Major Culture Changes - Essay Example

Major culture changes Indeed there exists an organizational culture and several literature define and explain about it in different ways. Several writers define organizational culture as the environment of the business which is formed as a result of interaction of employees who come from different places. Organizational culture can also be defined by an organizational actions or day to day routine such as experiences gained, education, weakness and opportunities. Though the actions of all the parties in an organization which include the employees, managers and subordinate staff play a large role in defining organizational culture, executive leaders play a larger role than their counter parts. Managers and leaders in an organization need to study the organization accurately so that they could obtain deep understanding of an organization. This will help them to make effective strategies such as designing a marketing plan that can utilized the company’s resources so that they can meet the goals and objective of the company (Frost 2008, p 75) Changing organizational culture can be carried out successful by following several steps indicated below. The first step in organization change is to educate all the parties who will be affected by the change. The top managers in an organization should encourage employees and other departments which might resist organizational change on how the change will benefit them. It is difficult to change an organization if the employees do not know how they will benefit after adopting and implementing the change process because most of the employees resist change. The second step is defining what is expected after implementing change. The whole change by nature mean changing a person at a time and this will change the responsibility of the employees in the organization. For example the manager may be responsible in achieving organizational goals within the required time while a receptionist may be required to improve her skills on how to handle customers in a professional way i.e. addressing customers by their own names so that the customers can feel valued. The step which follows is acknowledging and celebrating success. They managers should ensure that they communicate all the set goals and target so that the employees can work toward achieving those defined goals. Besides, the managers should introduce a culture of appreciating workers on whatever they are doing. This can act as motivation to the employees who are performing well in there work (Gary, 2009, p 114). The last step in an organizational change is rewarding success. Several ways can be used to do this. Such ways include; changing titles, raising the salaries and giving bonuses. This system should be done after ensuring that other three steps have been done successfully. Changing organizational culture is very important as it will help the company to change its negative image into a positive image and positioned itself in the market as a company that produced quality products and services. Most companies have made an improvement in their performance in a strategic manner especially in managing culture and change. These companies include the Volvo and British Air ways. Before, these companies had obtained a negative publicity on their services (Quinn & Cameron, S. K. 2005, p 120)Customers had believed that these companies were offering poor quality services and products in the market segment they were serving. Their managers were in a position to reverse this trend and attitude of the customers by changing there culture and implement new culture. The organizational culture can be change but it is always important to change the organizational culture after knowing clearly the current element which deserves to be changed otherwise it would be difficult to change the organizational culture. There are benefits which are associated with changing the organizational culture. Managers advocate for these cultural change in an organization because a strong culture is talent retainer. This means that if organizations adopt the desired changes in their business, there will reduce cases of the customers moving away from the company to other competitors (Colella 2006, p 150) Satisfied employees will perform well and will find it expensive to leave the company and move to other companies. Secondly, organization should change so that they can establish a strong culture which is talent attractor. The current world is changing at higher rate and the employees are more knowledgeable to an extend that they are no longer interested with more salary and good benefit rather they are looking for an environment in an organization which they can grow professionally. An organization should also adopt new culture which engaged people. This will help to expand productivity and generate more profit in the company. Lastly, the company should create a culture which will make all the employees to be free to one another. It is very important when employees operates in an environment whereby they are free to air there views, complaints, and compliments. Organizational culture is very important for decision making. It guides the process of making sound decisions which will help an organization to meet its goals and objective. Besides, the success of an organization depends heavily on the kind of the culture they have put in place (Poopaiboon 2009, p 70). Also the organizational culture help to guide the employees behaviour, this is automatic since the employees will behave as per the code and ethics of an organization. This can be in terms of handling customers, dressing code, and how to conduct business within the company. Many mangers and CEOs have seconded the issue of having relevant organizational culture as it normally justify for actions in the company. Organizational culture can be used by the company to adapt to the surrounding environment, psychologist such as Frederick Taylor had acknowledged the fact that organization with a strong culture compete effectively in an highly competitive market and the competitors might not easily enter the market where the market leader in that segment is a company with a strong organizational culture (Sveningsson 2007, p 64). He had also stresses the fact that an organization with a strong organization culture is very flexible in adapting new strategies especially at a market place with a high competition. Organizations have different cultures depending on their management and the kind of the business in which the company has involved itself in. some of these organizational cultures comprises of normative culture. In an organizational with normative culture, the managers are concentrating on implementing marketing strategies in accordance to norms of the company. The employees are expected to work in a certain way so as to comply with the regulations of the company. These regulations are set in a way to achieve the standards of the business in the company. The second type of an organizational culture is the pragmatic culture. This is a directly opposite of normative culture because it emphasizes on satisfying the needs of the customers. These norms are normally set by the top management of the company with the aim of offering services as per the wishes of the clients so as to attract and retained more customers in the company. Another type of the culture in an organization is the academic culture. In this culture, employees are very skilled and are specializing only in one profession. Examples of organizations practicing this kind of culture are hospital, universities and courts. Employees in such an organization do not often move though they advanced there careers as they work in an organization. Leaders are the major determinants and responsible for shaping the organizational culture because they are the one leading and directing employees. Leaders, according to some of the psychologist, play the same role with the managers. The employees were influenced to achieve the desired goals through motivating them and heartening them to pull up their socks. This will eventually change the employees’ attitudes towards the work and create a positive culture in the organization. A psychologist known as Robert MacGregor had analyzed the two types of employees. He group the employees into two groups i.e. there are those who need close supervision for them to work effectively while others like working and they normally look for opportunities which are challenging. These types of workers adopt their behaviours depending on the organizational structure. In conclusion, there are organizational cultures and it is possible to be change depending on elements that need to be change. It is essential for the organization to identify issues which are not worthy for company and change them so that they can adopt those which are effective in meeting the goals and objective of the company. Furthermore, the company or an organization will choose culture to adopt depending on the nature and the kind of business in which the company has involved it self in (Muijen 2007, p 87). Further, organizational culture is very important to every organization because it can be used in addressing important issues such as decision making. Managers and other department which are responsible in decision making can use the culture of the organization. For example, the pragmatic culture is very important when designing the marketing strategy to be used in the market. Since this culture emphasizes on addressing the needs of the customer, the marketers will come up with the appropriate products to the customers (Muijen 2007, p 87). The organizational culture can also be helpful in the company since it helps in positioning of the market strategically and avoid instances of negative publicity of the organization. The managers should research on the actions of the company so that they can identify those which need to be change and implement the effective ones (Ling, 2005.p 50). Finally, the company can used the culture to shape the behaviours of the employees so as to attain the company’s goals and objectives. This is done by changing the system of the organization and adopting the most effective one such as concentrating on customers’ satisfaction rather than concentrating on profit maximization. Bibliography Colella, A. 2006. Organizational behavior a strategic approach. Wiley India Pvt. Ltd (3).pp 147-152 Frost, J. 2008. Organizational culture. Sage Publications (4). Pp 79-91 Gary, N. 2009. Organization development: principles, processes, performance. Berrett-Koehler Publisher (5). Pp 112-116 Ling, H. O. 2005. Organization culture: a very important factor in managing a process of change. University of Manchester (9). 49-53 Muijen, J. J. 2007. Organizational Culture. Psychology Press (4). Pp 88-89 Poopaiboon, A. 2009. Changing organization culture. Milwaukee School of Engineering. (6). Pp 69-72 Quinn, E. R. & Cameron, S. K. 2005. Diagnosing and changing organizational culture: based on the competing values framework. John Wiley and Sons. (3). Pp 122-126 Sveningsson, S. 2007. Changing organizational culture: cultural change work in progress. Routledge. (8). Pp 61-67 Read More