The Importance of Organizational Culture
Organizational culture is observed to be the most neglected aspect in many firms (Mannion & Davies, 2018). The key component of this dynamics is the firm’s organizational culture that can significantly enhance the organizational success. Culture refers to the umbrella term that involves social norms and behaviour observed in societies. It is generally the beliefs, habits, laws, knowledge, capabilities, arts, and capabilities of the persons in a particular social group. Many researchers have claimed that the overall culture of an organization directly influences its overall effectiveness to achieve its set mission and vision.
This paper aims at analysing the role of integrated dynamic framework in determining and administering the overall change in organizational culture. This paper will discuss the different dimensions of organizational culture according to the integrated dynamic framework. This paper will also discuss the contextual approach to such organizational culture that seems to be most appropriate to the given framework. This will also provide an operational definition of this organizational culture. This essay will also explain the role of this framework in determining the link between the culture and organizational culture and between the culture and organizational performance. Moreover, this paper will also describe the role of integrative cultural dynamics and the cultural dynamics in the organizational culture change. In addition to that, the link between the organizational cultural change in a firm and its organizational effectiveness with respect to integrated dynamic framework will be discussed. Furthermore, the role of the transformational integrative leadership behavior in improving the overall organizational value will be explained.
Integrated dynamic systematic procedure is the objective path which can promote both the staff members and management to raise their respective concerns without the fear of any prejudice. Generally, the advantages of the OCAI (organizational assessment instrument) and CDM (cultural dynamics model is combined on the basis of the CVF (competing values framework) into the integrated dynamic framework which enables the organizations to visualize the overall effect of the cultural change on its productivity and growth. Competing values framework provides the classification of the 4 corporate cultures that demonstrates the ways in which the company carries out its operations and the ways in which employee generally collaborate and what are its corporate values. There are generally two dimensions of this framework namely versatility (flexibility vs. stability) and organizational focus (external vs. internal). The OCAI tool allows the CVF in objectively anticipating both the preferred and existing cultural type in a firm and thus assisting in successful management of the culture that can be helpful for the transformational integrative leadership which steers in the mergers. By utilizing OCAI tools, there are generally six dimensions for the organizational culture namely dominant characteristics, management of the employees, organizational leadership, strategic emphases, organizational glue, and the criteria for the success. Dominant characteristics generally refers to the characteristics like values, beliefs and so on which are at the center of its overall culture. Management of the employees can be regarded as the manner in which the employees are being managed and governed within the organization. Organizational leadership can be defined as the leadership style utilized in the firm to direct all the activities and overall operations of the firm. Strategic emphases generally conveys a firm about its overall nature, its actual identity as a business and the direction followed by it. Organizational glue is the glue or the aspect which holds the organization together. It is generally related to the level of teamwork and cooperation promoted in the organization via its culture. Criteria for success can be defined as the standards by which a firm will able to judge whether the outcome, objective or goal has been attained.
Integrated Dynamic Framework for Organizational Culture Change
There are generally three approaches to the organizational culture which are relevant to the IDF framework namely anthropological, sociological, and psychological approach to the organizational culture. Anthropologists are the common dominant manner of thinking in the decision making procedure of a firm with a specific emphasize of who is the personal responsible for making decisions in the firm and the integral elements of decision (Antonsen, 2017). However, this theory has certain difficulties in demonstrating measurable and concrete indices. It is also significantly abstract in forecasting and evaluating the variations of culture in a particular firm.
The second approach is sociological approach which can be defined as the study of culture as values, symbol, language, artefacts and belief systems (Glisson, 2015). This approach mainly studies the overall quality of a decision made within a firm which is generally geared towards safeguarding the values, symbols, belief system and language of a firm and the overall consequences which might arise from these decisions (Stein, 2021). One of the major drawback of this approach is that it intends to satisfy each person in a firm via instituting the organizational culture which would be good and accepted by each person. Thus, this is observed to be dictatorial since a firm comprises of individuals from distinct background and with conflicting values and belief system in most cases. The drawback of both these discussed approach gave rise to a new approach namely psychological approach which emphasizes on a single person’s language, belief system, values and the ways in which it plays a role in the usual workings of a firm (Van Rooij & Fine, 2018).
Organizational culture can be regarded as the underlying values, assumption, beliefs and the ways of communicating which significantly contributes to the distinctive psychological and social environment of the firm (Serpa, 2016). As per the operational definition of this organizational culture, it generally refers to the interaction of belief and values systems whose major objectives or goals are to affect the understanding, behaviour and perception of the staffs as the resultant effect of organization’s leadership (Elsmore, 2017). It can also be regarded as the form of group accumulated learning that encompasses its behavioural, cognitive as well as emotional aspects of a group’s whole psychology that comes as an outcome of the requirement to be consistent, stable and have a proper and meaningful life (Al Saifi, 2015). From above mentioned definitions, it can be determined that all of them focuses certain aspects such as organizational productivity, employee motivation, job satisfaction, organizational performance, effectiveness, and profitability.
It is observed that the given integrated dynamic framework has a crucial role to play in understanding the overall connection between culture and organizational performance. Organizational performance consists of the real results or output of a firm as evaluated against pre-set intended targets and objectives. It is typically a wider field which addresses the things a firm does and could achieve while it interacts with its different constituencies. It is seen that a strong and favourable culture at workplace has the ability to make the average employee perform as well as achieve his/her goal effectively whereas an ineffective and negative culture might demotivate the best staff to underperform and miss his/her goals (Naranjo-Valencia et al., 2016). This means that organizational culture has a direct as well as active role in the performance management of the firm (Williams et al., 2015). Moreover, due to distinction in the organizational culture, same type of strategies do not provide same outcomes for 2 firms operating in same sector and even in same location. Some studies found that without taking into account the overall influence of the organizational culture, the organizational practices like the performance management might be counterproductive as 2 of them are dependent on each other and alteration in one would influence the other. The connection between the organizational performance and organizational culture is a crucial matter in the strategic human resource management and organizational change management. The integrated dynamic framework has the ability to visualize the overall influence of cultural change on the overall productivity and performance of the company. It generally helps the organization to assess the overall effect of its organizational culture on its overall performance by visualizing them.
Competing Values Framework: Versatility and Organizational Focus
Organizational culture has the ability to manifest itself in different ways incorporating the communication style, corporate celebrations, leadership behaviours and internally allocated messages (Mohelska & Sokolova, 2015). There are various factors which shapes the overall culture of a company. The first factor is the mutual values which generally incorporate the team orientation, people orientation, outcome orientation, aggressiveness, innovation, stability and so on. The second factor is the degree of the hierarchy which is usually the extent to which a firm values the existing networks of authority. The organizational culture can emerge with time which is shaped by values and actions perceived and organization’s leadership (Warrick, 2017). Managing the organizational culture is quite essential so as to sustain the visibility and effectiveness of firm in its market. Managing the organizational culture emphasizes on the efforts to retain the factors of the culture which support the firm’s overall effectiveness. Thus, to manage the organizational culture, knowing about the organizational culture is important. These two terms are interconnected and are considered together for better functioning of the firm. The knowledge regarding the organizational culture of a firm can be determined by using the integrated dynamic framework. Thus, this framework enables the leader to understand and analyse the existing organizational culture so that he/she can take effective measures to manage them effectively.
Cultural dynamics is a new model which articulates the procedures of symbolization, realization, interpretation and manifestation and lays down the framework within which to explain the dynamism of the organizational cultures (Kashima, 2016). The cultural dynamics model demonstrates the ways in which the culture is changed, passed on, and learned over a particular period of time. By expanding the existing 3-level model, this model was able to give the required framework that explains the dynamisms of the organizational cultures, that demonstrates that culture change takes place both counter-clockwise and clock-wise procedures over the time. There are generally 4 major phases in this model namely assumption, symbols, artifacts and values. This model has a significant role to play in the organizational cultural change. The change in the organizational culture can be determined and implemented effectively only by the usage of this model. This model enable the organization to understand the necessary cultural change required in the organization. Moreover, it enables the leaders to lay down a framework for effectively communicate this change within the organization. In a similar way, the integrated cultural dynamic also enables the leader to understand and implement the required cultural change but in a concentrated manner.
Organizational effectiveness can be defined as the usage of the available resources of a firm in an effective and profitable manner so as to achieve the organizational success which is propelled by the robust business strategy which develops communication between the firm’s objectives and its needed and predicted culture. Moreover, organizational cultural change can be defined as the procedure in which a firm motivates its workforce to adopt the mindsets and behaviours which are consistent with the overall goals and objectives of the firm. Many existing studies have demonstrated that the organizational culture when synced to the interest of its employees and stakeholders and its organizational objectives can enhance the organizational effectiveness and overall productivity ahead of its major competitors (Al-Haddad & Kotnour, 2015). It can also enhance and improve the earnings inflow of that firm by enhancing its overall performance and ultimately facilitate the employees’ adaptability to change. This means that it is quite essential for the firms to develop an effective and vibrant organizational culture which would promote the employees to perform their respective tasks by employing their full capacity and with required job satisfaction. The major reason for this relationship between organizational culture and its employee productivity and satisfaction is that each individual culture at play in a firm is functioning in the purview of larger group’s culture. This implies that any change in culture of a particular department in the firm would have a significant effect on other departments of the firm.
OCAI and CVF in Organizational Culture Management
Employees are the most important asset of an organization and they significantly influence the effectiveness and visibility of the organization. Organizational culture generally sets out the expectations for the ways in which people at workplace behave and operate together and how well these people work as a team. These people establish a favorable relationship with the firm in case they feel they are an important part of its culture. The organizational culture general determines the ways in which its workforce operates, their overall engagement at workplace and its bottom line. As per the integrated dynamic framework, effective firms have the organizational culture on the basis of firmly held and broadly shared combination of beliefs which is supported by its structure and strategy. An ineffective organizational culture can lead to ineffective performance and productivity of its employees which would ultimately influence its overall productivity and effectiveness in its market. Any change in the organizational culture can significantly influence its overall effectiveness especially if it is a major one. It is found that altering the overall organizational culture is among the most difficult challenge for the leaders of the organization. It is known that the culture at workplace consists of interlocking combination of the procedures, attitudes, goals, and values, roles, and communication practices. An organizational culture change can develop resistance among the employees since they are habituated to a particular working culture. Such resistance would influence the efficiency, motivation and engagement of the employees which will influence their performance at workplace and ultimately the performance of the organization. Thus, organizational culture change can negatively influence the overall effectiveness of the organizational in most of the cases. However, if such culture change is made as per the requirement and beliefs of the employees then it will positively influence the productivity of the employees at workplace. In this case, the organizational culture change has a positive connection with the organizational effectiveness.
It is seen that transformation leadership affects the primary assumptions and attitudes of the members of a firm, developing a mutual mentality so as to achieve the goals of the firm (Boberg & Bourgeois, 2016). The leadership style generally produces the higher performance in comparison to the transactional leadership. This integrative leadership style has been demonstrated as the strategic factor which influences the knowledge and innovation (Anderson & Sun, 2017). This integrative leadership style encourages the knowledge and innovation and produces benefits for the firm’s overall performance. Such leaders have intellectual stimulation, charisma, individualized consideration of the workforce and charisma. The transformational leaders promote effective communication strategies and networks and the spirit of faith, allowing sharing and transmission of the knowledge and production of the knowledge slack. Organizations adapt new knowledge more effectively in case their knowledge slack or prior knowledge is closely connected to the latest knowledge. The absorption capacity relies majorly on the prior knowledge that is the knowledge which is available in the firm. The knowledge slack and the overall perception of the leader of it allow the upcoming exploitation of the knowledge so as to enhance the common skills and the overall absorptive capacity of the firm. This leadership also effects the absorption capacity. Such leadership allows advancement of the design of a firm’s organizational structure and individual absorption in order to align to the firm’s features, enhanced investment in R&D (research and development) and intense the effort to advance the organizational absorption capacity. The overall absorption capacity for an organization encompasses precise allocation of roles and responsibilities and the competences and skills required for the efficient absorption of explicit as well as tacit knowledge. Moreover, it enables the company to get accustomed to the environmental changes and enhance their overall organizational performance. Such absorption capacity encourages the major aspects of knowledge which are intertwined like innovation and organizational learning. Likewise, the leader who is concerned about each strategic procedure and organizational routine via which the organization absorbs the knowledge so as to develop value, build up the efforts to implement potential and attain the absorption capacity.
Approaches to Organizational Culture: Anthropological, Sociological, and Psychological
This leadership style generally positively influences the overall innovation behavior of a leader. Such leaders generally generate distinct manners of thinking, looking for new solutions to problems or latest opportunities and integrating exploratory and generative thought processes via the individualized consideration and intellectual stimulation. They also make significant contribution to intrinsic employee motivation, encouraging and inspiring higher-order requirements which engender creativity. They act as the guides and role models, designing the shared vision of necessary innovation. These leaders are usually the key to the necessary integrating procedures so as to develop the learning and innovative firm. They are generally strategic in developing the climate which stimulates the overall disciplines of the organizational learning and its overall interaction. Thus, in this way, such leaders enhances the overall performance of the firm, implement learning and innovation and ultimately adds value to a firm or an organization.
It is seen that in recent times, there are huge number of changes taking place in terms of organizational culture due to outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and digitalization. In modern times, the changes in organizational culture can be managed effectively by following certain steps. Firstly, the organization needs to describe the required behaviors and values. The second step is to align the change with the core values of the organization. The third step is to set the cultural targets for the organization. The fourth step is to evaluate the existing company’s culture using effective tools and techniques. This is generally done to understand the desired change is more effective than the existing culture or not. The next step is to make a proper plan for implementing such change effectively. The last step is to assess the progress of the implementation of such cultural change.
Conclusion:
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that organizational culture is a significant part of a firm which enables to operate effectively. Moreover, it was known that integrated dynamic framework has a significant role to play in defining the connection between various variables of the organization. Furthermore, the role of the transformational leader in advancing the value of the firm was also determined.
Reference
Al Saifi, S. A. (2015). Positioning organisational culture in knowledge management research. Journal of Knowledge Management.
Al-Haddad, S., & Kotnour, T. (2015). Integrating the organizational change literature: a model for successful change. Journal of organizational change management.
Anderson, M. H., & Sun, P. Y. (2017). Reviewing leadership styles: Overlaps and the need for a new ‘full?range’theory. International Journal of Management Reviews, 19(1), 76-96.
Antonsen, S. (2017). Safety culture: theory, method and improvement. CRC Press.
Boberg, J. E., & Bourgeois, S. J. (2016). The effects of integrated transformational leadership on achievement. Journal of Educational Administration.
Elsmore, P. (2017). Organisational Culture: Organisational Change?: Organisational Change?. Routledge.
Glisson, C. (2015). The role of organizational culture and climate in innovation and effectiveness. Human service organizations: management, leadership & governance, 39(4), 245-250.
Kashima, Y. (2016). Cultural dynamics. Current Opinion in Psychology, 8, 93-97.
Mannion, R., & Davies, H. (2018). Understanding organisational culture for healthcare quality improvement. Bmj, 363.
Mohelska, H., & Sokolova, M. (2015). Organisational culture and leadership–joint vessels?. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 171, 1011-1016.
Naranjo-Valencia, J. C., Jiménez-Jiménez, D., & Sanz-Valle, R. (2016). Studying the links between organizational culture, innovation, and performance in Spanish companies. Revista Latinoamericana de Psicología, 48(1), 30-41.
Serpa, S. (2016). An Overview of the concept of organisational culture. International business management, 10(1), 51-61.
Stein, H. F. (2021). Listening deeply: An approach to understanding and consulting in organizational culture. Routledge.
Van Rooij, B., & Fine, A. (2018). Toxic corporate culture: Assessing organizational processes of deviancy. Administrative Sciences, 8(3), 23.
Warrick, D. D. (2017). What leaders need to know about organizational culture. Business Horizons, 60(3), 395-404.
Williams, B., Perillo, S., & Brown, T. (2015). What are the factors of organisational culture in health care settings that act as barriers to the implementation of evidence-based practice? A scoping review. Nurse education today, 35(2), e34-e41
Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:
Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
