The Nature of Work and the Types if Commitment to It in Societies and Organisations - Assignment Example

Title: Organizational Culture Name Institution Building the right culture What is organizational culture? Organizational culture is a pattern of shared assumptions exhibited by individuals that was learned in a group as it adapts to the working environment and considered to be taught to new members. Organizational culture is an observable force in an organization that is made up of individuals’ shared values and believes which guide individual decision especially at the unconscious level. Concept of Organizational Culture The concept of organizational culture has become a complex topic especially in the contemporary world. Apparently, cultural dimension in any other organization is part and parcel of organizational life. Perhaps organizations may take little explicit attention on issues like how individuals think, feel and act. These aspects/issues are important in guiding the meaning of a right socially shared nature of people in the organizations. According to Grey (2005; 68), building the right culture seeks to intervene in and normalize being (people who are involved in the organizational goals), so that at the end of the day there is no distance between individuals’ purpose and the objectives of the organizations. Even if the managers have strong awareness of the importance of culture, lack of deeper understanding perhaps may not lead to the building of right organizational culture for the organizational main purpose. Alvesson (2002; 65) said that since the ambition of attaining right culture is seldom realized, the fact remains managers should use their abilities in a thoughtful way. There are three things to be considered when building the right culture; 1) definition of culture of a specific organization, describing the intimate relationship between culture and leadership (perception of company, employees and customers on culture) and the contemporary way of doing things within the organization. It is found from the definition that organizational culture is an abstraction and therefore forces created from social and organizational situations are very important to study. Schein (1992; 14) pointed out several observable events/practices that describes the concept of the right culture. These events include; Observing behavioural regularities especially when individuals interact: These aspects include the common language used, rituals they employ in accomplishing operational activities and the habit they form when they are together. Group norms: Originations have both formal and informal groups. Therefore, the explicit values and standards realized, for example giving a complement to a fair day work of a fair pay to employees is something evolving to for a right culture. The formal philosophy: These are ideological ethics and policies that guide groups common actions. Rules of the game: Right culture has its own rules and it is an obligation of any newcomer to accept in order to be a member of the culture. Sharing the meaning: When all the members of the organization come up with a common understanding as they interact, it is shared automatically since the right actions will be done in the right way. Contributors to Organizational Culture As stated before, organizational culture is a concept that incorporates various contributors. The contributors of organizational culture e vision, values, practices and people. Within the environment we have employees and customers to the organization. These are individuals that perceive culture differently. Vision: A right culture starts with a clear vision. The vision will provide the company with the right purpose and guides the company’s values in the right direction. Employees among other staff get oriented from the right purpose and thus prominently authenticate the correct strategy of reaching high performance. For example, a simple vision statement like “a community with low incidence of diseases” promotes a good element of organizational culture (Elements that make great company culture, 2014). Values: While vision expresses the organization’s purpose, values on the other side gives a set of guidelines that set the minds of individuals to achieve the vision created. For instance, an organization may set values like proper way of serving the clients, protecting staff standards or promotion of effective communication within the organization. This articulates company’s purpose by uniting employees and staff with clients. Practices: Values perhaps may be of little importance unless they are protected by the organization’s practices. According to Schein (1992) individuals in the organization are the greatest assets and therefore investing in them in the right way would earn promising prospects. Practices entail hierarchy and clear job responsibilities that will protect and reinforce operating principles of an organization. For example training implants new knowledge which at end of the day it protects and implement the required set of guidelines. People are the major contributors of organizational culture. No organization develops an intelligible culture without the existence of individuals that possess the disposition and capability to hold the values created. Right culture is fanatical to employ not only talented individuals but also those who are suited to promote specific corporate culture. For instance, a company may find a group with low salary but culturally fit to be essential rather than having a group with fewer turnovers. Therefore, an organization would prefer to stick with the fit culture they have (Desert News, 2014). Reasons why organizational culture is important Every organization has its own unique culture. Organizational culture can influence organizational performance in either way (positive and negative). Organizational culture enhances; Unity: It unites employees from different demographic groups with different backgrounds and traditions. This would give a sense of unity and understanding among people that share a common goal. Also, unity enhanced by right organizational culture promotes better communication as well as equality among employees in the workplace. Loyalty: Right organizational culture keeps workers motivated and loyal to the leaders within the organization. Employees feel inclusive with the right culture therefore they will be willing to contribute fully to the entity’s success. Promotes competitive advantage: When employees have healthy competition within a shared culture the competitive advantage of an organization is promoted. Workers will always strive to perform their best and thus quality of their work is increased. This would help organization prosper in achieving its goals. Organizational culture shapes how workers, groups and organizational deal with the responsibilities assigned to them. Shared culture ensures clear definition of responsibilities among employees and this reduces chances of ‘collisions’ among members. Also, right culture enhances mobility of talents that will improve the performance of a group (Recardo, 1997). Types of organizational culture and their advantages and disadvantages to organizational effectiveness (positive and negative influence) Organizations normally have four types of cultures; 1) Counter culture where the shared values are contrary to the broader culture (forcefully formed by leaders), 2) Sub Culture; shows individual behaviours and values in terms of differences in geographical location, job requirements as well as departmental objectives, 3) Strong Culture; This is where a large portion of employees hold similar values that concerns an organization and 4) Weak culture is where employees in an organization are loosely knit/joined (Shahzad et al, 2012: 976). Positive influence/advantages of organizational culture 1. Right organizational culture enhances the formulation of local laws that will guide organization’s ethical policies. For example, the protection of employees from sexual harassment in the workplace. Right culture enhances ethical compliance thus reducing cases of lawsuits. 2. Right culture ensures that all employees are treated equally and with respect. When employees are given equal access to opportunities, work station becomes a nurturing environment that would drive success. 3. Organizational culture acts as social glue where it bonds the employees together and enhances corporate experience among them. This will be beneficial in attracting new staff as well as retaining best performers in the organization. 4. Organizational culture helps workers in the organization understand the objectives and operations. This will ultimately promotes efficiency and effectiveness of employees in performing their assigned task. Negative influence/disadvantages of organizational culture 1. It is costly to promote the right organizational culture. Development, implementation and maintenance phases of the culture looks expensive and time consuming since a lot of resources is invested. 2. Organizational culture normally requires comprehensive support from management to be effective. Without full support, the organization will have different versions of culture which may be risk to organizational success (Shahzad et al, 2012: 977). The link between various organisational elements (structure and strategy) and the organisation’s culture Right organizational culture is the habitat of successful strategy therefore it drives the activities towards the right direction. The right direction here means employees in the right culture adopt the right values that will lead to effective attainment of organizational goals. Secondly, right organizational culture derives and embraces the common language of visions, values and explicit expectations that will be implanted to the strategy. Strategy ensures that right rules of playing the game are laid down and the culture on the other side build up the spirit of how the game will be played effectively (Beach, 1993). Actually, right organizational culture is the source of competitive advantage. The customers are able to get products of high quality with the right culture implanted in the organization. This should be monitored in order to understand the health of commitment among individuals in the organization since the success is directly associated with the shape of the culture. It is important to improve the organizational culture by creating the required/compatible environment. This will entail employing new skills to the environment, setting new guidelines for common values among individuals in the organization and ensuring equity and fairness in all occupations within the organization. When there is a clear guiding principle within the culture, it will be hard to find cases of confrontation between one or two parties and thus decisions pertaining when to initiate are easily reached. Compatible environment also saves time taken to achieve organizational goals/objectives. Unveiling the right organizational culture When launching the right organizational culture, leaders should ask themselves; What is right? For example is it right to let go young employees first, even if their performances towards the goal are relatively high? Is it good to consider personal and family factors in making decisions? Or is it fair to keep uncertainty of young workers with respect to their performance? Development and implanting leadership practises According to Stanford (2011; 82), business success normally depends on the execution of the right strategy and the right strategy is developed by the right culture. The characteristics that describe a right culture facilitate high value delivery that is expected by customers. A culture that is victorious is unveiled by; First, encouraging all the staff give suggestions on the culture anticipated to meet the dynamic situations and enhances collaboration in the work station. Right decisions in assigning resources to build the right culture, Building a high reputation by converting intellectual capital to work-based activities, Checking on customer proposition and responding to it in a manner that they (customers) will consider the new culture as the right culture, and Creating a strong relationship both within and outside the environment in which the organization exists. A part from the contributors of culture, observers as well as volunteers helps in launching the right culture and therefore good picture needs to be portrayed to them. However, unveiling the right culture perhaps may not be an easy thing to do. It is a process and it may be hindered by challenges. Transformational leadership perhaps may hinder the development of the right culture. A leader in this case may use the existing principles and procedures in changing the situations in the strategy therefore restricting groups in the organization to develop the right culture. Secondly, the emergence of new technology perhaps may call for training of employees in the organization to adapt to the advanced way of doing things. As far as employees embrace the current society with advance way of doing things, most of the groups within the organizations still embrace the old ways of accomplishing tasks. Sometimes, an organization may have limited resource to adopt new systems needed to build the right culture. Lack of diverse knowledge among individuals also hinders the development and unveiling of the right culture. Implementation of right culture needs innovative minds therefore, limited ideas may lead to implementation of ineffective culture and this will affect the attainment of organizational goals/objectives. Initiatives that lead to building of right organizational culture Focus on cultural dimension and collective learning processes in building competences As mentioned before, right begins with the creation of right environment. Right environment is boosted up by the right talent and therefore business leaders should prioritize the following practices/initiatives; Leaders should value cultural diversity by leveraging individuals’ perspectives. This practice would increase self-confidence of the employees and thus increasing quality as far as organizational goals are concerned (Robbins and Sanghi, 2007). The company will raise its competitive advantage. Leaders should enhance flexible environment that will allow free movement of innovative minds. This is reached through training and capacity building of individuals in the organization. Perhaps this would challenge the status quo of the company thus fastening the achievement of the results. Employees will be motivated in searching for the knowledge to raise performance thus more of collaboration and togetherness will be experienced in the respective groups (Heffernan and Flood, 2000). Collective learning process through training also develops an environment where individuals’ minds are stretched developmentally. This means employees will be goal oriented where they become accountable for any development objective. For example, job promotion as a result of training process can be a motivating factor to an employee, but at the end of the day a specific knowledge has been built while on the other hand an employee is accountable for deliverables (Dasanayake and Mahakalanda, 2008). Building competencies by clarifying roles needed for managing right organizational culture is also important. Employees who are competent guide effective planning and implementation of strategies through establishment of cross-functional teams who can brainstorm ideas and give solutions. Provision of the necessary resources (finance mainly) would enhance effective sustainability of corporate organizational culture. Ways organizations can introduce practices to build the desired culture According to Pasmore (2009: 3) desired culture merely depends on ability of leadership in an organization. Therefore organizations should have the capacity to adapt to change, implement strategic plans successfully and get prepared for the future uncertainties. In introducing practices that guide creation of the desired culture, the organization should consider; Quality in leadership: The requirements will be in terms of skills, experience,age, gender, as well as diversity. Quantity of leadership: Right culture should be inbuilt in the corporate strategy therefore quantifying the number of leaders needed is a way to create a right culture. Collective capacities: This entails problem solving, making improvements, allowing innovations as well as adapting to change situations. Also, promoting collaborative learning ensures consistency in adopting the shared assumptions within the organization. In conclusion, every individual in an organization often has different values and believes. Joining an organization would mean allowing him/herself to internalize first in order to derive the right culture. Organizational culture has direct influence on the individual performance therefore a right culture promotes productivity while conflicting culture lower performance. The discussion has found that positive development of an organization is achieved easily especially when people are in common path. However, challenges of being in the common path are inevitable due to advanced level of technology as well as leadership style within the organization. Generally, the concept of organizational culture is a process and it needs contribution from every member of the organization. Reference Alvesson, M. (2002) Understanding organizational culture. London: SAGE. Beach, L. R. (1993) Making the right decision: organizational culture, vision, and planning. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall. 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(2012) Impact of Organizational Culture on Organizational Performance: An Overview: Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business, Vol. 3, No. 9, Pp. 975-978. Stanford, N. (2011). Corporate culture: getting it right. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.. The 4 Elements That Make Great Company Culture. (n.d.). The 4 Elements That Make Great Company Culture. Retrieved January 6, 2014, from http://blog.kissmetrics.com/great-company-culture/ Read More