Analyzing Organizational Culture - Coursework Example

Heading: Organizational culture Your name: Course name: Professors’ name: 28th May, 2014 Introduction The norms, practices and activities undertaken by an organization towards the achievement of its goals and strategies are intricate in shaping organizational culture. The culture within the organization is moulded by strategies which influence the beliefs, symbols, behaviours and actions at an unconscious level (Hellriegel, 2007). Organizational culture has the potential of shaping the success and direction that a company utilizes in achieving goals and visions. Many organizations have failed since they lacked proper structures that allowed organizational culture to thrive and therefore, they easily collapsed. Factors shaping and transforming organizational culture leading to benefits within organizations will be covered in this analysis. Analyzing Organizational Culture Having a cohesive organizational culture depends on the strategy and activities undertaken by the employees of the company. Culture creates a common bond among employees and moreover, it offers an opportunity for employees to get together and learn from each other. Organizational culture is dependent on the model adopted by the organization and it might be based on a model such as collaborate, creative, control and compete (Freeman, 2010). For instance, a collaborative culture is based on open friendly and sharing values such as teamwork and consensus. A controlled culture thrives on stability and structure and encourages continuity from time to time (Robbins, 2008). A culture that is based on competition on the other hand demands openness and quick adaptability especially to change. Creative culture fosters risk taking, innovation as well as individual initiative. As also noted by “Becker (2007, p.3)”, culture within an organization is not uniform, varying subcultures tend to exist in departments or teams, some may contradict the organization culture. Other models include the creative model which utilizes dynamism, innovation and risk taking. While other organizational cultures are controlled and this is dependant of delivery, easy scheduling and low cost. As a result, the organizational culture will depend on certain accepted principles that form control over the behaviour and activities of employees. According to “Hellriegel & Slocum (2007, p.124)”, organizational critical approaches are influenced by Karl Marx, a German intellectual and other theorists. The fundamental of critical approach is that critique reveals the fundamental truth about an organization and the existing social condition in place. These theorists see theory as a force that can emancipate individuals from dominating the organization (Sadler, 2003). For instance, critical analysis of the organization’s behaviour influences internal change on organizational culture. Critical approaches essentially enhance organizational transformation. Organizational culture should be dynamic to allow for the organization to transition through changes in the society and the business world (Moon, 2009). Since organization culture varies, it is hard for similar workplace to support the same effectively. Collaborative organization emphasizes on teamwork and enhances space for interaction. The potential of organizational culture in the process of shaping the direction of organizations has been well exhibited by leadership offered by the late Steve Jobs who assisted Apple with a vision that lead to a creative organizational culture (Jenkins, 2007). Leadership and vision are the two main factors that drive any form of organizational culture adopted by an organization. Benefits of Organizational Culture There are several benefits to having an effective organizational culture as this enhances teamwork since people are able to understand each other due to shared goals and organizational norms. Organizational culture creates civilization within the workplace since it reinforces and promotes a common thinking which is right and sanctioned towards certain norms (Hollenbeck, 2006). As a result, the companies have the ability to collectively and cohesively build teams around its employees and work towards a common goal. Working as a team ensures that people can actively learn from each other while at the same time sharing ideas on operational activities. The two main driving factors for the formation and activation of organizational culture are performance and communication (“Fairholm, 2009, “p. 14”). An organization benefits tremendously from having proper communication channels that it could utilize in the process of undertaking boosting employing morale. Morale is created through having trust, pride and loyalty and these factors have an effect on the initiating proper communication within an organization. Organization deal with their supply chain operations through the use of communication tools and thus organizational culture assists in ensuring that the supply chain becomes effective (Freeman, 2010). Communication within an organization improves cooperation since a lot of people engage and interact in ensuring duties are undertaken. For instance, Google culture is based on the motto “Don’t be Evil” and its culture being built on this motto enhances cooperation and constructing proper relationships (Borkowski, 2010). Organizational culture has successfully been implemented within organizations such as Google which operate under a creative and open organizational culture. The organization has been a pioneer in exemplifying the importance of organizational culture and nurturing the growth of business. One major benefit of developing an organizational culture is prudent leadership. This is because organizational culture helps in fostering responsibility and teamwork which enable faster decision making and fostering of employee relations (Griffin, 2011). Organizational culture also assists greatly in shaping employee attitudes and motivation since people’s efforts are recognized by everyone (Abou-Zeid, 2008). For instance, Google is an organization that recognizes employee contribution through a 70/20/10 formula which calls for 70% duty dedication, 20% to core-related projects and 10% to new personal initiatives (Barbier, 2012). Transforming Organizational Culture There are several opportunities and challenges that organizations are faced with in the process of bringing about organizational change. Organizational change should be well understood by management and staff in the transformation process. Some of the issues that have to be analyzed undertaking transformational change include leadership and people. This is because organizations are defined by people who share certain beliefs, norms and beliefs mostly derived from a single leader. Leadership is core to the development, nurturing and transformation of organizational culture (Barbier, 2012). For an organization to transform into a better run entity it must come up with good leadership structures that ensure people, resources and other factors are organized in a proper way to ensure gains in the organization. For example, technology giants Apple and Google developed a culture of creativity stemming from the organization’s owners and leaders. Leadership ensures that a vision is imparted among the employees of a company so that an organizational culture is created that transcends time (Becker, 2007). This is because even though times changes, products become obsolete, technologies change or leaders die the organizational culture is supposed to remain intact and guide an organization through changes. Leaders at the heart of transforming organizational change should not be forceful in ensuring that organizations and its people adapt to change (Keyton, 2010). Transforming organizational change requires servant and innovative leadership which are willing to learn, listen, lead and build a cohesive team within an organization through any period with bold and creative leadership style (Hellriegel, 2007). Therefore, this kind of leadership should be aware of pitfalls in the process of transforming culture such as lack of integrity, lack of systems overhaul, impatient managers or leaders and leaders who resort to training for the purpose of transforming the organization. These factors are well understood and keenly analyzed by leaders and managers in different organizations. For instance, Enron managers lacked integrity and greed ruined the company leading to its collapse (Griffin, 2011). Leadership and management form part of internal structures that organizations rely upon in transforming its culture. However, there are other external factors that might lead to transformation of organizational culture. These factors include competition, technological innovations and changing management trends (Schein, 2009). Organizational culture might create a work environment that does not allow for creativity or flexibility in handling organizational operations. As a result, a company lags behind in terms of innovation and creation of products that appeal to the mass markets. For example, Microsoft has enjoyed monopoly in the global OS market for a long period of time and thus this lead to a lag and gap in terms of innovation and risk taking. As a result, companies such as Google have come up with ideas that have been imitated by Microsoft in its current cultural transformational change. Microsoft has been forced to transform and change its organizational culture to suit the needs of the current technological world which is fast paced (Moon, 2009). Competition might also be a big factor in transforming organizational change since companies have the urge to transform and compete with other organizations. Learning from others might also be another external factor that might be used by organizations in leading transformational change (“Hollenbeck, 2006, p. 536-542”). Organizations can learn from other as peers do so within different sectors because this allows for replication of successful organizational culture strategies. Companies can learn from each other on organizational culture. One such company is Harley Davidson which learnt of the Kaizen or just in time system from Toyota to fend off competition from Honda which had deployed this culture in use (Griffin, 2011). The Kaizen system which is also referred to as just in time transformed the organizational culture at Harley since employees were given freedom to learn from each other and contribute to the company activities such as innovation and decision making (Fairholm, 2009). As a result, the company changed from within through the Kaizen system which called for constant improvement. The backbone of the Harley Kaizen system is employee improvement whereby employee are involved in inventory and cost reduction with focus on quality improvement (Griffin, 2011). Conclusion Organizational culture is important in shaping the goals, visions and missions of an organization depending on the type of culture adopted by the organization. The different forms of organizational culture such as collaborative, creative, controlling or competitive suit the needs of diverse organizations. The type of culture chosen depends on the needs of the organization in relation to the benefits to be accrued as a result of the chosen organizational culture. Several benefits could be accrued from adopting different organizational cultures such as prudent leadership, employee morale and proper communications. These benefits are averse among organizations with strong organizational culture such as Toyota, Google and Apple. However, the process of transforming organizational culture requires strong leadership and management which will enable organizations to transcend through its challenges and form a cohesive and strong team that forge stronger into the future. References Abou-Zeid, E. (2008). Knowledge management and business strategies: theoretical frameworks and empirical research. Hershey: Information Science Reference. 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