UNDERSTANDING ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
According to Lundberg (1985), managers and
scholars alike are giving increasing attention to organisational culture, and
this popularity of organisational culture reflects mainly three different
concerns or purposes. First, it introduces a major new metaphor for thinking
about organisations, adding to the prior ones of an organisation as a machine
or an organism. The cultural metaphor promotes attention to the generation,
function, and consequences of meaning. A second use of the idea is to provide
an umbrella term, under which many other ideas for organisational understanding
can be gathered and related. Third, organisational culture is seen by some as
either the means or the target for changes that have major commitment, control,
productivity, or even bottom-line consequences.
Edgar Schein is one of the most referred
commentator on organisational culture that almost all the researchers included
to this study have mentioned his approach to organisational culture. According
to Schein (1985), culture exists simultaneously on three levels: On the surface
are artefacts, underneath artefacts lie values, and at the core are basic
assumptions. Assumptions represent taken-for-granted beliefs about reality and
human nature. Values are social principles, philosophies, goals and standards
considered to have intrinsic worth. Artifacts are the visible, tangible, and
audible results of activity grounded in values and assumptions.
It can also be constructive to review some of the ideas of C. Handy
and T.E. Deal & A.A. Kennedy, that their opinions are widely accepted and
the author of this study generally took their ideas into consideration
throughout the various stages of this research study.
Handy (1993) argues that a culture cannot
be precisely defined, for it is something that is perceived, something felt. He
also states that the culture is affected by the events of the past and by the
climate of the present, by the technology of the type of work, by their aims
and the kind of people that work in it.
The following
two points that Handy mentioned can also be worthwhile to state here
considering their relation to the appropriateness of organisational culture and
the culture-performance link.
“Many of the ills of organisations stem from imposing an
inappropriate structure on a particular culture, or from expecting a particular
culture to thrive in an inappropriate climate.”
“The impressionistic descriptions of
culture pointed to some of the factors, which would influence a choice of
culture and structure for an organisation. The principle factors are history
and ownership, size, technology, goals and objectives, the environment, and the
people.”
Finally, Deal and Kennedy (1982) discuss the elements of
organisational culture as follows.
Each
company faces a different reality in the market place depending on its
products, competitors, customers, technologies, government influences, and so
on. The environment in which a company operates determines what it must do to
be a success, and this business environment is the single greatest influence in
shaping a corporate culture.
These are the basic concepts and beliefs of an organisation; as
such they form the heart of the corporate culture.
These people personify the culture’s values and as such provide
tangible role models for employees to follow.
·
The Rites and Rituals
These are systematic and programmed routines of day-to-day life in the
company. In their mundane manifestations –which we call rituals- they show
employees the kind of behaviour that is expected of them. In their
extravaganzas –which we call ceremonies- they provide visible and potent
examples of what the company stands for.
As the primary (but informal) means of communication within an
organisation, the cultural network is the “carrier” of the corporate values and
heroic mythology. Storytellers, spies, priests, cabals, and whisperers from a hidden
hierarchy of power within the company.
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