Organisation Cultures

In 1972 Rogger Harrison researched into ‘Organizational Cultures and Structures’ which was later supported and publicised by Charles Handy (1985), it suggested that there are four dimensions of cultures through which organisations exist. They are; ‘power’, ‘role’, ‘task’ and ‘people culture’. Organisations can be associated with one or more of the different cultures. Many organisations can be identified as having a different organisational culture at each hierarchical interval.

There are two approaches to organisational culture mainstream and critical, both will be evaluated and explored throughout. Starting with mainstream, Smircich defines mainstream organisational culture as ‘something that an organisation has’ (1983). When looking at culture through this perspective it is understood to be

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.

*  People Shape the Culture. Personalities and experiences of employees create the culture of an organization. For example, if most of the people in an organization are very outgoing, the culture is likely to be open and sociable. If many artifacts depicting the company’s history and values are in evidence throughout the company, people value their history and culture. If doors are open, and few closed door meetings are held, the culture is unguarded. If negativity about supervision and the company is widespread and complained about by employees, a culture of negativity, that is difficult to overcome, will take hold.

Once completing the quiz “What’s the Right Organisational Culture for Me?”(Robbins, DeCenzo, Coulter & Woods, p. 46), I found that my personal score of 24 placed me in this more humanistic style of organisational culture. According to Robbins et al (2016, p. 46), scores more than 22 “indicate a preference for informal, humanistic, flexible and innovative cultures”. The quiz itself looked into the seven main pinpoint of organisational culture; “innovation and risk-taking, attention to detail, outcome orientation, people orientation, aggressiveness and stability.” I think that organisational culture is integral to the businesses productivity because of its ability to reflect communal shared values, principles, traditions, and practices that influence the way an organisation’s employees and other members conduct themselves.

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.

According to Mclean and Marshall (1993) organisational culture is defined as the collection of traditions, values, policies, beliefs and attitudes that contribute a pervasive context for everything we do and think in an organisation. (ie) this means that these factors actually determine how we think as well as act and react not only to people from within the same organisation but also to anybody on the outside who has some sort of interaction with the organisation. As can be seen with the part-structure in Figure 1, this organisation (WHD) has various levels of management. There is quite

Coined as “the way we do things around here” (Deal and Kennedy, 1983, p. 501), culture encompasses how an organisation is run, its “personality”, and the norms, values, beliefs and attitudes (Armstrong, 2010) that reflect the organisation’s mission, aims and goals.

Then, data obtained from an observation day at doc’s shipping Ltd combined with a questionnaire given to employees and two interviews will be analysed. Finally, my findings are compared with the already established literature on culture.

An organisation’s culture relates to a set of shared beliefs and values that has been agreedby the entire group and thus representing the company’s unique identity. They reflect theorganisation’s core values which are learned, re-learned and passed on to new members.These include the way people communicate with one another, how information isexchanged, the procedures and processes followed etc. Roger Harrison defined four typesof organisational culture depending on the level of centralisation and formalisation. Thisis indicated in the figure

An organizational culture is a system of shared beliefs and values that are establised to help motivate and coordinate employees in the achievement of meeting the organization’s goals (Kinicki, 2012, p.229). The four types of organizational cultures are: clan, adhocracy, market, and hierarchy. By a company choosing what kind of culture and structure they will plan lays out the design of how an organization will function which gives an the organizational identity, it facilitates collective commitment, promotes stability, and shapes the workplace behavior by helping employees to understand the purpose and goals of the company, and how they intend to accomplish their goals (Kinicki, 2012).

This culture gives prominence to achievement and competitiveness. Employees usually work long hours to achieve certain goals. c) Clan – This culture is reflected in organisations that emphasise on employee’s participation in meeting changes of the environment. Particular attention is paid to employee well welfare. d) Bureaucratic - This type of culture is visible in organisations that follow a well-defined way of doing things.

There are four major culture types within an organization, namely the Clan, Adhocracy, Hierarchy and the Market (Kim & Quinn, 1999). These four cultures are translated into a model, named the Competing Values Framework. This framework shows the cultures, organized between two dimensions. The framework shows which culture coincides with which dimension, to show the effectiveness of the organization and the organizational culture.

Understanding the influence of culture in business practices and managerial decision-making requires explaining the differences between cultures. This is why, Hofstede (appendix 1) presents a well-known model based on four dimensions of culture:

The classic Phrase by Mckinsey organisation, “the culture is how we do things around here” is taken as reference by many great people. It’s true that culture exist in an organisation which influences the work being done and also affects the success or failure of the project.