How Far can Individuals Influence an Orgnization's Culture

Culture is an observable, powerful force in any organization. “Made up of its members’ shared values, beliefs, symbols, and behaviors, culture guides individual decisions and actions at the unconscious level. As a result, it can have a potent effect on a company’s well-being and success” (One Page, n.d.).

“Culture consists of the symbols, rituals, language, and social dramas that highlight organizational life, including myths, stories, and jargon. It includes the shared meanings associated with the symbols, rituals, and language. Culture combines the philosophy of the firm with beliefs, expectations, and values shared by members. It contains the stories and myths about the company's founder and its current leading figures. Organizational culture consists of a set of shared meanings and values held by a set of members in an organization that distinguish the organization from other organizations. An organization's culture determines how it perceives and reacts to the larger environment (Becker, 1982; Schein, 1996). Culture determines the nature

The culture of a company develops over time through shared experience (Schein, 2004, p. 17) or management attempts to dictate the culture, but the employees must embrace the culture for it to be effective. Interestingly, when describing a culture there are many ways to define how things feel within the company, however, this is not an objective evaluation but instead subjective. “Culture is not primarily ‘inside’ people’s heads, but somewhere ‘between’ the heads of a group of people where symbols and meanings are publicly expressed (Alvesson, 2002, p. 4).” Some might describe the company’s climate, philosophy, values, or habits, although no hard and fast method of evaluation pins down a company’s culture by impartial means (Robbins & Judge, 2009, p. 554). Just as companies grow, so can their culture; what began, as an innovative, individualist, growth driven environment, may become a team based, highly skilled, ritualized environment as changes in the company dictate shifts in management and employees.

All Organisations posses a distinct form of culture with some having more than a single culture. This culture is usually very difficult to measure, change and most especially change.

“Organizational culture consists of a set of shared meanings and values held by a set of members in an organization that distinguish the organization from other organizations” (Baack, 2012). These shared values have a strong influence on the people in the organization and dictate how they dress, act, and perform their jobs. Culture plays a huge role in the guiding of the behaviors of employees of an organization. There are three stages of culture that interact with one another to influence the behaviors in the organization. These stages are: observable artifacts, espoused values, and enacted values.

Culture within an organisation is a system of shared values, beliefs and norms of individuals in the organisation and how the value consensus creates a way in which people behave. The shared values have a strong influence on the individuals in the organisation and dictates how a person acts, dresses and performs in their job. A unique culture is developed and maintained by an organisation which provides guidelines and boundaries, through informal means, for the behaviour of the people within the organisation.

Within the field of management, the success and failure of the modern business organisation has been largely depicted by the intricate concept of culture. Organisational culture, a concept borrowed from borrowed mostly from anthropology typically is defined as a complex set of values, beliefs, assumptions and symbols that define the way in which an organisation conducts and manages its business (Barney 1986). Management is not just an act of change, but the responsibility for and control of a company or similar organisation (Willmott 1983). It is the management of organisational culture that merely drives the

In the 1980’s business experts began to realize the root to organizational success or failure is through its culture. The culture of an organization is the belief that guides each employee in knowing what to do and what not to do and it also affect the public perception of the organization’s brand. Therefore culture is the shared social knowledge within an organization regarding the rules, norms and values (Colquitt, Lepine, & Wesson, 2012). Although, no two cultures are alike, there are components and characteristics that help business experts to define an organization’s culture.

Organizational culture defines not only who we are as a business entity, but is also foundation or the blood line for the organization. Management

Organizational culture comprises the fundamental values, assumptions, and beliefs held in common by members of an organization (O’Hagan, & Persaud, 2009). What is known is that employees often impart the organizational culture to their colleagues whereupon the culture effects how employees relate to one another and their work environment. What can be said is that the development of an organization’s culture is dependent on elements such as structure, change and policies (Urrabazo, 2006). Furthermore, according to Griffin, Moorhead and Gregory (2009), it is recognized that employee’s behaviours and attitudes can be influenced in a

The culture of an organization is as unique and diverse as the individuals are who live and work within it. In fact, the above definition of organizational culture provided by Schein (1985a) suggests an image of a living, breathing and influential force engaged in a series of reciprocal interactions with its members. Furthermore, the culture of an organization does not simply appear but is one that is constructed and developed over a period of time. For example, Stackman, Pinder and Conner (2000) describe organizational culture as being comprised of a system of layering or as a “deep construct.” The idea being that the culture of an organization is similar to the skin of an onion encompassing layers of values, beliefs, assumptions,

As the organization 's culture matures, employees will learn the pivotal values and norms from the organization 's formal socialization practices and from the signs, symbols, stories, rites, ceremonies and organizational language that develop informally. Organizational culture is shaped by the interaction of four main factors: the personal and professional characteristics of people within the organization, organizational ethics, the nature of employment relationship, and the design of its organizational structure. These factors work together to produce different cultures in different organizations and cause changes in culture over time.

Corporate culture is an element of organizational design that is very difficult to define. Culture is described as the “unwritten, feeling part of the organization” (Daft, 2016, p. 386) and can be formal, informal and intangible. Daft explains that “the visible elements of culture…reflect deeper values in the minds of organization members” (2016, p. 387). The deeper values that Daft is referring to are the essence of culture and are therefore difficult to qualify and quantify. Large or global companies additionally and frequently develop subcultures, and this further complicates an outsider’s perspective and ability to discern a culture accurately (Daft, 2016).

Can managers influence the culture of their organisations? Discuss with reference to at least one example. It is only since the 1970s that the emphasis has shifted from a management-by-numbers to a more people-focused way of managing, in response to various problems that could not be overcome using the prior method (e.g. limitations to the Theory X way of managing, new production methods etc.). Pop-management theorists have since made direct links between an organisation’s culture and its performance, though this is not the entire story. As Kilmann et al (1985) put it: ‘a culture has a positive impact on an organisation when it points behaviour in the right direction... alternatively, a culture has a negative impact when it points

The shared characteristics and, in some cases, perception of employees create what is known as organizational culture. A strong culture constructs a unified employee atmosphere, whereas a weak culture lacks a shared sense of distinction between employees. An employee’s heritage or individual culture, although different than, affects the overall organizational culture of companies. Like society, sub-cultures exist within organizations. Formed by departmental function, geographical location, and/or the personalities of employees, sub-cultures include employees who continue to adhere to the organizations’ overall culture, but have additional independent characteristics. Employees’ individual heritage, along with the culture and