Organizational culture is fundamentally about symbolic meaning and as such cannot be managed. Discuss - Essay Example

By symbolism people consciously give shape and form to their own reality. Reality does not constitute of objects to which humans react, rather it is the social environment within which people act according to their own perspective of the situation. Any object or action can be called a symbol when it has a differentiated meaning from its actual self. An object or action becomes a symbol when it is not perceived by their apparent form but by the meaning applied to it by the members of the organization.

For instance a large desk is not viewed as an object of convenience for various activities, but is regarded as a representative of the organization’s power, status and influence. Thus, the desk becomes a cultural symbol of the organization’s status (Schultz, 1995, p.76). Organizational culture is imbibed with abstract aspects like feelings, emotions and thought processes of people, and also with objects for their symbolic values rather than their instrumental values. Organizational culture is thus not easy to manage since many profound aspects of culture like visions and feelings of people must be considered with great value when objective is to bring possible changes to organizational culture.

This paper focuses on the interconnection of symbolism and organizational culture. . In the last few decades, most academics have been suggesting that the idea of culture is the environment and the climate created by the organization for management of its people. Organizational culture is the system of feelings, thoughts and beliefs of a group of people associated with an organization, and the meaning that people attach to their actions. It reflects the views of the employees about the way things are done in an organization (O’Donnell & Boyle, 2008, p.viii). Thus, culture provides a sense of identity to an organization.

The culture of an organization encompasses everything that it is good at and all the things that worked in the past. These concepts are generally accepting by the employees who have been working in an organization for a long period. When new employees join the organization, they learn about the legends of the organization. With time such legends become the norm which means they become the normal and accepted pattern of behavior. (O’Donnell & Boyle, 2008, pp.4-5) In recent times management theories have been emphasizing on the managers the importance of creating a strong cultural ambiance within the organization (O’Donnell & Boyle, 2008, p.viii). The fascinating thing about culture is that it indicates a phenomenon that is hidden beneath the surface and is invisible but has powerful impact.

Culture shapes the behavioral patterns of the members of a group through the common beliefs that are held in that group (Schein, 2010, p.14). It has been suggested that “culture and leadership are fundamentally intertwined.” (Schein, 2010, p.xi) There are three elements to this – 1) the leaders are