Key Elements of Organizational Culture - Essay Example

Question: What do you believe are the key elements of organizational culture specific to the hospitality industry that may provide for competitive advantage? Justify your responses. Organizational culture is a specific trait of an organization’s personality just like the personal traits of an individual. In today’s competitive world, Organizational culture has gotten to be an essential segment to authoritative adequacy in an organization. Organizational culture’s development started when associations began to address their adequacy, and needed to acquire and create plainly characterized objectives and goals. Organizational culture is basically a set of assumption discovered and invented by a group in figuring out how to adapt to its issues of external adjustment and inner mix, and that has worked well enough to be legitimate. According to Goffee and Jones (1996), organizational culture is “glue that holds organizations together” while Gerstener (2002) stated that organizational culture is “not just one aspect of the game- it is the game”. Organizational culture is important enough for an effective business and so is the case of the hospitality industry. The Hospitality industry is comprised of a list of business whose purpose is to provide product and mainly services to its customers. In such a business where the success of the entire business is based on customer satisfaction an effective and strong organizational culture is crucial. As it is stated above that organization is just like an individual with its own very unique traits and personality, therefore, organizational culture has a key contribution in building a competitive edge over its rivals. Key Elements of Organizational Culture The key elements of an organizational culture specific to hospitality industry are as follows (Alvesson, 2002). Values Values are the most important components of a strong organizational structure because it is a set of its future goals, philosophies and views that an organization share (Alvesson, 2002).. In a short form, an organization’s mission statement and vision statement are the true examples of its values. Values are the key drivers of an organization and are unique from each other. For a successful organizational culture, it is important to have a clear set of values properly communicated to its employees also include the way that pledges to serve customers treat partners, and maintain proficient standards. For setting up values, an organization must have an understanding of customer needs and to the uniqueness in the quality of services (that are hard to imitable). Practices To ensure effective organizational culture, it is important to have a proper implementation plan to practice the values across the organization. Values of an organization are of less importance unless they are not incorporated in its routine and rituals. For example, if an organization emphasizes “Healthy environment is our greatest value” but in reality they don’t enshrined this value in their practice, the organization cannot achieve success. To be successful, an organization needs to invest in its practices in accordance with their values. This will not only attract people towards them to believe in their words, but will also motivate their employees to work hard for a better future. Organization Structure Organizational structure is another very important component of organizational culture while building a competitive edge in the hospitality industry. It is the way that ensures smooth and effective operations, to provide directions to employees at each level and to clear the roles and responsibilities of employees working in a particular culture. Organizational structure is the key to enshrined values into practice by clarifying the roles and responsibilities of employees on each level. Under a proper organizational structure, people from different backgrounds, cultures, languages and skills are directed to work under a single culture by eliminating differences. For example, in a hotel or any other hospitality business, a proper organizational structure will help employees to understand their responsibilities. People In an organizational culture, the most important thing is people because all the operations are performed by people. If they value their efforts and motivate them for their hard work they will feel encouraged and will work hard. Individuals who feel valued from their employer will contribute effectively and devotedly in the success of the organization (Alvesson, 2002). For developing a successful organizational culture in a hospitality business, it is important for organizations to invest in the development and motivation of its people (both employees and customers). For examples, in hospitality industry a business must ensure happy people because their key assets are customers and their employees. For building a competitive edge they ensure happy and satisfied employees to serve their clients adequately. Communication Networks For an effective organizational structure, there should be a proper and strong formal and informal communication network to stay in touch with its stakeholders. An organization must have proper formal communication network and informal communication network including access to social media. Through these channels an organization can communicate core values, changes in structure and culture, changes in strategies and progress of the organization with its employees, customers and other stakeholders (Keyton, 2011). In the hospitality industry, a proper formal and informal communication network helps an organization to effectively communicate the values that they are offering to their customers and will also communicate the demands and complaints of customers to workforce. Stories For an appropriate organizational culture, it is important to display organizational history, its values, its legends and its major accomplishments. If all the employees of an organization are aware of the history of their workplace, they will get motivated and will try to follow the legendary bodies of the organization. With the help of major achievements, legends and stories, an organization can better implement their value in the organization. The stories of a hospitality business will help an organization to develop healthy organizational culture and will attract more customers. These six elements have a great influence on the composition of a strong and effective organizational culture specific to the hospitality industry. It has been observed that in the hospitality industry, organizational culture has a great role in the success of a business. Hospitality businesses are trying to create a unique value for their customers as well as for their employees to improve the quality of their services (Barney, 1986). Moreover, customers in the hospitality industry are choosing their service provider on the basis of the quality and value offered to them against a specific amount of money. The higher the value the more they will attract customers. A proper organizational structure in a hospitality business ensures a healthy working atmosphere, career opportunities to employees, opportunities for business expansion, higher customer satisfaction and a strong brand image in the industry. With the help of these six elements of an organizational culture, businesses in the hospitality industry can effectively plan and execute its strategic and decision making process. Under a well maintained and well communicated culture, they can perform their routine tasks effectively and can make any sort of changes with the change in industry trends and customer demands. Managers working under a particular organizational culture can show their proficiency in understanding the principals of the organization and its consistency with work processes for building a competitive edge (Barney, 1986). There are a number of organizations working in the hospitality industry with almost same values and organizational culture, however, the secret of building a competitive edge is not in setting values, organizational structure and other elements, but is actually in the accuracy of the implementation of those values in practice (Cameron and Quinn, 1999). The logic of building competitive edge is that how an organization connect individual employees (bottom of the structure) with organization goals, conditions and work ethics (top of the structure). When an organization becomes successful in making a bond or connection between the actions of individual employees and organization’s conditions they are actually able to learn the techniques of building a competitive edge (Barney, 1986). References Alvesson, M. (2002). Understanding organizational culture. 1st ed. London: SAGE. Guerrier, Y. (1999). Organizational behaviour in hotels and restaurants. 1st ed. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons. Barney, J. (1986). Organizational culture: can it be a source of sustained competitive advantage?.Academy of management review, 11(3), pp.656--665. Chilla, H., Kibet, Y., Douglas, M., Dike, O., Onah, J., Setiawan, P., Kapoor, M., Si, M. and Pandey, A. (n.d.). Effects Of Organizational Culture On Organizational Performance In The Hospitality Industry. Keyton, J. (2011). Communication & organizational culture. 1st ed. Los Angeles: SAGE. Yamashita, H. (2000). Healthy culture and unhealthy culture. 1st ed. Aldershot: Ashgate. Cameron, K. and Quinn, R. (1999). Diagnosing and changing organizational culture. 1st ed. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley. Read More