Question based on Jain Solved Assignment and other course
Answer:
Organizational Culture is the personality of the organization. Culture is comprised of the assumptions, values, norms and tangible signs (artifacts) of organization members and their behaviors. Members of an organization soon come to sense the particular culture of an organization. Culture is one of those terms that are difficult to express distinctly, but everyone knows it when they sense it. For example, the culture of a large, for-profit corporation is quite different from that of a hospital, which is quite different from that of a university. You can tell the culture of an organization by looking at the arrangement of furniture, what they brag about, what members wear, etc. similar to what you can use to get a feeling about someone’s personality.
What is Culture?
These are characteristics that help us to understand the nature of culture. When these characteristics are mixed and meshed, we get the essence of culture.
- Individual Initiative: The degree of responsibility, freedom, and independence that individuals have.
- Risk Tolerance: The degree to which employees are encouraged to be aggressive, innovative, and risk –seeking.
- Direction: The degree to which the organization creates clear objectives and performance expectations.
- Management Support: The degree to which managers provide clear communication, assistance and support of their subordinates.
- Control: The number of rules and regulations, and the amount of direct supervision that is used to oversee and control employee behavior.
- Reward System: The degree to which employees reward allocations based on employee, performance criteria.
- Conflict Tolerance: The degree to which employees are encouraged to air conflict and criticisms openly.
- Communication Patterns: The degree to which organizational communications are restricted to the formal hierarchy of authority.
Definitions of Organizational Culture
After knowing the meaning of the culture, we may attempt to define organizational culture. There are many different definitions of organizational culture, although almost all of the most widely accepted ones are similar and cover many of the same aspects. Here are some of the many definitions of organizational culture:
Gareth Morgan has described organizational culture as “The set of the set of beliefs, values, and norms, together with symbols like dramatized events and personalities, which represents the unique character of an organization, and provides the context for action in it and by it.”
Schein’s definition of organizational culture is: “A pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems that has worked well enough to be considered valid and is passed on to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems.” An organizational culture is a group of people who have been trained, or who simply have learned by those around them, how to act in any given situation.
Louis (1980) said, “A set of understandings or meanings shared by a group of people that are largely tacit among members and are clearly relevant and distinctive to the particular group which are also passed on to new members.”
A system of knowledge, of standards for perceiving, believing, evaluating and acting . . . that serve to relate human communities to their environmental settings (Allaire and Firsirotu 1984).
Any social system arising from a network of shared ideologies consisting of two components: substance-the networks of meaning associated with ideologies, norms, and values; and forms-the practices whereby the meanings expressed, affirmed, and communicated to members (Trice and Beyer 1984).
The other aspect of organizational culture that is often true is that it becomes very deeply rooted. It is the identity of a company, in some ways it becomes an identity of those who work there. This is always important to remember, as culture becomes like a circular argument. The people end up affecting the culture as much as the culture is affecting them. Because culture is so deeply rooted in an organizational history of success or failure, and because of its collective experience, any organization that needs to work to change it will be facing an uphill battle and a huge investment in time, resources, and work.
Therefore, while there are many definitions of organizational culture, all of them focus on the same points: collective experience, routine, beliefs, values, goals, and system. These are learned and re-learned, passed on to new employees, and continues as part of a company’s core identity.
