thoroughly and this required a change of organisational culture. Communication There was a problem with internal communications. The board of directors did not fully address the main issues that affected the organisation and did not involve the managers who should have solved the problems affecting the organisation. Finance The organisation had to deal with raising funds. Members of the board had very little idea of financial management so George decided that the management needed to learn about that. Organisational culture George decided to address the organisational culture that would be adopted in the various areas needing improvement. According to Dymock et al. (2006, p.527) organizational culture is very important in the performance of an organisation. The beliefs, values, practices, rituals and customs of a company evolve and change with time. Changes in an organisational culture mean that the people working in the organisation need a learning environment that will help them with the changes that needed to occur in the company. The efforts made by an organisation to change its culture ensures that the company achieves its goals in increasing productivity, reducing absences, lowering turnover, decreasing deviant workplace behaviour and increasing citizenship and job satisfaction. The achievement of organisational goals is enhanced by innovation and improvements in learning. The most important thing is for the organisation to adapt and overcome the challenges that come with a changing environment. Organisational culture is said to affect the goals of the organisation because it shapes and controls the beliefs, understandings and behaviours of the workers. Organisational culture influences individual learning, job satisfaction, organisational effectiveness, leadership, organisational problem solving, creativity, organisational commitment, organisational performance, communication and information (Lund 2003, p. 221). Increasing productivity An organisation can survive in a changing environment through continuous learning which will improve its performance (Caroll et al 2006, p. 127). Through learning, organisations are able to sustain competitiveness in the market, hence the culture of learning should be maintained as a tool for increasing performance. George decided to build a learning culture since organisational learning is known to be the foundation of a growing company. Individual learning is a resource that should be implemented to aid business growth in the organisation. According to Kasper (2002, p.1047), in order to increase productivity an organisation should develop a competitive culture. In the Benefice Company, George was concerned with the development of an intellectual capital portfolio which creates greater resilience to enable the company to compete in the new age of globalisation. The ability of an organisation to adapt to market changes and crises leads to the maintenance of healthy and productive organisational performance. The culture of competitiveness allows employees to be flexible and encourages the formation of contract relations between them. Through adapting a competitive culture, the organisation will be able to sustain a healthy cultural environment, ensuring an energetic psychology and positive ideas during the worst of times. This will improve analytical, creative and practical problem solving skills within the organisation. Through a competitive culture, employees are able to strengthen their self esteem, self confidence and self concept for higher performance. Employees are able to sharpen their talents and this will help the organisation to prevent accidents and misfortune (Dymock et al. 2006, p. 531). Reducing absences In order to reduce absences of employees, George used a bureaucratic culture that helps in defining the dimensions of the organisation. Caroll et al. (2006, p. 129) argue that bureaucratic culture is a type of organisational culture which is characterised by low environmental adaptation and low internal integration. The inflexibility in bureaucratic culture does ensure, for example, that employees are at work at the right time. There will be rigid rules and regulations that are to be followed or employees will be penalized. Bureaucratic culture uses a centralized authority to ensure that employees are accountable. It means an affirmative leadership style that works for employees who enjoy good leadership. Lowering turnover Caroll et al, (2006, p. 138) denotes that, employee turnover can be reduced through the use of a learning culture in the organisation. Organisations that encourage learning for their employees ensure that the necessary information is available for employees in difficult situations. Learning encourages employees to adapt to a changing environment and so the organisation does not need to find new employees. A learning culture enhances knowledge expansion for the workers and this ensures that the organisation is able to respond to external changes. Through learning, employees are able to cope with a complex environment and this creates a competitive advantage for the organisation (Coutu, 2002, p. 5) as workers are always well informed. Learning encourages organisations to gather environmental information and process it, which enhances service development. Organisations should encourage innovation, creativity and learning for employees. Decreasing deviant workplace behaviour Kasper (2002, p. 1051) denotes that, in order to decrease bad behaviours at the work place organisations should impose a bureaucratic culture with rigid regulations and rules that employees have to be adhere to. People in authority should ensure that the performance of employees in the workplace is monitored to a greater degree. A bureaucratic culture ensures that employees do not go against the set rules and regulations. Increasing citizenship A learning culture increases the feeling of citizenship of the employees in the organisation. Employees feel more accepted when learning is part of their work and they are to build relationships within their groups. The organisation should employ a model that enhances learning. According to Aksu et al. (2005, p. 425), the creation of personal model mastery, mental models, shared vision, system thinking and team learning should be enhanced. Employees are able to challenge the way of doing things, hence ensuring that continuous improvement and capacity to change is maintained. Personal monitoring encourages the development and realisation of personal and organisational goals in partnership. Employees are able to focus on the achievement of organisational goals since they have improved ability and skills that can be used in production. The organisation needs to ensure that employees always have updated knowledge. This ensures that there is a continuous improvement of activities in the company as well as skill development (Caroll et al, 2006, p. 133). The mental models that are created in people’s minds guide how they will shape their decisions and behaviour. Mental models in an organisation will include: Simple Opinions about problems, Stereotypical View-points, Accepting Others Opinions, Rationality in Problem Solving, Believing in Finding Better Alternatives and Irrational Advocacy. Employees should be encouraged to have a shared vision that will show their direction for the company. Through shared visions employees build a sense of group commitment for the future. In order to increase citizenship in the organisation for employees, the company should advocate team learning where conversational and collective thinking skills are transformed. This enhances group capacity to develop synergetic reliable intelligence and abilities based on the member’s talents. Employees should be encouraged to develop the ability to see the big picture within the organisation as well as to understand how change in one area can affect the whole system. Attention should be paid to the effects decisions once the organisation finds the causes of problems. Organisations should also consider and monitor how changes that occur in the external environment affect employees. This will help employees to make comprehensive decisions (Chang Su-Chao et al, 2007, p. 158). Team Learning increases citizenship in the organisation. Employees should be given the chance to conduct dialogues and discuss various issues relating to the company. Organisations should use group assessment and evaluation that will enhance togetherness among the employees. Employees in groups tend to be committed in decision-making, so healthy decisions concerning the productivity of the organisation can be made. The workers are able to share different experiences that may be of benefit to the organisation. Job satisfaction According to Lund (2003, p.237), the culture of learning in an organisation enhances job satisfaction in different ways. Employees of an organisation should be encouraged to participate in making decisions concerning the achievement of goals in the company. This can be done through personal mastery, improving mental models, building shared vision, team building and systematic thinking. The existence of a bureaucratic culture in the organisation may lead to unsatisfied employees. In a bureaucratic culture, employees are not given the chance to learn and this does not give them the chance to explore their areas of specialization. Employees should be allowed to participate in different ways in the organization. George decided to provide employees with learning skills that will enable them to cope with changes in the organisational environment. Organisations should avoid bureaucratic cultures that have inflexible regulations and rules. Employees do not like being supervised and a bureaucratic culture calls for high levels of centralisation of authority. According to Chang Su-Chao et al. (2007, p. 176), employees tend to be more satisfied where there are common objectives for the organisation such as satisfying its employees. Organisations need to be committed to their dreams and work towards achieving them. Workers feel more satisfied when they participate in defining an organisation’s objectives. Homogeneity of individual and organisational objectives enhances job satisfaction since employees are working towards achieving objectives set by them. There should be clarity and transparency of organisational general and main objectives for the employees. Conclusion In conclusion, an organisation can work better with the introduction of different cultures that enable it to achieve the set mission. This was the strategy that George introduced in Benefice Company. It is evident that job satisfaction requires an organisation to employ a participative culture which is characterised by low flexibility, high integration, loyalty, personal commitment, team work, high level of social acceptance and tendency to satisfaction. The organisation can adopt a policy that will enable its employees to participate in the setting of organisational goals. Employees will be able to optimise their potential talents and this will enhance organisational profits. References Aksu, A.A. & Özdemir, B., 2005, ‘Individual Learning and Organisation Culture in Learning Organisation’ Managerial Auditing Journal, Vol. 20, No. 4, pp. 422–441. Coutu, D.L., 2002, ‘The Anxiety of Learning,’ Harvard Business Review, Vol. 80, No. 3, pp. 2–8. Chang Su-chao, C. & Lee, M., 2007, ‘A Study on Relationship among Leadership, Organisational Culture, the Operation of Learning Organisation and Employee, Job Satisfaction’, The Learning Organisation, Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 155–185. Caroll, M.G. & Nafukho, F.M. 2006, ‘Culture, Organisational Learning and Selected Employee Background Variables in Small-size Business Enterprises’, Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 31, No 2, pp. 127–144. Dymock, D. & McCarthy, C., 2006, ‘Towards a Learning Organisation? Employee Perceptions’, The Learning Organisation, Vol. 13. No. 5, pp. 525–536. Kasper, H., 2002. ‘Culture and Leadership in Market-oriented Service Organisations’, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 36, No. 9, pp. 1047–1057. Lund, D.B., 2003, ‘Organisational Culture and Job Satisfaction’, Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 219–236. Read More