Organisational Culture as a Powerful but Invisible Force - Literature review Example

Introduction

An idea to view organization as having its own culture is the phenomenon of the recent decades which has originated as the independent variable impacting employees’ behavior and attitude. It is partially because of the ambiguous nature of the concept of the organization and the different understanding of what culture within the organizational setting is (Poku & Owusu-Ansah, 2013). Along with the academic interest of the concept of organizational culture, researchers are elaborating the theoretical construct that would underpin culture as more comprehensive theory. So far organization constitutes as element of society where people bring different cultures from own society and while experiencing impact from these cultures, organization’s own culture can be created (Owoyemi & Ekwoaba, 2014). This paper discusses how the organizational culture is created and identifies whether there is a risk in creating too strong culture of the organization.

Defining organizational culture

The anthropological term of culture refers to the values, beliefs, codes of practice, which make the society what it is. The organizational culture is a system of shared assumptions and values and beliefs that show the participants of organizational process appropriate and inappropriate behavior. In fact, organizational culture is one of the biggest liability and its hard-to-imitate and rare culture helps the organization to achieve a competitive advantage. The importance of organizational culture is in its relation to the increased performance of employees, which contribute toward the achievement of revenues, sales volume and increase of market share. Organizational culture is also important for effective control of employees’ behavior being a powerful way of managing people (Kreitner, 2008).

Waisfisz (2016), states that organizational culture is also defined as the way in which involved in the organizational process participants relate to each other, to their work and to the outside world, which this way is the distinguishing feature of the particular organization. If to look at the relations among the members, culture describes the way the superior relates to the direct reports and those to the direct boss and whether people emphasize on the task execution. In creating a particular organizational climate, culture plays the greatest role in enabling learning and innovative response to challenges, threats of competition or new opportunities. The role of culture is to encourage adaptation and change increasing organizational performance (Daft, 2012).

How organizational culture is created?

The main determinant of creation of organizational culture are company’s history. This is because the different attributes of culture were arranged on the historical norms of the organization and attitudes which helped in differentiating one organization from another, thus creating its uniqueness and special culture. The other aspect of culture creation is that is comes from sharing in processes between employees that were based upon the systematic allocation of resources (Awadh & Saad, 2013). Here, cultural norms of the organization strongly affect all the involved in the organization, despite the norms to be invisible. They help to improve performance and profitability. Moreover, it is the task of managers to promote the development of a high-performance organizational culture to experience success in the future (Abu-Jarad, Yusof & Nikbin, 2010).

Ehtesham and Muhammad (2011), state that organizational culture is derived from such traits as involvement, consistency, adaptability and mission which at the same time have impact on the performance of an organization. Thus, while the organization is built around teams and develops human capability at all levels, the executives, managers and employees are committed to the work and feel themselves as a part of the organization affecting creation and shaping its beliefs and values. The other aspect of culture creation refers to the consistency or when the company is well-coordinated and well integrated. Then, its culture is strong as behaviors are rooted in the set of main values. With that, leaders and the followers are able in reaching an agreement in bringing company its stability, internal integration and common mindset. Ehtesham (2011), also speaks about organization adaptability as an ability to take risks and learn from the mistakes, which enable the organization to experience at creating its culture. While changing the system, the company is able to improve collective abilities and provide value for its culture. One of the most important features and determinants for organizational culture creation belongs to mission as a clear setting of sense of purpose and direction that defines goals and strategic objectives of organization. The mission defines what beliefs and values are important and the code of conduct that the organization should follow.

The organizational culture can be shaped by the involved in the organizational process participants. In turn, their behavior influences upon the effectiveness. The special attention in shaping and influencing organizational culture is given to toe role of management as the social function which is also embedded in the culture. Whether management is culture conditioned, managers and management can shape culture. Dwivedi (1995), also states that several characteristics capture the essence of organizational culture. Thus all the participants of organizational process identify themselves with the organization as a whole rather than with the particular type of job. In addition, organizational culture is created through the degree to which management decision affect the outcomes on people within the organization.

How can organizational culture be sustained?

The organizational culture at the deepest level is the complex set of values and assumptions, which should be properly sustained in order to make the culture strong. For that purpose, the executives and managers should understand what holds an organization and motivates people to do right things. Meehan, Rigby and Rogers (2008), consider that the following defining characteristics help the organization to obtain good culture and sustain it. Thus, unique personality and soul based on shared values and heritage is among the main attributes of winning culture. Another way to sustain a winning culture is through cultural norms and behaviors that translate the unique personality of organization into the customer-centered actions and bottom-line results. It is also needed to establish a set of steps that would help in changing how people think about the organizational culture. These steps are associated with the performance of the culture audit and setting of new expectations. In addition, alignment with a team is one of the most important and difficult steps in sustaining strong organizational culture as managers and employees should know how to better embody the new culture and how to break their old habits and develop the new ones. The role of strategic leader is also great in developing strong organizational culture and then it sustaining. According to Eromafuru (2013), transformational leader is capable of designing and supporting the climate where employees are enough motivated to contribute more to the achievement of organizational cultural values and norms. Thus, the strategic leader should decide on the direction of the organization thus showing the way people should conduct and behave. The transformational leader should also be committed to effectively managing resource portfolio of the organization, develop its intellectual capital and thus develop new mindset to organizational culture.

There are considerations that too strong organizational culture can put a great deal of pressure on people. However, strong cultures can be very good in terms of espousing creativity and teamwork. They create the sense of purpose where people have many shared values. On the contrary, if these shared values are extreme, they look more like obedience far from true values and with too much pressure that a team can feel, such organizational culture can call for issues within organization (It’s Just Our Way: How Organizational Cultures Can Become Too Strong, 2011).

Conclusion

In order to develop and sustain a winning organizational culture, it is not enough to refer to the traditions of the organization. It is rather the work of art where employees, managers and executives should have clear understanding of what the beliefs and values of organization are. To reach that understanding, clear communication about the company’s culture and what it means is essential. Another important point is that commitment to win conflict resolution if such appears in terms of culture should be established. Only then a strong culture will be created and will encourage adaptation and change within the organization at the same time letting people to follow company’s main values and assumptions.