Organizational Culture : An Organization

To understand the organizational culture of a company, one needs to start by looking at the history. Lakeshore Learning Materials was born from a divorced mother of three named Ethelyn Kaplan, who took a dream and a chance by moving her family to California in 1954 to open a toy store. When she started noticing that teachers were interested in her material, Ethelyn realized that she needed to expand her business into educational materials. 60 years later, Lakeshore Learning Materials has grown into a company with over 2000 employees, 60 retail stores throughout the United States and growing. Lakeshore Learning Materials is currently headed by Ethelyn’s grandsons, Bo and Josh Kaplan. Under the supervision of Bo and Josh, Lakeshore continues to be a leader in the Educational Materials, yet still able to keep the family culture that their grandmother started. Highest quality customer service and hard work are the core values that shape Lakeshore’s Organizational Strategy. These high expectations aren’t hard for employees at Lakeshore because the company is so loved by everyone that works there, that they give nothing less than the best.

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.

The organization culture as a leadership concept has been identified as one of the many components that leaders can use to grow a dynamic organization. Leadership in organizations starts the culture formation process by imposing their assumptions and expectations on their followers. Once culture is established and accepted, they become a strong leadership tool to communicate the leader 's beliefs and values to organizational members, and especially new comers. When leaders promote ethical culture, they become successful in maintaining organizational growth, the good services demanded by the society, the ability to address problems before they become disasters and consequently are competitive against rivals. The leader 's success will depend to a large extent, on his knowledge and understanding of the organizational culture. The leader who understands his organizational culture and takes it seriously is capable of predicting the outcome of his decisions in preventing any anticipated consequences. What then is organizational culture? The concept of organizational culture has been defined from many perspectives in the literature. There is no one single definition for organizational culture. The topic of organizational culture has been studied from many perspectives and disciplines, such as anthropology, sociology, organizational behavior, and organizational leadership to name a few. Deal defines organizational culture as values,

In the beginning corporate culture is shaped by the leaders and by the purpose for with the company has been created. It then develops within the constraints of the environment, technology, values of the leadership, and performance expectations. “The initial culture is altered by the design variables of the company, experiences of the company, management’s leadership style, the structure of the company, the nature of the tasks of the groups, the way decisions are made, and the size of the company. In addition, the developing culture is affected by the internal integrity of the company, the climate, and how well the company is competing in the marketplace, its effectiveness.” (DeWitt, 2001(

Organizational culture is also known as "corporate culture” that has a major impact on the performance of organization and especially on the quality of work life experienced by the employees. If people in the organization follow the same culture and accept the cultures as well, there would be unity formed within the organization that would lead to higher levels of efficiency resulting in an increase in the levels of performance. It is known that an increase in performance can lead to the development of a culture, which could lead to culture homogeneity in the way the organization works. A common culture results in having a common goal. People would agree to the decisions made more easily and be motivated to work, as the decisions made are the same as the

OPENNESS. Openness can be defined as a spontaneous expression of feelings and thoughts, and the sharing of these without defensiveness. Openness is in both directions, receiving and giving. Both these may relate to ideas (including suggestions), feedback (including criticism), and feelings. For example, openness means receiving without reservation, and taking steps to encourage more feedback and suggestions from customers, colleagues and others. Similarly, it means giving, without hesitation, ideas, information, feedback, feelings, etc. Openness may also mean spatial openness, in terms of accessibility. Installing internal E-mailing may be a step in this direction: everyone having a computer terminal has access to information which he may

In accordance with the Business Dictionary, organizational culture (similarly entitled Corporate Culture) is the standards and conducts which subsidize to the distinctive communal and the psychosomatic atmosphere of an establishment. Organizational culture incorporates an establishment 's expectancies, knowledges, perspective, and principles which sustain it, collectively, and is articulated in its individual-representation, internal workings, collaborations with the external domain, and impending expectancies. (Business Dictionary, 2016)

Lussier and Achua define culture as, “the aggregate of beliefs, norms, attitudes, values, assumptions, and ways of doings things that is shared by members of an organization and taught to new members.” (p. 358). The culture of an organization can take time to develop and once it has been cemented it can be difficult to change. Organizations can change their culture from within or bring in new leadership to change their culture. Leaders can shape the culture of their organization by either substantive or symbolic leadership styles. This essay will distinguish between symbolic and substantive leadership actions that can be used to shape an organization’s culture.

The key in helping to form and provide an identity for an organisation is in its organisational culture. Northcote and Trevelyan (1853) sought to provide the Civil Service with a distinctive character. Their vision based on four principal recommendations (merit through examination, educational level, graded into a hierarchy and promotion through achievement) has meant the Civil Service has invested heavily in training programmes despite long development times. These circumstances are categorised by Deal and Kennedy (2000) as a “Bet-your-company” type culture.

Organization culture among other things are the values, and philosophies that hold an organization together. According to Susan Heathfield, the way an organization works and interacts with the rest of the world and how it functions inside and out are also part of an organization’s culture. The people in an organization share beliefs, cultures, and rules. All of these things define what an organization stands for. An organization should do all they can to establish a positive culture because who an organization is inside reflects in society.

The value of organization culture is every organization has its own culture. Seeing that many employees expend forty-five or more hours at their workplace, their business culture plainly influences both their work lives and their personal lives. Organizational culture makes reference to the beliefs, ideologies, principles and values that the individuals of the corporation with a business with a corporation share. This culture is a deciding aspect in the achievement of the business. And show their importance through some things in place work. To begin with, Unanimity a shared organizational culture helps to unite employees of various demographics. Many employees during an organization come from differing backgrounds, households, and traditions and still have their own cultures. Creating a distributed culture at businesses provides them a sense of unity and understanding towards the other person, promoting better communication and fewer conflict. In addition, a shared company culture promotes equality making sure the project no employee is neglected at the workplace and that they are all solved equally. Also, Loyalty Company culture helps to keep employees motivated and dedicated to the management of the organization. If employees view themselves as part

The Business Dictionary defines organizational culture as values and behaviors based on “shared attitudes, beliefs, customs, and written and unwritten rules that have been developed over time” (“Organizational Culture”, 2017). Simply put, organizational culture is how people learn, think and act on a daily basis within an organization. But if organizational culture is only unique social and psychological environments within a business, then how is it possible that it can be just as influential as business strategy? Research suggests that a strong organizational culture is a key competitive advantage of business because it can be the driving force behind innovation and alignment of goals, help motivate and engage employees, and generate fierce customer loyalty.

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.

The Organizational Culture Theory analyzes the various cultural aspects of organizations, most notably the five metaphorical performances, the seven cultural markers, and the notion of culture being something an organization is versus culture being something an organization has. The five metaphorical performances are ritual, passion, sociality, politics, and enculturation. Rituals are certain events that are done at certain times, such as getting coffee at a certain time every day. Passion is how one describes their mundane work through stories that indicate how they see it as just the opposite of boring. Sociality describes acts among workers in the organization that can bring them together, such as joking or

The culture of organisation is values and beliefs that apply to the unique psychological and social environment within the organisation. Culture of organisation consists of organisation’s values, philosophy, experience; assumptions gathered and its self-concept, internal activities, and communication with outer environment such as customers, other organisations and forecasts for future. It is based on mutual values, beliefs, habits, rules and even fashion which has been established over some period of time and treated as good and appropriate thing for company. Corporate culture can be seen in different activities within the company, such as: