Organizational Culture Is Fundamentally about Symbolic Meaning and as Such Cannot Be Managed - Coursework Example

ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE IS FUNDAMENTALLY ABOUT SYMBOLIC MEANING AND AS SUCH CANNOT BE MANAGED PART A INTRODUCTION Organisation is a set of people working towards common goal and successful achievement of objective is dependent on the uniformity of the efforts. It is for the same reason that Human Resource Management has taken strategic position in organisational management (Pugh, 2007). An important tool to manage human resource lies in efforts to develop an organisational culture. Organisational culture to be defined in the simplest term implies “The way employees and managers do things in an organisation”. However, the factor is not as simple as stated and culture has been an agenda of theorists with debate on distinctive elements of culture; its impact; source and benefits as well as demerits and many more. Among various aspects, importance of the organisational culture evident as some debate it to be glue that binds and holds entire organisation together while some considers organisational culture to be compass that directs people to one unique destination (Buchanan, and Huczynski, 2010). Aspects above retain commonality that organisation is fundamentally a symbolic meaning that can be metaphor with anything that joins. However, despite agreed upon importance organisational culture’s definition has usually been contested. Moreover, changing nature of business with greater human diversity making its way to organisation it is among the most challenging tasks to bring into conclusive linkage the distinctive; rich and dynamic variation into one course. The above mentioned facet asserts the fact organisational culture has fundamentally a symbolic meaning while the rapidly changing nature of business is making it difficult to manage; establishing this fact has been made the focal point of this discussion. The discussion related to the organisational culture being fundamentally symbolic culture encompasses following domains: Introduction to organisational culture Dimensions and source of organisational cultures. Implication of organisational culture on managerial conduct Assertion to organisational culture fundamentally being about symbolic meaning and as such cannot be managed. In the end the discussion will develop concluding remarks endorsing the topic of discussion with evidences developed from the domains mentioned above. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE Understanding the symbolic meaning of organisational culture makes understating of organisational culture corner stone. The organisational culture is a personality of organisation that external as well as internal people see and hear from the employees or customer (Robbins, and Coulter, 2001). MIT’s Sloan School of Management’s Edgar Schein provides general definition of organisational culture covering various aspects: “a pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems.”(Thomas, 2005, p.18) The definition above implies following things; first, the organisational culture is a perception. It is developed on the basis of perceivable environment that current or new employee develop on the basis of whatever is seen, heard or experience in routine in the organisation. Second, it implies in shared assumption that despite of the fact that people (employee) come from varied backgrounds and have their own personality as well but at the same time within an organisation they tend to behave in a similar way having dominant impact from organisational spirit. Third, it is accepted as the organisational way and is adopted as it is practiced irrespective of employee’s personal liking or not. The elements of organisational culture emphasised as extracts from definition strongly imply the symbolic meaning of organisational cultural as well as its non-manageability. It also implies the holistic connection of links and relationships between the employees and team. Organisations do not list traits and attitudes to follow but every level employee of organisation from top management to the bottom down level tends to practice traits that collectively defined organisation itself (Buchanan, and Huczynski, 2010). As emphasised above the culture of an organisation is not documented as general rules and practices as for other businesses processes; but still entire organisation members as well as outsiders can easily trace the uniformity in the behavior and conduct of employees. Moreover, this uniformity is adopted likely or not likely gives support to the discussion title of underlying essay. For the part of the discussion title that refers to the unmanageability of fundamentally symbolic meaning of culture, it does not mean that culture is self developed; instead it is a result of shared values and therefore, directed and developed with combine efforts of entire organisation with aim to compass the performance of employees in certain direction. DIMENSIONS OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURES The acceptance of organisational culture and it being fundamentally symbolic in meaning still requires some evidence witnessing the specificity with which organisational culture can be described (Robbins, and Coulter, 2001). For instance, culture of South West Airline has been declared as people’s oriented culture or similarly, the culture of Sony Corporation has been described as product innovation oriented culture etc. All these descriptions require some evidence and therefore, are described as various dimension of organisational culture. Broadly three areas have been identified that can be used to define the type of culture that internal and external customers witness. The categories are defined in image below (Tharp, 2009): (Tharp, 2009) All activities within organisation can categorised within in one or the other dimensions stated in above figure. In addition to this, since the symbolic status of organisational culture cannot be locked in employees head anyway and have to be perceived from surrounding; therefore, it must be aligned in routine activities of the organisational matters. This alignment is also more visible in case the focus remains in the solving the problems and issues in a way that shifts the cultural participants from one status to another leading to harmonised results. For the purpose, organisational culture’s symbolic meaning can be witnessed in dimensions such as attention to details, stability or aggressiveness, people or outcome orientation or team orientation or if the organisational culture is more innovative culture and risk taking oriented etc. For instance, the outcome oriented culture of an organisation would lead to less attention to process procedures status quo and would be more interested in fetching the results than following the set pattern. All these together develop on organisational personality calling new and existing employees to join and follow to move ahead (Tharp, 2009). Of the stated dimensions above within a broader context, some dimensions present culture in a physical evidence while some lack visibility but has their sound existence as well as impact. Given below is the demarcation of aspects of organisational culture with visibility and non-visibility facets: (Tharp, 2009) Of the visible and non-visible artifacts; the symbolism of organisational culture leads employees to establish their own meaning, image, feeling or values as part of organisation. The stated images and feeling, in turn expresses an underlying culture, ideology and the value system of the organisation and finally the outcome is rendered either to the appreciation or criticism and hence to modification needs. The various dimension identified and their fundamental symbolism discussed; the importance of their source of origination cannot be undermined. Sources with which the culture is transmitted to employees include many sources with following being the most widely recognised: Stories: Stories constitute the component of culture passed on verbally to employees. This verbal transmission include, apart from stories, myths and anecdotes about the past happenings in the organisation that led business to success or even those that are regarded as the big mistakes leaving organisation or employees on the verge of failure (Sole, & Wilson, 2002). For instance, Xerox Copier developed its future course of action based on the extracts from field workers’ stories, Johnson and Johnsons developed entire data base of the related stories of employees etc. These stories not necessarily are ones from organisational employees but also from external customers for instance, sharing of norms and values, facilitating learning, developing trust and confidence as well as the emotional connection between employee and organisation. Moreover, it moves on among different employees of the organisations as well as between employees and customers. Hence, the most widely used methodology for the moving and ingraining culture (Sole, & Wilson, 2002). Rituals: Values of organisation require to be reinforced consistently. For such purpose, various repetitive activities are conducted in a defined sequence (Pugh, 2007). For instance, awarding the salesman of the month’ award to the best salesman every month. All rituals practiced in the organisation are aimed at achieving cognitive content, responses that have some affective impact as well as have behavioral activity in line what has been described in the culture of organisation (Smith, and Stewart, 2011). Hence, organisational rituals are important to light up organisational culture. Material Symbols Importance of physical appearance cannot be denied, instead with passage of time the importance of this factor is being increasingly accepted. As organisation is also being defined as entity having personality, therefore, it also carries great importance with respect to it physical appearance. Material symbols play an important role in this respect. For instance, automobile or even the cabin space and its decoration facilitated to employees comprehend the organisational culture with high intensity. It symbolises to employees as well as external visitors’ kind of culture an organisation characterises, importance given to various aspect and persons is also clearly presented in these material symbols. For instance, the Google has been taking place among leading positions on best places to work. The cultural audit endorses the importance and role of variety of measure taken for instance, Google office is established with the creativity and healthy environment is evident from every corner (CNN Money, 2012). Language No mode of communication can take place of Language. Language used in an organisation has the most dominant impact among other cultural artifacts and can over throw the effect of other cultural transmission symbols (Buchanan, and Huczynski, 2010). Many organisations develop their own jargons developing the sense of unity among employees. For instance, Microsoft has its own unique language (jargons). Also simple utilisation of language includes organisation naming their employees partners and not employees develop strong bonding and respect among employees. Moreover, it is also important for employees to understand and use language (jargon) in the right place as it is crucial to business success. It also envisages the integration of organisational culture in employees’ day to day organisational routines (Bailey, 2009). ORGANISATION’S CULTURAL IMPLICATION AND MANAGERIAL CONDUCT As all cultural conduct is not stated or documented but is still crucial part of organisation. Similarly, implication of organisational cultural on managerial conduct and employees is also not among the document facts but is explicit part of organisational, managerial as well as employee behavior (Robbins, and Coulter, 2001). These implications are evident in every aspect of business from planning, organising, controlling and leading. For instance, the innovation being stated among the most important practices to be followed in most of organisations yet if the organisation is only concerned to meet the competition then none of the managers would take an extra mileage effort for developing or innovating product or service that is above the market expectations. It is for the same reason that among all organisation giving consistent declaration of innovative culture in documents yet only few takes consistent lead on innovative developments. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE IS FUNDAMENTALLY ABOUT SYMBOLIC MEANING AND AS SUCH CANNOT BE MANAGED The above discussion related to organisation culture, its dimensions and sources and managerial implication have been consistent in endorsing the title of the discussion. The culture of an organisation is hence, can be well described as negotiated order that is developed and influenced by those who retain the power (symbolically) to describe various situations in the market (Pugh, 2007). Moreover, this power not only rests in the hands of top management as other strategic decision making does; instead, the symbolic power rests in the hands and behavior of each employee. Therefore, culture of an organisation disseminates from perception guided practice of employees than ordered deal. CONCLUSION The discussion on the topic of symbolic meaning of culture and this characteristic making it non-manageable has reached conclusion that asserts the title with assessment of various aspects. Hence, the cultural reality of an organisation is much more than what is actually stated in the practicing guideline of an organisation. Moreover, it traces its strength from day to day employee practice, irrespective of their position in organisation. Hence, culture being fundamentally symbolic meaning puts the social actors of an organisation as the focal point of dispersion and practice of organisation wide characters makes culture non-manageable as against other sets of procedures and practices. PART B CRITICAL RESOURCE AND CRITICAL ENGAGMENT AND ESSAY OUTLINE AND ASSESSMENT INTRODUCTION An essay, if simply defines, is piece of work the opens up various dimension of knowledge to reader as well as writer. Being comprehensive combination of information put together in defined order with specific format, at one hand, enables readers to gain knowledge about certain aspects that has been assembled with writers understanding, hence opening a new dimension of thought. On the other hand, essay has great important to writer as well for many reason. Some these factors include writer to formulate and present an idea studies various aspects and dimension of the topic and develops own knowledge base; selection of the critical resource leads writer to assess the quality of the resource hence, strengthen the ability as well as the quality of the writing the sound judgments with reference behind the idea. Hence, essay, thought small piece of writing provides considerable benefits to both parties involved. The writer of the essay entitled Organisational Culture Is Fundamentally about Symbolic Meaning and As Such Cannot Be Managed has also followed stated procedure in arriving piece of writing offering stated benefits to both parties. This section of the essay puts together the information related to resources used and its critical assessment. It also provides information related to the resources that were made part of the study yet has not been utilised in strengthening the idea of essay and reason behind the fact. Moreover, this section also in detail entails the outline for the essay with reasoning that asserts the importance of dimensions made part of the idea presented. Hence, this section provides technical details accounted in papering the final essay. RESOURCES AND CRITICAL ENGAGEMENT Every activity requires resource for reaching the planned outcome and critical importance of resource lays in fact that strength of resource serves as foundation stone for the outcome and also translates into strength of outcome. The rule is universal and hence applicable with more endorsed importance in presenting a piece of knowledge. Hence, has been greatly adhered in this writing as well. The resource utilised in preparing this essay includes books, research journals, news and articles. The book that has been used as the basic guideline for the essay is also one regarded as the most critical resource for management. Book entitled Management written by Stephen P. Robbins and Marry Coulter (seventh Edition) referred for explaining the culture, its dimensions and sources. The book detailed organisation culture as its personality and so in details addressed the various traits of this personality development as well as sources that are most dominantly regarded as sources of organisational culture. Also major contribution for this essay has been taken from two articles, first, Defining “Culture” and “Organisational Culture”: From Anthropology to the Office by: Bruce M. Tharp. The article is a piece of resource from the library of Haworth. Haworth is a furniture and interior solution centre and maintains work place library to provide employees understanding and guideline for the critical aspects of business. The piece of writing lend multi-facet benefit to the essay; first, the details the organisational culture; various places from organisational from where culture springs. It also allowed developing understanding of uniformity between the concepts prescribed in academic literature and concept from industry practicing professional. The second article that has been used as critical resource to this essay has been Culture in Business: Using a Symbolic Approach to Connect Organisational and Corporate Cultures by Christopher D. Bailey. Critical support this paper lend the essay under discussion is the concept and theory of symbolic aspect of culture. in addition to this, two other books that have been referred were also used in order to analyse the topic critically. These two books also helped the essay more critically sound and stronger. The books were Organisational Behaviour: an Introductory Text (Seventh Edition) written by Buchanan, D. and Huczynski, A. (2010) and Organisation Theory: Selected Classic Readings (Fifth Edition) written by - Pugh (2007). The extensive piece of literature has undertaken various authentic resources to assess the symbolic anthropology of culture and discussed in detail the symbolic view of organisational culture. Along with it, it also provides identification of actors of an organisation that play critical roles in developing culture and giving specific face to the organisational personality. Combination of knowledge based developed from these three resources has been made the foundation of the essay. These provided the level of meaning to essay in developing engaging discussion. In addition to this various source has been accessed to add value to the framework developed with these resources. Research paper entitled Storytelling in Organisations: the Power and Traps of Using Stories to Share Knowledge in Organisations by Deborah Sole and Daniel Gray Wilson from Harvard Graduate School of Education; Organisational Rituals: Features, Functions and Mechanisms by Aaron C.T. Smith and Bob Stewart published by Social Sciences Research Network has been used for explanation of stories and ritual respectively. Example of Google for material symbol has been resourced from CNN. Another book that has been studied for developing sound understanding of the topic includes Gender, Culture and Organisational Change: Putting Theory into Practice by Catherine Itzen. Hence, the entire essay has critically taken into consideration importance of authentic resources to in presenting an idea and hence has accounted resources that ensure sound engaging element in the discussion. Apart from the books and resources mentioned above, it was planned to utilise Managing Human Resource by (Seventh Edition) by Luis Gomez-Mejia, Robert Cardy David Balkin. However, at later stage it was excluded from being made part of essay as the information in the book was though extensive and sound though but could not develop relevance to the core of idea of essay being Organisational Culture Is Fundamentally about Symbolic Meaning and As Such Cannot Be Managed. Similarly, Organisational Culture and Leadership (J-B US non-Franchise Leadership) (third Edition) by Edgar H. Schein; Gender, Symbolism and Organisational Cultures by Silvia Gherardi were among additional resources initially planned to be made part of the study but excluded during essay preparation for the constraints from scope and size requiring to limit the dimension included in the study. ESSAY OUTLINE AND ASSESSMENT The essay outline is like a structure build that is filled by concrete to at later stage to finish the building; hence, outline is the guideline built for the structure of an essay. Following the technical direction for preparing an essay, initial study was conducted to determine critical areas to be addressed in relevance to the title of essay being Organisational Culture Is Fundamentally about Symbolic Meaning and As Such Cannot Be Managed. This section indentifies the outline of structure and discusses the details entailed in it. The essay initiated with introduction that discussed in a broader domain the culture of an organisation. In the similar section the writer has developed the critical background from definition followed by developing ground for the topic of discussion by identifying the symbolic as well as non-manageable characteristics of an organisational culture. Followed by this, the introduction section provides listing of areas to be addressed in the essay. Discussion part develops segregation to provide clear demarcation for the various aspects studied. It initiated with the definition of organisational culture. Extracting insight from definition it elaborates three major aspects from definition. The explanation maintained critical focus on the fact that discussion shall account the perspectives that engage fundamental meaning of culture being symbolic that leads to its non-manageability characteristics. The later section discussed dimension and sources of culture that provide assertion to the topic of discussion. Dimension of culture with respect to assumption, values, and artifacts along with highlighting the visible as well as non visible facets of cultural dimensions. This section also entailed in detail the sources of organisational culture. Among various sources stories, rituals, material symbols and language were made part of discussion as being considered most important and dominant source of organisational culture. It elaborated the prospects that are entailed in these sources; for instance, ways developing special jargon for the business or narrating stories that changed the shape of organisation; importance and role of material symbol that is regarded as the physical appearance of culture in the organisation and leads it to certain place such as Google being regarded as best place to work and among many factors the office building and facilitation has led to Google to achieve mentioned position. The next section discussed the implication of the organisational culture and managerial conduct. Implication of the organisational culture and managerial conduct highlighted the impact that cultural poses to entire managerial processes. Relating to managerial function in broader context that include planning, organising, leading and controlling with impact from organisational culture, it enforces that despite being non-documented the impact of culture is evident in organisational as well as managerial conduct. Before concluding the discussion, the essay developed specific part that combines insight developed in overall discussion and endorsing the topic of discussion. This section puts more focus on the non-manageable aspect of the organisational culture. Within this section, it refers to fact the cultural non-manageability arises from the fact that culture in the only organisation wide phenomenon that is influenced from each and every employee unlike other decisions that rest in the hands of few people only and hence can be influenced. Final section of conclusion entails the concluding remark that gives support to the discussion for being in line with the topic. Since essay only indented to develop discussion for the topic; therefore, it does not include writer’s view or any recommendation. The essay follows the guideline mentioned above. The guideline also has been developed keeping in mind the connectivity between the areas discussed. In addition to this it has maintained consideration to engage the relationship between dimensions as well as the topic of the discussion. CONCLUSION Essay is an important source or format to present idea in a way enabling reader to comprehend from the concrete and critically assessed piece of knowledge. Along with the benefits essay offer to the reader it also benefits writer to explore valuable knowledge from various sources. This section of essay discussed in detail the backdrop in preparing essay Organisational Culture Is Fundamentally about Symbolic Meaning and As Such Cannot Be Managed. This backdrop includes critical assessment of resources such as books, research journals, articles etc and their respective inclusion in the essay that has been made on the basis of level of engagement resource material offers to essay. Also similar has been made the ground for exclusion of resource as well. Further, format outlined with reasoning made part of this section of essay documents in detail components of the essay. Nevertheless, this section of essay can be regarded as document detailing foundation elements and structure of essay. References Bailey, C. (2009). Culture in Business: Using a Symbolic Approach to Connect Organizational and Corporate Cultures. Available from http://www.baileyworkplay.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/culture_in_business-using_a_symbolic_approach.pdf [Accessed 16 January 2013] Buchanan, D. and Huczynski, A. (2010). Organizational Behaviour: an Introductory Text (Seventh Edition). Harlow: Pearson Education. CNN Money. (2012). Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For. Available from http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/best-companies/ [Accessed 16 January 2013] Gherardi, S. (1995). Gender, Symbolism and Organizational Cultures.  New Jersey, SAGE Publications. Gomez-Mejia, L., Balkin, D., and Cardy, R. (2011). Managing Human Resource Seventh Edition. London, Prentice Hall. Itzen, C. (1995). Gender, culture and organizational change: putting theory into practice. London, Routledge. Pugh, D. (2007). Organization Theory: Selected Classic Readings (Fifth Edition). London, Penguin. Robbins, S., and Coulter, M. (2001).Management (Seventh Edition). London, Pearson. Schein, E. (2004). Organizational Culture and Leadership (J-B US non-Franchise Leadership, Third Edition. New York, Jossey-Bass. Smith, A., and Stewart, B. (2011). ‘Organizational Rituals: Features, Functions and Mechanisms’. International Journal of Management Reviews, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 113-133. Sole, D., & Wilson, D. G. (2002). ‘Storytelling in organizations: The power and traps of using stories to share knowledge in organizations’. LILA, Harvard, Graduate School of Education, Available from http://www.providersedge.com/docs/km_articles/Storytelling_in_Organizations.pdf [Accessed 16 January 2013] Tharp, B. (2009). ‘Defining “Culture” and “Organizational Culture”: From Anthropology to the Office’. Haworth, Available from http://www.haworth.com/en-us/knowledge/workplace-library/documents/defining-culture-and-organizationa-culture_5.pdf [Accessed 16 January 2013] Thomas, S. (2005). Improving Maintenance & Reliability Through Cultural Change. New York, Industrial Press. Read More