The Organizational Culture - Research Paper Example

Introduction: Culture is the conventional behaviour of a group of people that reflects their beliefs, knowledge, attitude, values, customs and practices. Culture is learned and transmitted from one generation to another. Culture plays a crucial role in influencing human behaviour. Human behaviour is the behaviour and activities of human beings and is influenced by their attitude, culture, values, emotions etc. Organizational behaviour is formed through various factors such as human behaviour, management practices, changes and developments etc. Organizational culture is formed through the attitude, values, beliefs and experience of organizational people. Human resource management plays a crucial role in forming organizational culture and involves activities such as making organizational structure, building trust, ensuring job satisfaction, leadership, influencing power and politics in the organization. Human resource management involves a set of ideas, practices, techniques which are designed to improve employees’ productivity. They provide support and instructions to the groups in the organization. HR plays a crucial role in solving all cultural barriers and cultural issues. HR practices bring flexibility and office integration for improving quality of work. Human resource management in an organization plays an important role in forming organizational culture. “Culture is defined as (a) a pattern of basic assumptions, (b) invented, discovered, or developed by a given group, (c) as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, (d) that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore (e) is to be taught to new members as the (f) correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems.” (McLuhan 2006). Organization has to bring the people together to achieve the common goal of the organization. Management sets certain parameters, guidelines and accepted norms to decide what and how the organization’s goals are to be achieved. Every organization has its own unique culture, attitude, morale or values set. Culture in any organization indicates the roles, values, beliefs and the behaviour patterns of the people working in it. “Organizational culture includes a complex set of interrelated, comprehensive, and ambiguous factors. Furthermore, it is a multidimensional construct that is of interest to many different disciplines including anthropology, sociology, and organizational psychology.” (Jesus 2008). Organizational culture is shared among the members to solve problems and the same is taught to the new comers. Culture strongly influences behaviour patterns. Culture is a reality in todays workforce and is diverse from one person to another. Globalization has aroused cultural differences within an organization. In order to tackle the cultural differences, adequate cultural training must be provided to the employees. This will help them to understand and cope up with other culture and will ensure respect for each other. It is important to understand how these dimensions affect performance, motivation, success, and interactions with others. Organizational structures and practices which make barriers to managerial functions must be examined and removed. Managing of cultural diversity will bring flexibility, creativity and competitiveness in the organization. Workplace cultural diversity provides business managers with the creative and effective solutions which are required to succeed in today’s competitive world. Workplace diversity offers timely, practical and invaluable guidance. “According to Edgar Schein, cultural analysis is especially valuable for dealing with aspects of organizations that seem irrational, frustrating, and intractable. The bottom line for leaders is that if they do not become conscious of the cultures in which they are embedded, those cultures will manage them.” (Organizational Change: Organizational Culture. 2005). The elements that form the culture of an organization Organizational culture is formed by influences of internal and external factors. Economic, legal, social and industrial factors play a significant role in forming culture in an organization. Economic factor involves how an organization uses limited resources to meet its objectives. Government controls and market economy have significant role in forming culture. Legal factors are the factors within which an organization works. Cultural issues can bring problems to the organizational and individual interests and can result in legal problems to the practitioners. Social factors create small groups of people within the society. It forms family patterns, social classes. Social class makes ranks in the order of their culture. Social class rank people based on status, such as, money, job, education, family etc. Industry of a particular group will have their set of values, beliefs and culture. For example, iron and steel industry needs to focus more on safety and precaution measures. Thus safety forms their part of organizational culture. Internal factors such as company strategy, values, vision, employee or executives, work process etc. have a major role in culture formation. Successful organizational culture is directed towards innovation, risk taking, team building, aggressiveness, knowledge sharing, productivity and stability. Organizational culture can be strong or weak. “Strong cultures are cultures in which key values are deeply held and widely held. And have strong influence on organisational members.” (Robbins and Coulter 2007). Strong culture of the organization is determined by size, age, employee turnover rate and so on. Strong organizational culture creates commitment, retention of staffs and high productivity. In strong culture values will be shared by large number of employees. Culture of organization conveys important messages and communication. Employees will be free to communicate participation. In strong culture, there will be strong connection between shared values and behaviour. “Kaufman, (2002) stated that a positive organizational culture reinforces the core beliefs and behaviours that a leader desires while weakening the values and actions the leader rejects. Peters and Waterman (1982) indicates that a negative culture becomes toxic, poisoning the life of the organization and hindering any future potential for growth.” (Vikas 2007). Weak culture is valued by few people in the organization. Culture sends messages in vague manner and employees are not free to communicate. In weak culture, employees will not have much knowledge in company history, roles or heroes. There will not be much connection between shared values and behaviour The elements that form culture are the shared feelings, beliefs and assumptions. The elements of culture in an organization are difficult to identify and interpret. An element of culture in organization defines organizational boundaries, identifies employees, and builds commitment and socializing. “Culture is transmitted to employees in a number of forms, the most potent being stories, rituals, material symbols and language.” (How Employee Learn Culture: Human Resource Management. 2008). Elements of Culture: There are 12 elements of culture which is explained under five major categories. They are values (master of cultural element); symbolic elements (symbols, stories, language, and metaphors); role elements (heroes, outlaws); interactive elements (rituals, rules, organizational communication style); and history variables (history, place). Values Values are defined as “the common beliefs and priorities of a group of people. Values are qualities that define a group to its members. They may be the most central cultural construct, on which all other cultural elements rest.” (Driskill and Brenton 2005, p.42). Symbolic elements: It involves symbols, stories, language, and metaphors .Culture is symbolic and is expressed by how people feel about the organization. Symbols stands for something more than itself and can be many things. It plays a major role in expressing forms of understanding and forming behaviour pattern from the past experiences. Rites and rituals have strong symbolic qualities. Most effective stories will be known to all within the organization which describe people and assumed by other as true. It also prescribes the desired behaviour and mentions the attainable objectives of the organization. Language involves acronyms, jargon, phrases or words specific to that organization. Organizational language is used to address employees and clients. It is assumed that people who speak the same language will have the same culture. But in reality a large group who speak same languages will have different dialects and can cause communication gap too. Metaphor is defined as “an implied analogy in which one thing is compared or identified with another dissimilar thing.” (Davis 1997). Role elements: Role culture is formal and bound with regulations, authority and responsibility. In role culture employees will have delegated authority and responsibility which are clearly defined and it needs to be observed strictly. It forms hierarchy of authority and responsibility. Power and authority comes from one’s role or position in the hierarchy. It dominates formal relations in the organization. Heroes are the individuals or group who are respected by people in the organization. Outlaws are the individuals who seem to be paradoxes in the organization and yet they remain as valued members. Interactive elements: The three interactive elements are rituals, rules, organizational communication style. Rituals are the events carried out in the society with some purposes. Rules are the factors to be observed within the organization for smooth functioning of duties. Organizational communication style is the channel of communication and is expressed through oral, written, or electronic. History variables: Culture is deeply rooted in organization’s history and experience. Different people working in the organization will have different culture. Some employees will have good interactive skills and empathy which is proved to be successful in maintaining friendly work atmosphere. Some people will concentrate on goal and they will follow the clearly structured task and which is highly competitive. Some people will be independent and like to be alone for achieving targets. Some people enjoy working in teams and enjoy bigger accomplishments in the organization rather than individual achievement. These types of people can be seen in all types of organization. It is the organizational culture which shapes them towards the goals of the organization. It is the manager’s duty to identify the type of the people and their culture. Then it will be easy to assign the task and responsibility to the right employees at right time. Sometimes culture will create hindrance for success in the organization. Cultural change and cultural diversity will often create problems in organizational development. Culture change and diversity involves factors such as changes in leadership, weak culture etc. However, these problems can be overcome by top management by being role models. Some steps are replacing the rituals, rules, and forming new symbols or stories. Management can also take some measures for promoting and supporting employees to adjust with the cultural adaptation. Appropriate rewards can be offered for accepting new set of values. New values can be socialized for further acceptance. Management must also need to concentrate on transfer and job rotation for avoiding subculture issues. Employee participation and decision making process will enhance trust and commitment. It is essential to encourage creativity, innovation and employee participation to ensure successful work culture. Effective communication is proved to be essential for adapting cultural change and cultural diversity. Organization’s outcome is achieved by proper communication and vision. It is essential to overcome the cultural barriers and should communicate the purpose behind the desired outcome. Communication must be inspiring, motivating and raising energy to reach the target. Employees will have their own perception about the factors such as ability to take risk, team support and so on. These perceptions of employees may be favourable or unfavourable to the organization. These perceptions act in employee performance and satisfaction. Organizational culture is formed by overall perception of the employees and executives. Employee culture seems to be stable over the time and creates stronger work culture. It is advisable to select the employees whose culture relates to the organizational culture. Changing employees to suit to the organizational culture will take time and effort. Resistance to change is a common phenomenon but required changes must be made at the correct stages by effective measures. The role that culture plays in the effectiveness of an organization: Organizational culture is complex and it involves company strategy, organizational structure, processes, management. Role of culture is that it will enhance performance, decision making, and adaptable work procedures. “Organisational culture is the key to organisational excellence and function of leadership is the creation and management of culture.” (Hall and Mehrabian 2005). Culture in the workplace provides strengths as well as challenges to the organization. An organization needs to be flexible and adaptable to meet new challenging opportunities. Understanding of cultural norms means acknowledging peoples differences and recognizing these differences as valuable; it enhances good management practices by preventing discrimination and enhancing productivity. Human resource management needs to focus on maximizing the ability of all employees to contribute to organizational goals. Successful organizational cultural practices offer better communication and flexibility. The motivation, behaviour and performance of all employees in the multicultural workplace are improved by effective human resource management. Removing cultural barriers and facilitating workplace communication, accepting organizational culture will ensure productivity and efficiency of the employees. “The organizations base rests on managements philosophy, values, vision and goals. This in turn drives the organizational culture which is composed of the formal organization, informal organization, and the social environment. The culture determines the type of leadership, communication, and group dynamics within the organization.” (Organizational Behavior: Elements of Organizational Behavior. 1998). Cultural diversity challenges can be broad ranging from basic communications and language difficulties to complexities in decision-making processes and team management. Managing cultural diversity in an effective way enables organizations not only to overcome such challenges but also to fully exploit the opportunities of cultural synergy to strategic advantage. Apart from valuing employees and giving them increased job satisfaction, a successfully managed multicultural workplace generates opportunities for learning, creativity, innovation and leadership among others. Employees, managers and leaders all perform better in open communicative environments. “The strong and positive aspect of organizational culture is most critical to success across regions generally included empowering employees, having a team orientation, having a clear strategic direction and intent, possessing a strong and recognizable vision.” (Organizational Culture is More Influential at Work Place: Human Resource Management. 2008). Culture plays a major role within an organization. Every organization develops a set of values, assumptions and rules to govern day to day behaviour in the work place. Today organizational culture is influencing in shaping employee behaviour in the work place. Work groups or teams within the organization will have their own attitudes and behaviour patterns which may affect the whole organization. Existing culture in the organization may influence positively or negatively towards organization’s objective. Managing cultural diversity effectively is essential to overcome the negative effects of culture. Managing cultural difference reduces conflicts and brings employee productivity. “According to (Alvesson, 2002), organisational culture is difficult to change as it evolves over a period of time. In addition, within the organisation individuals develop sub cultures that may work against the existing corporate culture.” (Akamavi and Kimble, p. 4) Organisational culture is composed of formal organization, informal organisation and social environment. Managerial culture determines types of leadership, team work and communication. Performance is related to satisfaction level of employees and their attitude towards growth and development of organization. Conclusion: Organizational culture represents a common behaviour or perception exhibited by the people in the organization. It is formed by experience and through learning. Core values or dominant values are essential for the organization and are accepted within the organization. Culture is formed by the philosophy of founders of organization and selection of top official plays a major role in shaping culture. Culture has crucial role in socialization, defining functions, and unity in the organization. Culture facilitates commitment and helps to sacrifice self interest to achieve organizational goal. Culture serves as the control mechanism for human resource managers. It is the manager’s role to create an office culture which is agreeable to all individuals in the organization. A strong office culture is essential to ensure support of employees and overall success of the organization. Strong culture influences the business results and it makes strong organization. Manager is required to make appropriate changes in culture in order to gain success in the long run. Generally accepted culture must be implemented and instilled in the members of the organization. Organization changes continuously for development and these changes impact not only the business but also the human resources involved. In such cases, appropriate measures are required to be taken for meeting the challenges of cultural factor. Due to globalization, organization usually will have diverse work group and the decisions of the management will not create problems to the existing employees. The organizational culture depends on managements philosophy, values, vision and goals. Managerial attitude has a direct effect on motivation and quality of work life and work culture. Strong culture makes organization more effective. Culture affects the workplace to a great extent and proper management is essential to ensure success. Culture is important in the organization to direct and co-ordinate all employees towards the objectives of the organization. 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