Organizational Culture Part-2

ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

    Organizational culture refers to a system of shared meaning held by members that distinguishes the organization from other organizations or the behaviors that is meaningful to people.

Healthy

    Organizations should consider “healthy” organizational culture in order to increase growth, efficiency and productivity. Some characteristics describe a healthy culture here are the some of them:

·    Acceptance and appreciation for diversity

·    Employee’s contribution to the company

·    Equal opportunity for each employee to realize their full potential within the company

·    Strong company leaders with a strong sense of direction and purpose

  

    Performance oriented cultures have been statistically better than financial growth. Some cultures possess strong internal communications, high employee involvement and encouragement of a healthy level of risk-taking in order to achieve innovation.

    According to Kotter and Heskett, organizations with adaptive cultures perform much better than organizations with non-adaptive cultures. An adaptive culture translates into organizational success; it is characterized by managers paying close attention to all of their constituencies, especially customers, initiating change when needed, and taking risks. A non-adaptive culture can significantly reduce a firm's effectiveness, disabling the firm from pursuing all its competitive/operational options. Because organizational cultures affect the people’s work performance.

As we see from the table, adaptive cultures are very advantageous than non-adaptive culture revenues, prices and net incomes are very different.

Charles Handy

    Charles Handy popularized with linking organizational structure to organizational culture. According to him, there are four types of cultures:

1.     Power culture: Power cultures need only a few rules and little bureaucracy but swift in decisions can ensue.

2.     Role culture: These organizations form hierarchical bureaucracies, where power derives from the personal position and rarely from an expert power. These organizations have consistent systems and are very predictable.

3.     Task culture: Power is derived from the team with the expertise to execute against a task. This culture uses a small team approach, where people are highly skilled and specialized in their own area of expertise.

4.     Person culture: Formed where all individuals believe themselves superior to the organization. It can become difficult for such organizations to continue to operate.

Kim Cameron and Robert Quinn

    Kim Cameron and Robert Quinn conducted research on organizational effectiveness and success. They developed the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument that distinguishes four culture types. Four types of cultures are:

·        Clan culture (internal focus and flexible) - A friendly workplace

·        Adhocracy culture (external focus and flexible) - A dynamic workplace

·        Market culture (external focus and controlled) - A competitive workplace

·        Hierarchy culture (internal focus and controlled) - A structured and formalized workplace

Robert A. Cooke

    Robert A. Cooke defines culture as the behaviors that members believe are required to fit in and meet expectations within their organization. The Organizational Culture Inventory measures twelve behavioral norms that are grouped into three general types of cultures:

·        Constructive cultures, in which members are encouraged to interact with people and approach tasks in ways that help them meet their higher-order satisfaction needs.

·        Passive/defensive cultures, in which members believe they must interact with people in ways that will not threaten their own security.

·        Aggressive/defensive cultures, in which members are expected to approach tasks in forceful ways to protect their status and security.

    Constructive Cultures

    In constructive cultures people are encouraged to be in communication with their co-workers, and work as teams, rather than only as individuals.

1.       Achievement: completing a task successfully, typically by effort, courage, or skill

2.       Self-actualizing: realization or fulfillment of one's talents and potentialities

3.       Humanistic-encouraging: help others to grow and develop

4.       Affiliate: treat people as more valuable than things

    Organizations with constructive cultures encourage members to work to their full potential, resulting in high levels of motivation, satisfaction, teamwork, service quality, and sales growth.

    Passive/Defensive Cultures

    Norms that reflect expectations for members to interact with people in ways that will not threaten their own security are in the Passive/Defensive Cluster.

The four Passive/Defensive cultural norms are:

·        Approval

·        Conventional

·        Dependent

·        Avoidance

    In organizations with Passive/Defensive cultures, members feel pressured to think and behave in ways that are inconsistent with the way they believe they should in order to be effective. People are expected to please others (particularly superiors) and avoid interpersonal conflict.

     Aggressive/Defensive Cultures

    This style is characterized with more emphasis on task than people.

1.       Oppositional - This cultural norm is based on the idea that a need for security that takes the form of being very critical and cynical at times.

2.       Power - This cultural norm is based on the idea that there is a need for prestige and influence.

3.       Competitive - This cultural norm is based on the idea of a need to protect one’s status.

4.       Perfectionistic - This cultural norm is based on the need to attain flawless results.

    Organizations with aggressive/defensive cultures encourage or require members to appear competent, controlled, and superior. Members who seek assistance, admit shortcomings, or concede their position are viewed as incompetent or weak.

Entrepreneurial

    An Entrepreneurial Organizational Culture (EOC) is a system of shared values, beliefs and norms of members of an organization, including valuing creativity and tolerance of creative people, believing that innovating and seizing market opportunities are appropriate behaviors to deal with problems of survival and prosperity, environmental uncertainty, and competitors' threats, and expecting organizational members to behave accordingly.

Elements

·        People and empowerment focused

·        Value creation through innovation and change

·        Attention to the basics

·        Hands-on management

·        Doing the right thing

·        Freedom to grow and to fail

·        Commitment and personal responsibility

·        Emphasis on the future

Tribal Culture

      Identify five basic stages:

Bullying Culture
    Bullying is seen to be prevalent in organizations where employees and managers feel that they have the support, or at least implicitly the blessing, of senior managers to carry on their abusive and bullying behavior.

Impacts

    Research suggests that numerous outcomes have been associated either directly or indirectly with organizational culture. A healthy and robust organizational culture may provide various benefits:

·         Competitive edge derived from innovation and customer service

·         Consistent, efficient employee performance

·         Team cohesiveness

·         High employee morale

·         Strong company alignment towards goal achievement

  

 Mergers and Cultural Leadership

    One of the biggest obstacles in the way of the merging of two organizations is organizational culture. Each organization has its own unique culture, when brought together, these cultures clash. When mergers fail employees point to issues such as identity, communication problems, human resources problems, ego clashes, and inter-group conflicts, which all fall under the category of "cultural differences”. Cultural innovation followed by cultural maintenance.

·         Cultural innovation

·         Cultural maintenance

·         Integrating the new culture

·         Embodying the new culture

Corporate Subcultures

   Corporate culture is the total sum of the values, customs, traditions, and meanings that make a company unique. Corporate culture is often called "the character of an organization", since it embodies the vision of the company's founders. The values of a corporate culture influence the ethical standards within a corporation, as well as managerial behavior.

Critical Views

    Criticism of the usage of the term by managers began already in its emergence in the early 80s. Most of the criticism comes from the writers in studies who for example express skepticism about the functionalist views about culture that are put forward by mainstream management writers. They stress the ways in which these cultural assumptions can stifle dissent management and reproduce propaganda and ideology. They suggest that organizations do not have a single culture and cultural engineering may not reflect the interests of all stakeholders within an organization.