Organisational Culture - Essay Example

The Concept of Organisational culture Name Institution Date The concept of organisational culture is widely used despite its tendency to give rise to some level of ambiguity. According to Watson (2006) the concept of culture was initially developed from the organisation’s metaphor as ‘something cultivated’. Organisational culture is the practices and climate organisations develop around their dealing with individuals including values and beliefs withheld within an organisation (O’Donnell & Boyle, 2008). Leaders in an organisation play an important role in creating and managing culture. The uniqueness of leaders is determined in their ability not only to understand, but also to work with culture. Culture provides an organisation a sense of identity. Through an organisation’s values, beliefs, norms, legends, meanings, language, and rituals, culture determines the way in which an organisation does things. The culture of an organisation encapsulates what an organisation has always been done well and what actually worked in the past (Watson, 2006). Thus, long-serving employees in an organisation can often accept such practices without resistance. New employees start by learning organisation’s legends since legends normally stay with an organisation, as such they accepted as a way of doing things. However, over time an organisation develops norms. These are established patterns of behavior within an organisation and they are part of culture (O’Donnell & Boyle, 2008). The most interesting aspect of culture is that it points us to occurrences with powerful impact, but invisible and to some extend unconscious (Schein, 2004, p.8). For instance, behaviors can be seen to occur, but it is often difficult to see the forces below the surface that cause particular type of behaviors. Ideally, culture guide and limit behaviors of organisational members through the shared norms held in the organisation. Organisational culture can either be visible (surface manifestations) or invisible. The visible levels comprise of ceremonies, observable symbols, behaviors, stories, dress, slogans, and physical settings. The invisible levels comprise of underlying attitudes, assumptions, values, beliefs, and attitudes (O’Donnell & Boyle, 2008). The visible levels of culture are very important since they help shape behavior of members of an organisation. However, the invisible levels of culture can influence the progress or hinder change in an organisation. Therefore, it is important to understand that organisational culture constitute of more superficial features, such as observable symbols, ceremonies, and patterns of behavior, as well as deeply underlying assumptions, values, and beliefs (O’Donnell & Boyle, 2008). Some proponents hold that an organisation is able to change its culture by focusing on the visible aspects of culture, such as rituals and rites. However, others argue that it is necessary to consider deeper aspects of organisational culture, such as feelings and beliefs when changing culture. The formation of organisational culture is influenced by both internal and external factors. The internal factors include the working group, leadership styles, the organisational characteristics, and founders and owners of the organisation. External factors include economic, legal, and technological (Doina, Mirela, & Constantin, 2008). Workings groups exist in different forms in an organisation. The formation of these groups is determined by personal characteristics, such as training, experience, and attitudes, and situational variables. Working groups in an organisation occur because of the need to achieve goals, affiliation, and compatibility between individual characteristics (Doina et al., 2008). Thus, the nature of working groups as well as the number of individuals in those groups influences the perceptions about organisational culture. Every individual in an organisation comes with certain attitudes, behaviors, and convictions, which interlink leading the creation of organisational culture. The leadership styles managers practice in an organisation affect upon the creation of organisational culture (Doina et al., 2008). For instance, if a manager distances himself or herself towards nurses, this attitude can affect negatively the culture of a nursing institution. When a nurse leader is trusted by his of her juniors, this can have a positive impact upon the creation of organisational culture. Organisations differ in terms of attributes, such as measure and complexity. Normally, small organisations have a more homogenous culture, while big organisations tend to be shaped by sub-cultures. Organisations may also vary in respect to the degree of formalisation and degree of autonomy and decentralisation, and this influences the creation of culture (Doina et al., 2008). Usually, the founders of an organisation create its philosophy and establish its basic values. On the other hand, organisational owners can exercise their influence from different points of view affecting the creation of organisation culture. The economic environment of an organisation is normally reflects the economic status of the nation, thus the economic crisis has to be reflected at the organisational level in terms of culture. The legal environment has both positive and negative effect upon the organisational culture. When it constitutes contradictory aspects it negatively affects the organisational culture (Doina et al., 2008). The type of technologies an organisation uses and degree of technical endowment impact upon organisational culture. Increase in the level of technical endowment affect the content of organisational culture since it leads to the reduction of the intensity and frequency of human contacts in an organisation (Doina et al., 2008). According to Curtis et al. (2011) leadership invokes different reflections, thoughts, and images. These may encompass followership, power influence, goals, dynamic personality, cleverness, innovation, warmth, kindness, charisma, and autocratic behavior. Leadership is the ability to use interpersonal skills to influence others to achieve a particular goal (Sullivan & Garland in Curtis et al., 2011). Literature in the area of organisational culture and leadership shows that the two concepts are inter-related. Despite the explicit and implicit connection between organisational culture and leadership styles, slight critical research has been conducted to understand these links and the impact of these associations to the managerial effectiveness (Mozaffari, 2008). Evidence shows that there is an association between strong organisational cultures and strong and competent leadership. This is based on the perception that leaders in such cultures are role models who support organisational goals and promote employee commitment in achieving these goals and the vision of the organisation (Brand, 2006). For instance, transformational leaders in the nursing profession may change the culture of their health institutions by realigning the culture of the institutions with a new vision. In the same perspective, transactional cultures concentrate on the current, where everything has a value. However, in this case individuals’ long-term contributions and institutional processes may not be completely appreciated (Brand, 2006). Transactional leaders only operate within the existing organisational cultures and they must follow prevailing procedures, rules, and norms. Therefore, although both transformational and transactional leadership is necessary to uphold organisational cultures that are sustainable and competitive, nurse leaders must fully appreciate the contribution of people and processes to the organisation. It is important to note that middle management in an organisation can either build or break organisation. This is true despite the argument that there is a strong and positive relationship among leadership styles and organisational culture (Brand, 2006). In respect to health institutions, middle level managers who are effective in their work as leaders and health professionals share similar set of personal qualities, persistence, persuasiveness, thoroughness, discretion are often comfortable with change. Such leaders work though the available networks to find out opportunities, establish coalitions, and drive change (Brand, 2006). However, for middle managers to be successful in their leadership, the organisational culture must encourage teamwork and collaboration. In addition, the existing structures should encourage individuals to do what is expected of them, such as achieve better patient outcomes for the case a health institution. According to Mozaffari (2008) it is evident leadership helps in the development of the culture of an organisation. Therefore, leadership should be used a tool to sustain organisational culture. It is true that the culture of an organisation is usually strengthened by the stories and leadership styles exercised by its leaders. However, it may not be possible to sustain a strong organisational culture without adding an aspect of leadership development culture in an organisation (Brand, 2006). Organisations which are experience the benefits of the link between leadership and organisational culture ensure that they develop firm bench strength of leaders. Such organisations articulate leadership development as a strategic priority and reward and support future generation leaders in various ways. In addition, they ensure that organisational culture leads to the development of leaders (Brand, 2006). Therefore, without leadership development it would be difficult to have a sustainable organisational culture despite the fact that leadership helps in the development of organisational culture. Literature on organisational culture and leadership show that the organisational performance depends on the conscious alignment of the values of employees with the adopted values of organisational strategy (Ogbonna & Harris, 2000). This is an indication that there is an inter-relationship between organisational culture and leadership. Culture is considered as an organisational variable and therefore it can be manipulated. However, the direction, nature, and impact of manipulation depend on leadership competencies (Ogbonna & Harris, 2000). For instance, transformational leadership fits into this perspective. This view may not be true if we consider culture to be an integral part of an organisation. This implies that the way leaders think, feel, and respond to different situations will be molded by organisational culture. The inter-relationship between organisational culture and leadership is also explained in the perspective of the organisational life cycle. Normally, when an organisation is being formed, the founder establishes an organisation reflecting their beliefs and values. Thus, the founder determines the cultural traits of their organisation (Brand, 2006). However, later on the organisational culture created by the founders shapes both the actions and style of the leader. Thus, a leader creates organisational culture and is in turn shaped by the same culture though a dynamic ongoing process (Ogbonna & Harris, 2000). This is true to some extent, but to achieve improved organisational performance, the leaders in an organisation sometimes do not allow to be shaped by the culture. Yes, transactional leaders may operate within the confines of the existing culture. However, transformational leaders may not be comfortable to work within the confines, instead frequently work towards altering the culture of an organisation in line with their vision. Ideally, good leaders acquire the skills that allow them to change aspects of their organisational culture so to improve its general performance rather than be shaped by culture created by founders of an organisation. Conclusively, organisational culture constitute of more superficial features, such as observable symbols, ceremonies, and patterns of behavior, as well as deeply underlying assumptions, values, and beliefs. Both internal and external factors influence the creation of an organisational culture. The internal factors include leadership styles, the organisational characteristics, and founders and owners of the organisation while the external factors include economic, legal, and technological. Despite the explicit and implicit connection between organisational culture and leadership styles, slight critical research has been conducted to understand these links. Although, organisational culture and leadership styles are inter-connected to some extent, sometimes the vision of leaders in an organisation breaks this link, especially when transformational leadership style is used in an organisation. References Brand, G. (2006). Leadership style to sustain organisational culture (Doctoral dissertation). Curtis, E. A., de Vries, J., & Sheerin, F. K. (2011). Developing leadership in nursing: exploring core factors. British Journal of Nursing, 20(5), 306. Doina, R., Mirela, S., & Constantin, R. (2008). The organisational culture and the factors of its formation. ANALELE UNIVERSITĂŢII DIN ORADEA, 561. Mozaffari, F. A. (2008). A Study of Relationship between Organizational Culture and Leadership. In International Conference on Applied Economics–ICOAE (p. 679). O'Donnell, O., & Boyle, R. (2008). Understanding and managing organisational culture. Ogbonna, E., & Harris, L. C. (2000). Leadership style, organizational culture and performance: empirical evidence from UK companies. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 11(4), 766-788. Schein, E.H.(2004). Organizational Culture and Leadership, Third edition, San Francisco:Jossey-Bass. Watson, T.J. (2006). Organising and Managing Work, UK: Pearson Education Limited. Read More