What is organizational culture?
What is culture?
Organizational culture refers to the shared values, beliefs, behaviors, and customs that shape the way people within an organization interact with each other and with external stakeholders. It is often described as the "personality" of an organization.
Here are some examples of?organizational cultures:
Positive organizational culture leads to positive outcomes, while negative organizational culture leads to organizational deterioration
What are the different views on organizational culture?
1) Schein’s views:
Culture is the shared patterns of thinking between individuals in a group. The patterns are agreed-upon values and solutions, allowing the group to navigate and solve external problems. In that way, individuals form shared understandings and reasoning patterns that are hard to change unless challenged. That’s why Schein (1991) identified three levels of cultural awareness: 1) artifacts, 2) values, and 3) underlying assumptions. Artifacts are the visible structures and processes (i.e., how work flows, communication channels, and the image the organization seeks to portray). Values are goals (i.e., why and how people work) and what is acceptable and unacceptable in the organizational settings. The underlying assumptions are the assumptions governing people's reasoning, thoughts, perceptions, and beliefs about reality and problems. In other words, the source from which actions emerge and hidden roles are created and agreed upon.
Culture is the shared patterns of thinking between individuals in a group.
2) Morgan's views:
Morgan (2006) views culture as the set of values, laws, rituals, language, and knowledge shared by a group of people, therefore affecting their perceptions and behavior. In other words, "different groups of people have different ways of life" (Morgan, 2006, p. 116). For him, it’s hard to judge a culture from the outside; instead, one has to adopt a stranger's point of view to be able to reflect on and explore the historical factors behind people’s behavior. Organizations are a mosaic of different functions, genders, and nationalities; hence, the idea of subcultures existing, developing, and, maybe, competing within the organization, according to the overall corporate culture frame. "Each group may have developed its own specialized language and set of favored concepts for formulating business priorities" (Morgan, 2006, p. 133). However, they all subscribe to their organizational culture of, for example, avoiding responsibility or, better yet, taking initiative. Even subcultures can be further divided when people subscribe to different goals and expectations. Stemming from the dynamic nature of culture, change requires the identification of the "shared frames of reference that make organization possible, how they are created, communicated, and sustained, and where they come from" (Morgan, 2006, p. 137). Answering these questions allows leaders to reify positive norms that correspond to business strategies and to refute and break negative norms.
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the set of values, laws, rituals, language, and knowledge shared by a group of people, therefore affecting their perceptions and behavior.
3)McHale's views:
McHale views culture as a strategy enabler rather than an eater. Change takes time, determination, and reflection. Change initiatives frequently fail due to the following reasons: 1) incoherence with business strategy; 2) inability to correctly identify the patterns reifying existing culture; 3) attempting to change multiple aspects of a culture at the same time; 4) ignoring the dynamic aspect of cultural change; 5) ignoring the collective aspect of cultural change; and 6) assuming that technical solutions alone can bring about change. In order to induce change, leaders need to understand the hidden rules (the unspoken shared understanding) that allow the existence of their organizations. Patterns of relating exist as unspoken rules that govern how people think about their organizational reality and work. Once identified, leaders can change them one at a time by raising awareness among culture enablers and therefore reversing the pattern.
Discussion
Morgan’s assertion builds upon Schein's understanding of culture. Schein identified the three organizational awareness levels that build upon each other to arrive at the underlying assumptions that make a culture possible. Morgan’s view adds more complexity to the assertion by explaining that within a culture there are different subcultures, each with a shared frame of reference and perception. This insight helps leaders approach each subculture differently and understand how it fits in the overall cultural frame. On the other hand, McHale introduced a focused tool to help leaders manage cultural problems. First, identify the problem, then the shared unspoken rule sustaining it. Second, identify enablers and how they relate to the problem. Finally, reverse the pattern of relating by raising awareness and coordinating with enablers. In my opinion, Morgan and Schein's assertions allow leaders to thoroughly identify their culture, and McHale's method allows them to reverse undesirable norms.
Morgan and Schein's assertions allow leaders to thoroughly identify their culture, and McHale's method allows them to reverse undesirable norms.
Questions:
How do you describe your organization's culture? Do hidden rules govern daily interactions? Did you notice that the way you perceive things changes from one organization to another (e.g., school, college, or work)? Does your organization do what it says it does, or are there hidden matters that everyone seems to understand and act accordingly?
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