Organisational change: can an organisational culture be changed?
Despite its ordered and steady foundation, organisational culture can be changed if it is guided by a comprehensive strategy. An organisations culture is founded by relatively stable characteristics, based deeply on values that are enforced by organisational practices. However, an organisational culture can be changed. This essay will aim to establish this and explain the measures which are involved in changing an organisational culture. In order to explore this, the notion of organisation culture will be defined. In addition, the reasons and situational factors that bring about the need for cultural change will be explored, in line with the effectiveness of strategies for
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Two theorists whose ideologies can be applied to change an organisational culture include Frederick W. Taylor and Edgar Schein. Firstly, Frederick W. Taylor, a management theorist, significantly contributed to establishing a scientific management approach to the workplace in the late 19th century. “Taylor’s most important contribution entails his principles of scientific management in which his theory aims to create efficiency in the workplace by scientifically testing different combinations of procedures, techniques and tools” (Mills, Helms – Mills, Bratton, & Forshaw, 2007 p. 25). Taylor felt that inefficiency in the workplace was due to three main factors which included attitudes of the workers, methods of work and the system of management control. Taylor concluded that these inefficiencies would be improved by a scientific approach to management. A summary of the issues that came from Taylor’s study of organisational behaviour includes issues of work attitudes, job design, structuring of organisations, recruitment and selection, motivation, reward systems and management control (Mills et al., 2007 p. 25). These issues are synonymous with key components
Within organizations, large and small, there exists a sense of identity among its members that separates it from other organizations. This sense of identity is known as organizational culture. All over, managers seek to influence and change this into something that can be beneficial for the organization. In his article, “The Six Levers for Managing Organizational Culture”, Professor David W. Young defines the different elements that can influence and change the culture within the organization and how the reader can use these “levers” to their advantage. While the author does present a decent explanation for changing the culture of an organization, he leaves many questions unanswered that leaves his argument incomplete.
There are many definitions of organisational culture available in the literature, many of which are based on the fact that culture consists of values, beliefs, and assumptions shared by the majority of members of an organisation. These characteristics and shared views are then translated into common and repeated patterns of behaviour. Although it is difficult to come up with a single definition that would cover
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
Culture is an important aspect of an identity. It is what we believe, how we behave and culture influences an identity’s decision making. Organisational culture is the deep, basic assumptions, beliefs and shared values that define organisational membership. It is also defined as member’s habitual ways of making decisions and presenting themselves and their organisation. In this essay, I will be discussing about organisational culture in the post-bureaucratic era. First of all, I will be talking about how top management and employees related through culture by utilising
Lesley Willcoxson & Bruce Millett ABSTRACT Culture is a term that is used regularly in workplace discussions. It is taken for granted that we understand what it means. The purpose of this paper is to identify and discuss some of the significant issues relating to the management of an organisation’s culture. As organisational cultures are born within the context of broader cultural contexts such as national or ethic groupings, the paper will commence by defining ‘culture’ in the wider social context. This definition will subsequently form the basis for discussion of definitions of organisational culture and the paradigms and perspectives that underpin these. The paper will then discuss the issue of
The theories well before Organisational behaviour concerned on increasing productivity and efficiency by introducing machinery and optimising time spent on tasks. Taylorisum continually appalled by workers inefficiencies, and the workers tendency to “take it easy “on the job. The Taylorisum was criticised by many arguing that the fundamentals of scientific management were to abuse workers rather than to benefit them (Mullins, 2005). Prior to Hawthorne studies
The culture of an organization can be defined by the ‘way they do things’, this means the way they make decisions, operate and how they choose and achieve their objectives. As culture is a set of values and practices, changing it may be difficult and a long process, especially if the change is organized by a new chief executive.
Management within an organisation has the ability to re-shape, re-engineer, re-organise and change their organisation and organisational culture, the majority of organisation’s today, have the ability to change their culture, however, at the same time, it is a very difficult and demanding task. This is where the four main functions of managing come into play; planning, controlling, leading and organising. Robbins at al (2009, p.94) defines organisational culture as “a system of shared values, principles, traditions and ways of doing things that influence the way organisational members act.” This essay will further look into how and if an organisation’s culture can be changed, weighed up
When Taylor published The Principles of Scientific Management in 1911, he was the first theorist to study organizational behaviour in depth. When working as a shop superintendent at the Midvale Steel Company he noticed that workers used different and mostly inefficient work methods when completing tasks along the assembly line (Buchanan & Huczynski, 2017). Taylor (1911) argued that the primary objective of a firm’s administration should be to achieve maximum prosperity for both employers and employees. From this, he
Social scientists and researchers delved into the idea of organisational culture as an important component of organisational theory in the past. Brown (1998) identified four different sources of organisational culture which stems from climate research, national cultures, human resources management, and from conviction approaches.
Several modern management theories have been shown to have their roots stemming from the ideologies of the scientific management theory. The basic principles of scientific management include standardised work activity based on measurement and formulae, workers are matched to tasks, coordination of activities in order to execute a number of related tasks and separation of planning and execution with the aim of maximum output. (4) The scientific management theory explores the idea that managers should manage and the workers should work. The industrial revolution era brought the need to bring about an increase in the effective rate of output and productivity and that led to the introduction of the scientific management theory by Frederick W. Taylor. Taylor was an engineer interested in efficiencies through work measurement and coordination of tasks and focused on the problems of dividing up labour tasks. He believed that the most efficient methods for completing a task and for the selection, development and motivation of employees could be scientifically determined, Taylor concluded that there was one best way to achieve things (4). Taylor had four
Organisational culture can be defined as an influential and coherent collection of values and norms. It is often communicated through narratives, ancient legends and fictitious stories, the way things get accomplished in a specific organisation and the principles affecting an organisations procedures and practices towards members and consumers (Dwivedi, 2001). A ‘strong’ organisational culture differentiates itself from other types of cultures by, the majority of members holding the same fundamental beliefs and values as applies to the organisation. This essay seeks to critically analyse the statement- a strong organisational culture leads to higher organisational performance. It will draw on both the weaknesses and strengths of three
Organisational culture became popular in the 1980’s after the publication of Peter and Waterman’s best-selling book “In search of excellence”. It was made evident that company success had a strong correlation with organisational culture, thus competitive advantage for business. The concept of organisational culture is vastly growing in management and a subject of various research. According to the “Business dictionary” Organisational culture is defined as “The values and behaviours that contribute to the unique social and psychological environment of an organisation.”
The study of organisational culture is important and significant because it helps shape right decisions for the organisation and outlines the behavioural expectations from employees and also helps them interact with each other. Organisational culture also helps individual employees, groups and the organisation as a whole to manage the assigned work and tasks and meet deadlines. The attitude of stake holders towards the organisation, the organisations ability to accept change and the efficiency of work within the organisation is well understood with the study of organisational culture (Kenneth Desson & Joseph Clouthier, 2010)
While this theory has made many positive contributions to management practice, there have also been negative implications. On a positive note, Taylorism has made an impact on the introduction of the 8 hour working day, minimum wage rates and incentive and bonus schemes, and more importantly, highlighted management as an important area of study, allowing for other theorists to improve on, or provide alternative management theories in response to scientific management such as more worker orientated theories, namely behavioural management. Taylor’s ideals have however been under constant scrutiny as managers highlight the shortfalls of scientific management. While the highly mechanistic way of practice may lead to increased productivity, it