Complicated Organizational Culture - Essay Example

Discussion on how culture is expressed in the organization and how the expression helps or hinders organization’s effectiveness Student Name: Institution: Date: Introduction Organizational culture refers to the expression of collective values, beliefs and behaviors of an organization. It is a set of shared values, beliefs and norms that are learned and practiced in an all-encompassing manner. Formal training programs are ways through which culture can be learned in an organization, others include rites and rituals as well as stories told and advice given during meetings. However, culture can hinder or facilitate change, cause an organization to achieve or fail its mission, unite or divide members. Therefore, organizational culture has been considered as a not “one size that fits all” concept. This is simply because there is no existence of a proper or standardized organizational culture (Zaccaro & Banks, 2001). Basically, culture is developed from the past events of an organization. This clearly indicates that for it to be considered effective, culture must enable the organization to achieve its intended mission. Due to these critical aspects, organizational culture has become an important concept for leaders and managers to understand (Mullins, 1999). Safaricom Limited fosters a culture that values and recognizes the highest ethical standards, personal and corporate integrity. This implies that the company requires all its managers or directors, employees and other stakeholders to act with utmost fairness, honesty and integrity. The company’s business principles created its business standards that guide people within the organization to operate lawfully, with integrity, observing and respecting the cultures of people across the world. Basically, this assessment discusses how Safaricom Foundation focuses on the theme of Economic Empowerment to facilitate its business culture, particularly among individuals and small groups in the local areas. Safaricom Foundation and the theme of Economic Empowerment Safaricom Limited expresses its culture by promoting best practices in the implementation of economic empowerment projects. The company uses economic empowerment to encourage individuals and organized groups to participate in the implement projects that promotes financial and organizational empowerment and sustainability. Generally, economic empowerment activities are intended to create opportunities for utilizing the available resources. Safaricom Foundation, therefore, believes that encouraging and supporting small start-up organizations as well as support groups, they can promote local economic development on large scale. The rationale behind Safaricom undertaking this initiative is that Economic Empowerment activities encourage the development of new skills, services and opportunities to be accessed by the local and smaller communities seeking economic development. As a result, Safaricom Foundation has demystified economic empowerment by adopting best practices in measuring and improving economic activities among individuals and small groups at local levels (Safaricom Foundation 2011). Strong vs. Weak Organizational Culture Strong culture promotes an integrated beliefs and value systems within the organization. This provides the view that a culture with too many and unclear values, for instance, chaotic rituals symbolizes a weak culture that can lead the organization in trouble. Generally, an organization identified with weak culture is associated more with short-sighted, divided and inwardly focused characteristics, and thus suffers largely from low morale. On the other hand, organizations with strong cultures remain steady and united even in difficult circumstances. Although the structure, work processes and mission of an organization can be easily identified, studied and understood it is quite obvious that the organizational culture will fall outside the normal context of the organizational study (Yukl, 2002). Corporate culture is a key factor influencing the success or failure of an organization (Louis, David & Marshall, 2012). This provides the view that well-aligned culture influences the organization to succeed, while poor culture weakens the organization’s capability to adapt to a dynamic world. The fundamental questions concerns how managers should understand their corporate culture and the necessary steps that can be taken to develop strong corporate culture highly support their organizational activities. Safaricom Foundation focus on addressing the main challenges associated with the implementation of economic empowerment projects among the individuals and small groups in the local areas. Public perception and legal status have been identified as one of the major challenges because the public often misunderstands the shift to Income Generation as depriving off the needy causing reputational damage and inadequate support. Similarly, legal status is considered a challenge because a number of non-profits organizations operate the income generating activities under the umbrella of the non-profit. Due to their shaky legal status, the economic empowerment activities undertaken do not engage in big business that requires clarity of legal standing. Furthermore, inadequate human and financial resources, poor planning, lack of the appropriate business management skills and experiences, conflict between business and corporate culture as well as competition from the business sectors are challenges that Safaricom Foundation seeks to address in the implementation of economic empowerment (Safaricom Foundation 2011). Understanding the impact of culture upon leadership Understanding culture is important for effective leadership because cultural diversity in an organization has great influence on the leadership style and application. It is important to note that what could be appropriate in one context may be considered inappropriate in another. Therefore, understanding culture and leadership of an organization is crucial for its overall performance. Schein (1995) examined that organizational culture need to be embedded in leaders and potentially fostered by them. This implies that effective leaders create and shape their organizational cultures by incorporating their assumptions in missions and goals as well as structures and work procedures (Cheney et al. 2011, p.87). From the espoused values point of view, it can be argued that organizational culture is directly linked to leadership styles and philosophies of an organization’s leaders. Safaricom Foundation through its culture of economic empowerment promotes a spirit of partnership formation among individuals or small groups involved in income generating activities. In order to develop long-term sustainability, the company encourages the individuals to engage different stakeholders such as community leaders, customers, producers and government officials. However, the stakeholders should be able to fit in their visions and goals of their income generating activities. Developing network is another cultural aspect of Safaricom Foundation. Through its cultural theme of economic empowerment, the company encourages individuals and small groups within the local areas to take their time in identifying and building relationships with their peers, advisors, suppliers and communities in which they live and operate. Safaricom Foundation values the aspect of networking as a way of nurturing in people a culture of sharing ideas, knowledge, opportunities and resources that are not exploited. This helps individuals to connect to other people through people in their immediate network. It is important to note that individuals and small groups in the local areas are required to think about how they can also contribute to their network. The idea is that individuals should not only focus on what the network can offer them, but also think of how they can build mutual relationships. Organizational culture is more related to efficient performance, indicating that corporate culture causes significant impact on the long-term performance of an organization. Thus, corporate culture is a key factor when determining the success or failure of an organization’s future performance. It is relevant to note that cultures that deter strong long-term financial performance are commonly practiced because they develop easily regardless of whether or not employees are rational and intelligent people (Kotter & Heskett, 2011). Although corporate culture cannot be changed easily, it can be focused on as performance enhancing tool. Strong culture enhances organizational performance (Schein, 2004). Through practicing the culture of economic empowerment, Safaricom Foundation aims at helping their partners and potential individuals to succeed in their future business activities as social entrepreneurs as well as support group members. The company believes that by cultivating a culture of how to go about growing economically empowered among individuals and small groups at local levels, the ultimate and long-term outcome will be developing communities. As a result, the social benefits and security derived from income and capacity building or empowerment of the less empowered will be effectively communicated. Therefore, Safaricom Foundation expects to get people thinking in a unique way concerning their livelihood security in terms of greater economic returns and develop an attitude of self-control over their lives. Culture plays an integral role in helping to account for the existing differences among organizations and managers at local and international levels. It provides the view on how people of diversified cultures perceive things in their own ways as well as performs their duties differently from other groups. However, the type of activities the organization is involved in has great influence on the manner in which it executes its business activities. This affects the development and manifestation of corporate culture of an organization. Corporate culture creates conducive environment for organizational performance improvement and its management of change. However, it can work against the organization by creating barriers that hinder the achievement of goals. The positive impact of culture is to communicate a sense of identity and unity of purpose to people within and outside the organization, shape their behaviors and attitudes by providing guidance on what is required of them which in turn creates a high level of commitment among the individuals (Adeyoyin, 2006). The impact of leadership on Culture-impacts on performance and efficiency Understanding that economic empowerment activities create business opportunities is considered a key cultural element of Safaricom Foundation. This shows that economic empowerment activities can excel only in business thinking, planning, attitudes and practices environments. The company recognizes the need for organizations to have clear visions because start-up economic empowerment activities often base their plans on the general vision. Therefore, Safaricom Foundation through its culture of economic empowerment encourages individuals and small groups to be clear on the details of their economic empowerment activities. This is because their visions are the core of their income generating activities. Being visible is also a cultural element of Safaricom Foundation in implementing economic empowerment projects at local levels. The company encourages individuals and small groups to participate in local and national trade fairs and exhibitions, particularly in situations where they can easily showcase their products and learn how others execute their business activities. As a result, individuals and start-up groups will be able to determine whether if their products and services are well received or not and to learn how others are actually succeeding in the marketplaces and experiencing difficulties (Safaricom Foundation, 2011). Motivating culture creates a working environment that ensures employees deliver results according to the expectations of the management (Weese, 1995). It is important to understand that organizations across the world operate within a specific culture. Thus, it has become a subject of matter in the contemporary discussions on organizational performance that managers as well as other organizational practitioners are required to understand their cultural settings. In so doing, managers and organizational practitioners enhance the performance of their organizations and compete effectively (Louis, David & Marshall, 2012). At Safaricom Limited, communication, employees and work environment are considered key factors influencing corporate culture. This clearly indicates that the company’s policies, values, goals and managerial styles greatly influence the culture of Safaricom Limited. Culture can be used as a strategy to drive the competitive advantage of a company. In this case, it is relevant to point out that the cultural elements affecting Safaricom Limited as a Mobile Telephony firm are attitudes, rules and norms, aspects of corporate culture as well as ethical codes and values. In addition, it can be noted that the management of Safaricom Limited has aligned its culture to the adopted response strategies. It is apparent that gaining and sustaining a competitive advantage in sector leadership requires organizations to align their cultures with strategies. Therefore, organizations that endeavor to achieve effective leadership and sustainable performance choose to use culture by plan and not default. Deal and Kennedy (2000) proposed four types of cultures work hard/play hard, Tough-Guy, Macho, Process and Bet-Your-Company. The authors also identified two major marketplace factors that they considered to have influential powers on the cultural patterns and practices. The factors include the level of risk associated with the key activities in the organization and the pace at which the organizations are able to assess the success of their actions and strategies. Deal and Kennedy argued that the risk of making poor decision as well as the time taken to discover whether a decision is appropriate both have an influence on the development of cultural elements and employees performance in the organization. Basically, Deal and Kennedy’s cultural model provides a descriptive view that there is no cultural type is more appropriate than the other because all types created as a result of the circumstances. However, the value of cultural types is assessed based on how the types are used to understand the manner in which culture evolves and how the various elements that influences it are managed in the organization. The authors emphasized that it is crucial for managers to consider their corporate culture as assets that must be managed, and thus identifying the critical risks factors that each different cultural type is associated with helps to create strong cultures (Deal & Kennedy, 2000). Based on the Deal and Kennedy’s cultural elements, it can be noted that thinking about their workplaces as well as shaping them into environments in which human interactions thrive should be a major focus of the management of Safaricom Limited. The company needs to create and promote a consistent and cohesive culture so as to build a stronger foundation for its mobile telephony services and enjoyable work. As a result, Safaricom will be capable of maintaining its high performance, spirit of teamwork, loyalty and commitment to its customers. The change in the external and internal factors that influence culture causes culture to change as well. Organizations may consider their existing culture to be inappropriate or unfavorable to their needs, a situation that will automatically compel them to change their culture. However, it is important to understand that cultural change will often be slow. This clearly shows that culture is not static in the organization (Burnes, 1991). Conclusion Effective culture must enable the organization to achieve its intended mission. Generally, the economic empowerment cultural practice of Safaricom Foundation enables the company to facilitate its intended mission of encouraging a business culture among individuals and small start-ups groups in local areas. The justification behind Safaricom undertaking the initiative of Economic Empowerment is that the activities involved encourage the development of new skills, services and opportunities to be accessed by individuals and the smaller groups seeking economic development in communities. Basically, Safaricom Foundation believes that by cultivating a culture of how to develop economically empowered among individuals and small groups at local levels, the ultimate and long-term outcome will be developing communities. Based on the discussions, it quite clear that gaining and sustaining a competitive advantage in sector leadership requires organizations to align their cultures with strategies. Therefore, organizations that endeavor to achieve effective leadership and sustainable performance choose to use culture by plan and not default. Corporate culture is a key factor in determining the success or failure of an organization’s future performance. Corporate culture creates conducive environment for organizational performance improvement and its management of change. Well-aligned culture influences the organization to succeed, while poor culture weakens the organization’s capability to adapt to a changing world. References Adeyoyin, O.S. (2006). Managing the Corporate Culture for Organizational Efficiency, Productivity, and Enhanced Service. Library Philosophy and Practice, 8(2), Burnes, B. (1991). Managerial competency and new technology, Behavior and Information Technology, 10(2), 91-109. Cheney, et. al., (2011). Organizational Change and Change related Communication. In Organizational Communication (pp.87-113). Illinois. Waveland Press. Deal, T.E & Kennedy, A.A. (2000). Corporate Cultures. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Kotter, J.P & Heskett, J.L. (2011). Corporate Culture and Organizational Performance. New York. The Free Press. Louis, C, David, U & Marshall, G. (2012). 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Leadership, vision, and organizational effectiveness. In S. J. Zaccaro & R. J. Klimoski (Eds.), The nature of organizational leadership (pp. 181-218). San Francisco. Jossey-Bass. Read More