Organisational Culture Essay

Culture According to Kroeber and Kluckholn (1952) culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behaviour acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiment in artifacts. Sinha (2000) suggests that â€Å"Culture consists of totality of assumptions, beliefs, values, social systems and institutions, physical artifacts and behaviour of people, reflecting their desire to maintain continuity as well as to adapt to external demands.† Organisational Culture Organisational culture is a system of shared meaning held by members that distinguishes an organisation from other organisations. Organisational culture is the set of values that helps the organisation’s employees understanding which actions are considered acceptable and which are unacceptable According to Schein, Organisational Culture is defined as A pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as a correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems Gareth Morgan has described organizational culture as: â€Å"The set of the set of beliefs, values, and norms, together with symbols like dramatized events and personalities, that represents the unique character of an organization, and provides the context for action in it and by it.† Types of Organizational Culture Organisational culture can vary in a number of ways. It is these variances that differentiate one organisation from the others. Some of the bases of the differentiation are presented below : 1. Strong vs weak culture : Organisational culture can be labelled as strong or weak based on sharedness of the core values among organisational members and the degree of commitment the members have to these core values. The higher the sharedness and commitment, the stronger the culture increases the possibility of behaviour consistency amongst its members, while a weak culture opens avenues for each one of the members showing concerns unique to themselves. 2. Soft vs hard culture : Soft work culture can emerge in an organisation where the organisation pursues multiple and conflicting goals. In a soft culture the employees choose to pursue a few objectives which serve personal or sectional interests. A typical example of soft culture can be found in a number of public sector organisations in India where the management feels constrained to take action against employees to maintain high productivity. The culture is welfare oriented; people are held accountable for their mistakes but are not rewarded for good performance. Consequently, the employees consider work to be less important than personal and social obligations. Sinha (1990) has presented a case study of a public sector fertilizer company which was established in an industrially backward rural area to promote employment generation and industrial activity. Under pressure from local communities and the government, the company succumbed to overstaffing, converting mechanised operations into manual operations, payment of overtime, and poor discipline. This resulted in huge financial losses (up to 60 percent of the capital) to the company. 3. Formal vs informal culture : The work culture of an organisation, to a large extent, is influenced by the formal components of organisational culture. Roles, responsibilities, accountability, rules and regulations are components of formal culture. They set the expectations that the organisation has from every member and indicates the consequences if these expectations are not fulfilled. Mechanistic and organic cultures: The most important aspects of organisation in public sector companies include hierarchies, supervision, control, formalisation, flow of authority and communication from top to bottom, etc., rather than the results or outcome. Organisations with these characters are termed as mechanistic organisations. They follow status quo strategy and therefore resist innovation and aggressiveness on the part of employees. These organisations also lack customer-orientation and employee welfare. Tata Infotech, on the other hand, is more flexible and open. Jobs and roles are not defined rigidly and employees are given freedom to adjust themselves to the environmental requirement. Concern is more towards the outcome and results, but not the procedure or hierarchy. Communication in this company is more multi-directional. The informal communication is widely used. Decision-making is more decentralized. People with the ability to handle problems are given freedom to assume authority and responsibility. This company is a continuous learning organisation from the environment and such companies are termed as organic structures.† The mechanic culture de-motivates the competent people and leads to negative organisational culture and while the organic culture motivate the able employees to be competitive and innovative. Authoritarian and participative cultures: Authority to make the decisions is centralised at the top management level in Nagarjuna Fertilisers Limited. Consequently, the CEO of the company makes the decisions and informs them to the lower levels in the organisation. Such culture of concentration of authority and power at the central level is called authoritarian culture. Such a culture kills the initiative and innovativeness of the employees at different levels. In contrast, Cybertech Systems and Software decentralises the power and authority decision-making. In fact, employees are involved in decision-making. Communication flows not only from the top to bottom but also from the bottom to the top. Such type of culture is called participative culture. Participative culture encourages the employees to be innovative, aggressive and to take risks. Features of Organisational Culture The analysis of the above definitions indicate the following features of organisational culture Innovation and risk taking: ‘Innovation is the way of life in Microsoft.’ Innovation the key characteristic of Gillette Company.’ Companies encourage the employees to innovative and risk takers at different degrees. Attention to detail: ‘Employees in the Boston Consultancy Group are expected to be precise, analytical and pay attention to even the minor details.’ Thus, organisations require their employees to be precise, analytical and pay attention to the minute details at different degrees. Outcome orientation: ‘Coromandal Cements expects its employees to improve their performance at least by 5% every year irrespective of the approaches they follow.’ Thus the organisations require their employees to pay attention or the results. Pople Orientation: Hewlett and Packard announced one day unpaid holiday for every nine working days and avoided lay-off.’ Thus, the organisations take the effect its decisions on the employees.ei Team orientation: â€Å"Global Solutions repeats: â€Å"We Work.† It does mean that activities are designed around teams but not individuals. Thus, we today find team jobs rather than individual jobs. Aggressiveness: The employees of State Bank of India were not allowed to be aggressive whereas the employees of IDBI Bank are expected to be aggressive and competitive. Thus, aggressiveness is the level to which the employees are expected to be competitive rather than easygoing. Stability: Most of the Indian Universities still have the status quo strategy of maintaining the traditional values and beliefs of ‘Guru and Shishya’ parampara of Gurukulas Radical change: In contrast to the stability strategy, most of the organisations after 1991 have the growth, diversification and conglomerate diversification strategies. It is the degree at which the organisational activities emphasise growth and diversification Customer Orientation: Pizza Huts build relationship with the customers and then adapt aggressive marketing strategies. It is the degree to which the management decisions take into considerations the effect of outcomes on customers of the organization. indicates the consequences if these expectations are not fulfilled. Table 1.1 presents some of the components of formal culture and their implication for organisations.