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Organisational Culture And Organizational Culture

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Organisational culture refers to ‘the shared beliefs and values guiding the thinking and behavioural styles of members’ (Cooke and Rousseau, 1988, in Bratton 2010: 334), indicating that employees who accept the common values of an organisation and put great effort on commitments are likely to build up a strong culture to an organisation. Edgar Schein (2004) proposed three levels of organisational culture. As employees go through changes, they gain experiences from the past, adapt to a new environment and develop ability to solve problem. The first level is artefacts, which include all visible characteristics of an organisation, for instance, the architectures/furniture in the office, uniforms of employees and language. These are the observable elements of an organisational culture and might influence the way and attitude of how the employees work. The second level is espoused values in which the influence patterns of observable behaviour at work can be recognised. Each member will impose dominant values and rules of conduct about the culture and these affect employees’ certainty to work under a particular area. The perceived value that can demonstrate reliability and be scientifically tested will be transformed into assumption. It then comes to the third stage of basic assumptions which are taken into granted and are difficult to change. When an assumption or belief about human nature was supported to be worked successfully, this frames how the reality should be and shapes

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