Organisational Behaviour - Essay Example

The paper will also outline some of the factors that can compel the organizations to adopt an initiative to change their cultures. The main part of the paper will discuss the conditions that ought to be created by the management in order to support cultural change in their respective organizations. A summary of the main points discussed will be drawn at the end of the paper. “Organizations are able to operate efficiently only when shared values exist among the employees,” (Ivancevich, Konopake & Matteson (2011, p. 36)). Values are regarded as conscious desires or wants of people that guide their behaviour on and off the job.

Values that are shape the culture of the organization help the individuals to behave in a consistent manner across different situations. Values are also related to the society’s ideas of what is wrong and right. It is widely believed that an employee’s behaviour and performance in an organisation are shaped by its culture (Patterson et al, (1998). Schultz (2003) also concurs with this notion of culture when he states that the behaviour of employees in an organization is significantly impacted by its culture.

Basically, organisational culture refers to a system of shared assumptions held by the employees in the organization and these assumptions distinguish one organization from the other (Werner, 2003). The culture of a given organization shapes the behaviour of the employees and it also helps them to identify with their company. As noted above, the culture of an organization is deeply entrenched in its operations such that it becomes difficult to easily change. Basically, “organizational culture is the philosophy spirit of organization; it is the foundation stone of organization development (Xiaojuan, n.d).” in certain circumstances, it may be necessary to change the culture of the organization especially if it has been threatened with negative aspects such as collapse of the company.

Change refers to a transition from a current situation or the status quo to the desired future state (Amos et al, 2008). Change is usually necessitated by both internal and external forces. For instance, the evidence suggests that cultural change is most likely to take place when there has been a dramatic crisis that undermines the current status quo and calls into question the relevance of the current culture (Robbins, 1993). In certain instances, weak cultures are more amenable to change than strong ones given that there will be consensus among all people involved that certain changes ought to be implemented in the culture of the organization in order to turn around its fortunes.

When the need to change the culture of the organization has arisen, there are certain measures that ought to be taken into account by the management in order to achieve change in the organization’s culture. “Look at the numbers and develop ways of improving the positive scores and addressing the negative ones,” (Sinickas, 2006, 112). The critical success factor of using the strategy is to pick the important aspects that make the organization unique and try to implement them in the operations of the organization.

It is imperative to have top management to act as positive role models. These people are influential in the organization such that they can set the tone through their behaviour. In most cases, managers who lead by example are likely to positively influence the behaviour of