A Critical Exploration of Organisational Structures and Cultures - Essay Example

Word count: 1662 Order # 435075 d 3rd May A Critical Exploration of Organizational Structures and Cultures Culture is an attribute which represents the set of values and goals of an institution or an organization. It also includes the shared attitudes of group of people living under similar environment. It may also be defined as an integrated pattern of human knowledge that evolves over a period of time after subjected to social learning in a society. It also represents human belief and behavior in a set pattern of social conditions. Depending upon the area of interface, the nature of culture differs. The college culture comprises of the set of values and goals of group of students living in a college atmosphere. The culture of any college evolves with the advancement of time and it depends on several factors like the infrastructure, composition of the college lecturers and management style. A good college culture will certainly aid in positive behavioral changes among the students which in turn would be instrumental in their career building and society development. Hence, any organization would wish to impart meaningful college culture among the students. In United Kingdom, several college organizations have been working hard to inculcate good culture among their college students. For achieving this goal, al the positive factors influencing the college culture have to be promoted and negative factors have to be controlled. Organization structure is most important factor that influences the college culture in United Kingdom. Let us analyze how the organization structure influences the college culture: The organization structure will have tremendous influence on the college culture (Anderson, 2007). It will decide the style of the presentation of the students and other functionaries in the college. In United Kingdom, the college culture is significantly influenced by the organizations’ structures and college management bodies. The technological advances and information technology also brought significant changes in the college culture in United Kingdom (Kouzes and Posner, 2003). One of the most important effects of organization structure on college culture is contributed by the rapid advances in the technologies available to librarians to access, manage and deliver information to students and researchers. Better library services would help in having better access to diversified information of the different parts of the world which in turn would enhance the broader knowledge of the students or clients and hence their culture would witness tremendous change. At the same time, the emergence of new technology may also bring some negative effects in terms of the culture. For example, the introduction sophisticated software technology in libraries in United kingdom would reduce the scope for more number of workers and people would be having less interaction with others and majority of the information would be accessed electronically which affects the college and library culture considerably. This is very crucial because the interaction among college students in United Kingdom while accessing information would be severely reduced. Any factor that enhances the confidence and belief among the students in college would certainly benefit them and the free culture would be evolved spontaneously and quality of education would be higher. Otherwise, the students will be highly confused about their activities and will feel inconvenience in clarifying their doubts. Hence the provision of good quality teachers or professors who can interact well with the students and who can infuse an element of confidence among the college students would be preferred for enhancing the quality of education in colleges in United Kingdom. The introduction of more user friendly and interactive academic curriculum and incorporation of higher number of practical classes in all the class room syllabus would be highly beneficial in enhancing the quality of education in colleges in United Kingdom. This would also facilitate the free exchange of ideas among the students and teachers and reduces the element of confusion and increases the clarity about several basic and applied concepts. The conduction of timely workshops and seminars and conduction of primary surveys would help the students to work together in groups in basic field level conditions and their practical knowledge about the field problems would be enhanced. This also enhances the culture of being coherent and responsive to the needy situation and in that process a positive culture would automatically emerge. The structure of any organization would be very crucial in enhancing the quality of education and positive culture among the students by making more systematic way of decision making at individual and group level in most democratic manner. In this process, the people’s participative nature also increases leading to better culture and efficient decision making. We should also remember that the college organizations have to work with in their limitations like limited budget and dealing with diversity of work force. With in the confined budget, the quality of education has to be enhanced by recruiting well qualified academicians which is very challenging. Once the reputation of the college organization is maintained, the higher number of students would prefer to join and in that process, the instrument of change in their thinking and bringing desirable cultural behavior would be facilitated. In United Kingdom, the colleges in general follow several procedures for ensuring and enhancing the quality of education and other provisions to the students and other functionaries. There is a strong necessity to evaluate the existing systems of college or their related organizations so that the quality assurance related to college culture can be provided. The rapid advances in the technology including information technology should be utilized well to bring desirable cultural changes in colleges of United Kingdom along with the new areas of frontiers of science in most cost effective manner. The employee satisfaction has to be maintained at all levels so that the staff retention would be higher which makes it highly efficient economically. The cultural changes among the professors and other teaching staff can be brought by making them participatory in several strategic human resource management workshops from time to time. The concept of team work and leadership has been emerging well in the recent days in bringing desirable cultural changes in colleges in United Kingdom. More specifically, the emergence of multi disciplinary team work has been taken well by several college organizations to inculcate an ideal culture among the college students in United Kingdom. The team work makes the working atmosphere more coherent and natural so that free exchange of ideas would be facilitated leading to the best academic decisions and this would result in positive college culture. Moreover, the leadership also plays vital role in bringing the desirable cultural changes in colleges in United Kingdom. The dynamic leadership would always motivate several functionaries of the college organizations to work in close association so that the efficient and timely decisions can be taken leading to positive culture in colleges. The role of college organization structure in influencing the college culture In United Kingdom would be vital by nature of selection of trustee board members and Chancellor. They provide the leadership and future vision of the college which in turn would influence the college culture tremendously. Hence, the organization structure should contain the right balance of members in trustee board and chancellor should be elected fairly so that efficient decision making can be facilitated. The students’ academic affairs committee, students’ cultural and sports committee, students human resource development committee, student crisis resolving committee must be constituted democratically. The library services and sports infrastructure have to be ensured through out the day. Planning and development, community and economic development and business services would also form the core component of college organization structure which would considerably influence the college culture in United Kingdom. Case study: The thorough study of one case study in United Kingdom would be helpful in identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the college organization in incorporating college culture in United Kingdom. Let us see the example of North Lake college, Dallas County Community College District, United Kingdom. Its structure involves the board of trustees and chancellor which is the major decision making body of the college organization (North Lake college, 2010). It has three college campuses in the form of North campus, South campus and West campus. It also contains academic affairs committee, liberal arts committee, mathematics, science and sports committees, student services unit, planning and development unit, community and economic development section, business services unit, library and learning resources unit and visual and performing arts units. The culture of the college students has been influenced by the significantly by the major decisions taken by the board of trustees and Chancellor from time to time. The decisions related to professional norms and academic curriculum in addition to the conduct rules had major influence on the quality of education and way of thinking of the college students. Moreover, the access of students to have full information on different sectors of the world has been facilitated by regular updating of the library resources. The extra curricular activities of the students have also been taken care by the college organization by establishing liberal arts and sports committees. At the same time, planning development wing of this college concentrates on future developmental aspects and human resource development of the college students. However, there are some areas of weakness like lack of grievance committee to address the problems of the students and lack of student-professor collaborative committees which can be corrected in future. Conclusion Overall, it can be concluded that the college organization structure would significantly influence the college culture in United Kingdom. First, we have to identify the areas of strength which can be further improved for bringing desirable changes in college culture. The elements of weakness in college organization structure can be rectified through proper management strategies which would lead to positive college culture in United Kingdom. References Anderson, D.J., 2007. College culture, student success. Longman publication. P:224. ISBN-10: 032143305X. Kouzes, J. M. & Posner, B. Z., 2003. The Leadership Challenge. Jossey-Bass publication, 3 edition. ISBN-10: 0787968331. P: 496. North Lake college., 2010. Organizational structure. Available at http://www.northlakecollege.edu/about/structure.html. [Accessed on 2nd May 2010]. Read More