Managing Organisational Culture - Essay Example

Critically discuss the proposition; organisational culture cannot be managed Managing Organisational Culture The concept of managing organisational culture has been drawing much attention to the long-neglected and subjective side of organisational life (Alvesson, 2002). There has been more emphasis on cultural and symbolic aspects, which are relevant in a pragmatic context. It has resulted in most of the critical organisational aspects not receiving much attention, creating a difficulty in smoothening organisational management. There are confusion and varied discussions about the concept of organisational culture in organisational literature and practice. Organisations are always on the move to impact organisational culture either through consolidation of changing the cultures (Parker & Bradley, (2000). The move raises the question of how easy it is to manage or to change organisational cultures. There is widespread criticism of the common culture management approaches by various scholars; in recent studies, it is evidenced that managers are continually engaging themselves in planned cultural interventions (Griffin & Moorhead 2011). Their main concerns are that organisational cultures determine the image and the performances of organisations and failure to address the issue would signify failure in organisational goals. The studies indicate that managing organisational cultures is the most common and popular form of managerial interventions. Organisational atmospheres usually change and organisational cultures evolve with time and generations in an organisation (Alvesson, 2002). Organisations emerge because of a group of people having a common goal of working together to achieve a common goal. For a single person, the tasks would be challenging or impossible. The process it takes for organisational culture formation starts creation of small groups of individuals with a common idea or notion in organisational operations. These finally generate long-lasting organisational cultures that pass from one generation to another. In the past two decades, the issues of organisational culture have had much attention especially in the health sector. The Health sector is a critical area where cultures determine various aspects in the services and operations (Scott et al., 2003). In the UK, for example, the central governments have been actively promoting structural change in the UK National Health Services (NHS). It is in an effort to secure sufficient gains in the health care performance (Davies et al., 2000). The main goal of the central government policies lies on the development of cultural changes in view of structural change. The major concern on culture lies on clinical governance and thus the highlight of the need for cultural change in the NHS. The goal is to wipe the traditions and enhance on improving quality patient focus, efficiency, and broad organisational performance (Ogbonna & Harris, 2002). Health care organisations are subject to the effects of organisational cultures as their performance lies upon certain perceptions on units or work groups with evident or easily identifiable cultures. Cultures are highly and in most cases tied to organisational performance and the health sector is tied on their performance (Scott et al., 2003). Thus, it is necessary to consider performance in three perspectives: performance as an enacted behaviour, which relate to socio-technical processes of care, performance in terms of outcomes or results, and as a dramatic event. The three underlines the need to have a propelling culture in the health sector achievable through influencing the stakeholders involved and not through having plans to change cultures in the sector. According to Alvesson (2002), culture is an important concept that requires endless attention as it creates a platform or foundation for work done in the organisations. To have a healthy organisational culture remains the major interest of organisations, as they are key and significant on loyalty, improved work morale, harmony, productivity, and profitability. The major reason for the much interest in organisation culture lies in the desire to understand and analyse how it affects organisation change (Ogbonna & Harris, 2002). To analyse critically the scope of the organisation, it is necessary to first focus on its definition. Schein (2006) definition states that organisational culture refer to the different set of shared mental ideas and assumptions that act as guidelines for interpretations and actions in organisations through definition of appropriate behaviour in different organisational situations. It involves the pattern of different assumptions that people in an organisation have sufficiently invented or structured during the moments of coping with organisational challenges and the assumptions passes on to even new members (Davies et al., 2000). Organisations are both product and producers of cultures. Individual values, beliefs and motives of employees, different subgroup values with the influence of the leaders, industry culture and available competition, the overall organisational environment and the set expectations shapes cultures in an organisation. Organisational cultures emerge due to different interpretations and construction of meanings by employees or including managers as they work together, interact, make sense of the environment, talk to each other of deal with different conflicts (Rowlinson & Procter, 1999). Different symbols and language signifies manifestation of culture and includes different physical and verbal expressions of deep meanings and common understandings by organisation members. It is necessary to note that organisational cultures are because of social interaction and may never be managed or manipulated in organisations. According to Schein (2006), there exist substantial agreements among the people who conceive the culture as an organisational variable. He claims that an organisational culture emerges from that which colleagues share in an organisation. They include the shared beliefs, values, attitudes, and norms of behaviour. Thus, the organisational culture reflects on the common way of generating a sense of the organisation that provides for people to see and evaluate situations and events in distinct and similar ways. The notion of that exist is “this is how things take place here” and how people understand things, judge and value organisational activities (Schein, 2006). It is wise to consider the different elements of organisational culture in different levels. The most critical and most basic are the underlying assumptions which represent the mostly taken for granted and unconscious beliefs that make up the thinking of an individual (Rowlinson & Procter, 1999). These assumptions give birth to organisational values that operate at a critical and more conscious level and stands for the goals and standards to which individuals attribute their organisational worthiness. The other element consists of the values that constitute the foundation in making of judgements in the process of distinguishing the right and the wrong. Artefacts are the other element and include the physical and different behavioural manifestations of organisational culture. For example, in medical professions, there are diverse issues on dress codes and other cultures related to the tools of work. The main aspect of organisational culture lies on communication within an organisation by either employees or the management. Employees share ideas and views and as a result discussion emerges that in the end defines or generates certain perceptions among them. Communication governs the norms, values, symbols, views, beliefs and notions in an organisation. Cultures cannot develop without people communicating and people’s communication can never be limited. The major challenges that emerge in the process of managers trying to change organisational cultures arise from the inability to limit the way of information transfer in an organisation (Zheng et al., 2010). Cultures can either be positive or negative cultures in an organisation (Schein, 1996). Positive cultures are goal oriented and employees always focus on giving the maximum results to the organisation. In positive organisational cultures, employees are always active in devising progressive infrastructure to propel the organisation into success. Employees in these cases are active in planning, organising, controlling, dimensioning, and supporting organisation’s activities. Positive cultures are the major factors in achieving set objectives and are delicate, as they need managers to communicate effectively to boost employee morale to sustain the cultures. Negative cultures are major challenges in most organisations. They arise mostly due to poor communication within organisational makeup, poor decision making, stress in employees and failure to address different opinions. Negative cultures may result to organisational failure if not addressed. The notion of how hard it is to manage culture within organisations calls for understanding the partnership and relationship between cultures and organisational goals (Zheng et al., 2010). It requires well-laid study on the organisational perspective on culture, in the form of having an organisational analysis on the significance and attributes of organisational culture. Analysis of the organisation provides intensive focus on corporate cultures, organisational management, cognition, and the organisational symbolism (March 2013). A successful study should be in a position to realize that organisational cultures are subject to human expressions and acts that have different symbolic meanings acquired in human interaction and demonstrated in the exercise of duties in an organisation. According to Griffin & Moorhead (2011), culture can never exist without people who share it. These people have problems they experience over a long period. They design ways to solve these problems and the decisions they take, they are always in a position to judge it. The decisions or solutions devised may be positive or even based on uncertainty avoidance. In the process of finding solutions, they develop own adaptations through target setting as well as finding the appropriate means of achieving the set targets. The adaptations may be in the form of control mechanisms such as trade unions aimed at protecting the employees’ rights (Alvesson & Willmott, 2002). Strengths of organisational cultures depend on the stabilities and homogeneity of people sharing the culture, the intensity and length of their experience. The strength of organisational cultures raises the question of how easily it is to manage the cultures. Atkinson (1990) maintains that the organisation culture cannot be managed. He identifies three ways of perceiving organisational culture: the integration perspective that checks on the compliance of the organisation in view of basic values and assumptions, differentiation perspective that checks on the dichotomous differences in values and artefacts and the fragmented perspective that checks on the existence of different subcultures with relevant and unique values and assumptions. He says that all the three perspective are common in organisations and the outcomes lie on the point of view. Subcultures exist in every organisation and may exist in different organisational settings and departments. These sub-cultures have differences that emerge from individual differences in beliefs, values and norms (March 2013). Thus, it would be wrong to say that organisations have a homogeneous culture. In many large organisations, there are certain cultures that are homogeneous, and others differentiated within the organisation. Some of these cultures differ in working groups; problems encountered or may not even be related to organisational objectives but would be because of influence by certain individuals on their own assumptions. Subcultures in most cases differ in age group of employees, differences in ethnic backgrounds, or employees who get in an organisation at the same time of employment (Balthazard 2006). Thus, they may develop or take different cultures that existed in the organisation. The sub-cultures are in most cases hard to manage as they differ in the formation and ideas. These cultures are key determinant of organisation daily activities, and determine the ability of an organisation to meet its goals. Ogbonna & Wilkinson (2003) performed research in retail sectors in the UK on the effort to change organisational culture and to find out whether it can be managed. In the results, it was evident that previous attempts to manage or change organisational cultures have significant effects, and can form the basis for future use in practice. In addition, the management of the organisational culture appeared feasible in the end. However, in some cases, in the study the change in basic assumptions and values seemed incomplete as they proved to have resulted from coercive techniques by managements. They found that through good knowledge of organisational culture theories some changes may be put into effect, the overall cultures will continually evolve but not side-lined. Culture and the form of leadership in an organisation are two things that can never separate (Griffin & Moorhead, 2011). Leaders influence the formation of cultures when they create different working groups in an organisation. Whenever cultures exist, they determine the criteria for leadership and in some extent may influence who will or who will not be a leader. If the elements of culture seem or become dysfunctional, the unique function of leadership enables it to perceive the dysfunctional and functional elements of the culture in place in an effort to manage cultural evolution and change in the form that groups can survive even at changing working environments. Cultural understandings are essentially for all players in an organisation (Balthazard 2006). Leaders can be in a position to control or influence different cultures through managerial humour. Collinson (2002) suggests that through sharing of ideas and assumptions in a joking way may impact organisational activities as it appears more of emotion work than the administrative scope it may possess. In the police, the strategy is common in manipulation of the way different people in the sector works. It is a major tool in governing the possibilities of strikes in organisation as it reduces a complex issue into seemingly easy to tackle and solvable problems. It may also be a risky way of attempting to impact organisation culture and may require those involved to dig beneath organisational surfaces. The form that humour takes relies on the interaction between the management and the nature and degree of a worker’s self-organisation (Sanders, 2004). The management in organisations should not presume that changes perceived as favourable by one level or one function of the organisation would get a positive reception by everyone. It is necessary for leaders to facilitate conversations with employees in all levels about emerging and existing organisational issues (Meek, 1988). The level of communication and the openness of process would mean that employees feel secure in engaging into dialogues on the happenings in the organisation and the reason for the happenings. In such environments, leaders are likely to discover the effects of cultural elements and how discriminating or harming they are in an organisation. Forming platforms for consensus on organisational culture elements through deliberation may be an amicable way of increasing employees’ commitment as they are actively engaged in decision-making processes (Taylor & Bain, 2003). Organisational culture can facilitate or undermine organisational behaviours (McKenna, 2000). The cultures that support and promote assumptions and various values are essential in developing interdependence between formal and informal cultural elements in an organisation. The scope of organisational cultures raises the issue of organisational ethics and values (Schein, 1996). It does not demand organisational leaders to plant or impose certain ethical values on organisational members to cultivate or to manage the already existing cultures. In conclusion, it is reasonable to highlight on manageability of organisational cultures. For managers, executives and organisational leaders the scope of changing organisation cultures lies on the means of transforming different values and the effort to maximize asset utilisation (Meek, 1988). In this perspective, organisational culture change is seen as superior, and the cheapest form of control as compared to bureaucratic control. Different individuals have different views and necessities of work. Thus, trying to fix the issues of culture either through trainings, campaigns or slogans may be an impossible mission (Cameron & Quinn, 2011). It is also difficult for organisational members to assume new identities different from their current roles. The question of whether culture can be managed depends on the state of organisational structure and the formations that the employees take in response to the set strategies to change organisational culture. 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