The Concept Of Organizational Culture
Organizational culture can be rightfully described as a set of values, beliefs and principles which the different members in an organization possesses. The culture of an organization is not born overnight, but is developed through related factors like product, history of the firm, technology used, strategies applied, and the kind of employees working in the organization and the values and norms which are generally applied by the management. It is largely based on the beliefs and habits of the organizational members. Azanza, Moriano and Molero (2013) describes organizational culture as the corporate personality, and consists of norms which will have an impact on the manner the employees behave and how it in turn has an impact on the productivity.
The primary aim of the research essay is to, analyze the concept of Organizational behavior and apply this understanding with the several practical examples in order to understand the extent to which the culture of an organization. The essay will be following a structured format whereby the concept of organizational culture will be discussed in detail and the types of organizational culture will also be analyzed. In addition to this the different theories and models related to Organizational culture will also be discussed which will then be followed by the impact of organizational on the performance in a firm. Various practical examples shall be used to understand the same and the manner in which organizational culture needs to be fostered shall also be examined.
According to Büschgens, Bausch and Balkin (2013), organizational culture is an emergence which is often also known as the business culture and is a mixture of three ingredients which are commonly the employees, the work and the customer base. It is primarily the shared assumptions which belong to the different members of the organization and guides the behavior of the employees. This is the reason why the organizational behavior impacts the behavior of all the employees. Moreover, it needs to be understood that the culture of every organization is different and that each employee is affected by it in a different manner. The different experiences, philosophy as well as the values guide the behavior of the member and moreover, in simple terms Organizational culture discusses the different details about how things work in a specific firm. According to…. It is suggested that the Organizational culture of a firm should be positive in nature so as to ensure that the firm is able to achieve its long term goals.
Types Of Organizational Culture
The competing Values Framework assisted in the emergence of four different types of cultures which can be essentially described as Clan culture, Adhocracy culture Hierarchy culture and the Market culture. The Clan culture is characterized by the fact that the work environment is friendly and the members are typically homogenous in nature (Tsai, 2011). Moreover, loyalty and traditional are highly popular in this type of an organizational culture. The engagement of the different employees is very high and they care about one another. The leader in this type acts as a mentor and facilitates development of the members. The second culture is the Adhocracy Culture. The Adhocracy culture can be described as a creative culture where the different employees are exposed to risk taking. The leaders in this type of organizational culture act as risk takers and prominence is appreciated. Moreover, in this kind of an organization, the use of resources and a profound vision is advised.
The third most commonly used culture is the Market culture where the tasks and the general environment of the organization is based on results. The people are highly competitive in nature and tend to focus on their goals in the long run. The different organizational leaders tend to exert huge pressure on the employees and the winning and goal achievements are considered to be the primary goal. The different drivers are market share, achievement of goals, profitability and competition. Competition and monetary gains motivate the members present. The last kind of culture is the Hierarchy Culture where the work environment is highly structured and formalized. The different procedures guide the different organizational members and policy runs the work in future (Tsai, 2011). The members are trustful in nature, assist in smooth planning and low cost is considered to be the key to success. Hence, the value drivers can be stated to be consistency and uniformity.
Having discussed the different types of Organizational cultures, the given section of the essay will be discussing the different theories related to organizational culture and how they have shaped the concept in an overall perception.
The first theory which will be examined is the Hofstede Theory. The Hofstede theory was formed by Gerard Hofstede and was formed after examining the different aspects of culture and how they tend to have an impact on the business behavior. According to his theory, there exists various culture differences between different nations and regions and hence, an awareness about these differences can assist the organizations in understand the aspect of the country which will help in the understanding of the guiding force (O’Reilly III et al., 2014). Hofstede identified various dimensions of culture in his study and these are Power distance, Uncertainty avoidance, Individualism and collectivism, Masculinity vs femininity and Long term versus short term orientation. These different aspects of national culture have an impact on management and how to alter the company policies, in order to meet up with the daily needs.
Theories Related To Organizational Culture
The next theory which will be analyzed, is the theory related to the organizational theory of Daniel Denison. The theory of Daniel Denison are identified by four different dimensions named Mission, Involvement, Adaptability and Consistency. Each of them focus externally as well as internally and allow flexibility in the organization. Moreover, cultural problems can be easily diagnosed using this theory.
O’Reilly, Chatman & Caldwell formulated different models which were based on the belief that the different cultures can be easily differentiated with the help of values and how they are implemented in an organization. They developed the Organizational Profile which makes distinctions based on eight different dimensions which are Stability, Supportiveness, Outcome Orientation, and Attention to Detail, Team Orientation, Respect, Aggressiveness and Innovation. Moreover using this model, the impact of organizational culture on the performance can be easily identified.
According to the Robert Cooke, culture can be popularly defined as the behavior that the different employees are required to portray in an organization and analysis the different behavioral norms which can be grouped commonly into three different types of cultures. These are the constructive cultures, passive and defensive cultures and the aggressive culture (Schneider, Ehrhart and Macey, 2013). The Passive and aggressive culture rightly define the way in which the different organizational members are required to act in order to ensure that it does not threaten their own security. Moreover, according to the aggressive culture, the members of an organization are required to approach the task in a manner such that their own status is protected. The different organizations with aggressive culture requires the different employees to be superior and those who require assistance are considered to be weak.
The last theory to be discussed in the essay is the theory by Eric Flamholtz. The theory by the author is validated of those components of the organizational culture which tend to drive the different financial results which are present. It identifies five aspects of the theory which are the treatment of people, treatment of the customers, accountability, innovation and process orientation.
As stated in the previous sections of the essay that Organizational cultures provide a framework of behavior of the different employees in the organization. The development of the particular culture can have a negative as well as a positive impact on the different employees in a firm. According to Hogan and Coote (2014), in an organization where the different employees are considered to be an integral part of an organization generally develops employee commitment towards the growth. The employees feel form an integral part of the organization and they tend to align their goals with that of the firm and carry out their duty accordingly. On the other side, even the different organizational managers, tend to provide full support to the different members of the firm and this helps the members in achieving satisfaction. Hence, this kind of a culture fosters a positive workplace culture. Alternately, those organizations who are not facilitators but task masters and the employees are generally under fear tends to foster a negative workplace culture and the performance suffers. This firm has no cooperation between the different departments and the overall health of the firm is detrimental. Hence, after analyzing these concepts, it can be stated that the performance of the employees as a result of the organizational culture and if a manager is able to ensure that these negative factors are removed, he will be able to foster a positive work environment.
Impact Of A Good Organizational Culture
As state in the previous sections that a positive organizational culture has a positive impact on the performance of the different employees, it can also be effectively stated that a positive culture motivates the different employees to work harder in order to achieve their objectives (Hartnell, Ou and Kinicki, 2011). This means that if the culture of an organization is engaging in nature then the different employees would feel valued and in turn become more motivated to work harder and to perform in a better manner. In the same manner, if the culture of an organization is not engaging in nature, then the employee may not feel motivated and thereby not perform well.
There are various companies present in the global competitive environment who make extensive use of a good organizational culture in order to ensure that they create a good ambience for their employees to work in and secondly, they are able to motivate the employees effectively in order to be able to motivate them to perform better. Some of these organizations, who tend to maintain an engaging organizational culture are Solar City, Warby Parker, Meltwater, Netflix and the Great little box company. These companies take organization culture quite seriously and then dedicate an entire team for the achievement of the mission in order to ensure that they are successfully able to foster an environment which inculcates a positive work culture and helps the employees to enjoy their work environment.
Although an organization may previously be having a poor organizational culture, there are always a certain number of ways in which the culture of an organization can be improved. The fist key step towards such a creation is encouragement (Dauber, Fink and Yolles, 2012). All the employees of an organization need to be encouraged adequately and a respectful workforce needs to be created. Moreover, the work culture of an organization also needs inclusive in nature which will then easily encourage positivity in the workplace. Moreover, when there is establishment of trust in the firm the organizational culture already becomes positive in nature. Lastly, in order to promote a positive organizational culture, an organization must also share a similar vision.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the given analysis it can be stated that organizational culture forms an important aspect of any organization. It needs to be passed on by the senior executives and needs to be developed upon by the managers in a firm. It can also be understand that a positive work culture contributes to a higher performance. The essay outlined the concept of an Organizational culture and stated its importance. In addition to this, the different types of organizational culture along with the theories related to it were discussed. The latter half of the essay examined the impact of a good organizational culture on employee motivation and performance along with suggesting some ways to improve and build upon organizational performance.
References
Azanza, G., Moriano, J.A. and Molero, F., 2013. Authentic leadership and organizational culture as drivers of employees’ job satisfaction. Revista de Psicología del Trabajo y de las Organizaciones, 29(2).
Büschgens, T., Bausch, A. and Balkin, D.B., 2013. Organizational culture and innovation: A meta?analytic review. Journal of product innovation management, 30(4), pp.763-781.
Dauber, D., Fink, G. and Yolles, M., 2012. A configuration model of organizational culture. Sage Open, 2(1), p.2158244012441482.
Hartnell, C.A., Ou, A.Y. and Kinicki, A., 2011. Organizational culture and organizational effectiveness: a meta-analytic investigation of the competing values framework’s theoretical suppositions. Journal of applied psychology, 96(4), p.677.
Hogan, S.J. and Coote, L.V., 2014. Organizational culture, innovation, and performance: A test of Schein’s model. Journal of Business Research, 67(8), pp.1609-1621.
O’Reilly III, C.A., Caldwell, D.F., Chatman, J.A. and Doerr, B., 2014. The promise and problems of organizational culture: CEO personality, culture, and firm performance. Group & Organization Management, 39(6), pp.595-625.
Schneider, B., Ehrhart, M.G. and Macey, W.H., 2013. Organizational climate and culture. Annual review of psychology, 64, pp.361-388.
Tsai, Y., 2011. Relationship between organizational culture, leadership behavior and job satisfaction. BMC health services research, 11(1), p.98.
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