Organizational Culture And Its Effect On Individual Perception Of Authority, Behavior, And Learning

The term "culture" has been used more and more recently but what exactly does it mean? Some have even regarded culture as "the most central problem of all social science" (Malinowski, 1939). According to Merriam Webster (2016), culture is defined as the arts and other manifestations of human achievements. If culture was as simple as Merriam-Webster defines it then the lives of anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists would be much easier. As we know, culture varies greatly across religion, countries, and some cases in just states; the difference between the north and the south. We can conclude that culture is a set of shared thoughts, values, and cognitions (Geertz, 1973). With culture in itself varying tremendously based on values and location, then surely organizational culture is no simple concept either. The term "organizational culture" has just recently become to be used more (Barley, 1988). Though there may be disagreements on defining culture universally, researchers tend to agree that culture is of vital importance in an organizational context, whether that organization is a company or a government (Kilmann, Saxton, & Serpa, 1986).

“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 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,

“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.

Internally, organizational culture, a set of important assumptions that members of an organization share in common, should be established to provide meaning, direction, and a basis for action (Pearce & Robinson, 2004). The organization would benefit if leaders promote and identify key themes and dominant values within the organization to reinforce competitive advantage they seek to maintain and build (Pearce & Robinson, 2004).

Cultural organization is unique and configures their norms, beliefs, values, and behavioral characteristics into the individual and groups that unite to get things accomplished. Patterns begin to evolve and become a rule of basic assumption; whether it is a new idea, one recently discovered or under development by a certain group as they learn to cope with internal integration and external adaptation problems. Cultural characteristics are hard to define because culture is multi-dimensional with integrated components that intertwine at different levels and ever-changing which takes time to establish and therefore time to change it also. Culture becomes the fabric or social glue that unites its participants, this will counteract any processes that are different becomes an unavoidable side-effect of life in an organization. Mutual understandings and a shared system of meanings becomes the basis of communication in a cultural organization. Functions of a society need to be fulfilled with a certain amount of satisfaction or culture can impede the efficiency of that organization. Problems with this concept arise when trying to categorize culture or when, why, or how corporate culture should be changed or finding the best, healthiest or most desirable one.

Organizational culture can be values, beliefs and norms which define how members think, feel and behave. More specifically, organizational culture is defined as shared philosophies, ideologies, beliefs, feelings, assumptions, expectations, attitudes, norms, and values (Schein, 2011). It is important to understand organizational culture has tremendous influence on its members, their views of the workplace, their efforts and their productivity. Culture is created by leaders, members and the environment in which the organization finds itself in. However, I believe it is primary the leadership’s responsibility to uphold the standards of a positive culture. As leaders, we must understand the culture we’ve created and how to maintain it or improve it. The Debra Woog McGinty and Nicole C. Moss corporate survey exhibited I’m in an Established/Stable culture.

In his book, Schein (2004) aims at clarifying what culture is, how it affects the organization, how to understand and decipher it and how to act on it with culture change. From the book, this paper seeks to review organizational culture influence on leadership effectiveness, identify the elements of organizational culture, and discuss approaches and theories on leadership based on defined cultural typologies and subcultures.

Due to the intangible aspect of organizational culture, clearly defining and identifying an organization’s culture is difficult, especially for outsiders. Since culture influences many important aspects of operations, organizations use observable symbols and other observable aspects to display their culture to their employees and the external environment. Therefore, culture consists of

Leaders must work with others in the organization to understand the organization’s culture. The core beliefs and values that are shared by the organization’s members, that guide their actions in its behalf and define their expectations about the actions of those around them (Beach, 2006). In analyzing the culture at my previous employment, I discovered a few different types of cultures existed within my organization. The organization I worked for was a manufacturer of foam components to the Automotive, Appliance, Medical and Military industries. We have provided engineered solutions to leading global manufacturers since 1992. The company consisted of approximately 50 employees, in which about 10 of those were office personnel and the

An organizational culture can be describe as the shared knowledge between the community with the organization, that shared knowledge include information to which an individuals within this particular society is able to use to function and be in good standing with the other members of the community, a culture includes rules to which individuals existing within the organization bounds abide to it, it exist as to have regulations between how individuals interact with each other, to which it helps the overall wellbeing and increase utilitarianism, culture also includes norms and values, it is a specific set of attitudes, routines with a

This is a problem, because without a reliable definition (or definitions) of culture, we cannot understand its connections to other key elements of the organization. Nor can we develop adequate approaches to analyzing, preserving and molding cultures. If we can define what organizational culture is, it gives us an understanding on how to help solve problems and even to create and evolve better cultures

Organizational culture can be described as shared values and beliefs amongst the population of employees. Basic assumptions exist to inform a group or an individual on what to pay attention to, what things mean, how to react emotionally to what is going on in front of them, and what actions are required to take in various situations. Culture can further be broken down further into three levels. The first level is artifacts, which includes all instances that you would see, hear, and feel in an organization. The second level is espoused beliefs and values, which reflects an individual’s original beliefs and values.

The term "culture" has been used more and more recently but what exactly does it mean? Some have even regarded culture as "the most central problem of all social science" (Malinowski, 1939). According to Merriam Webster (2016), culture is defined as the arts and other manifestations of human achievements. If culture was as simple as Merriam-Webster defines it then the lives of anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists would be much easier. As we know, culture varies greatly across religion, countries, and some cases in just states; the difference between the north and the south. We can conclude that culture is a set of shared thoughts, values, and cognitions (Geertz, 1973). With culture in itself varying tremendously based on values and location, then surely organizational culture is no simple concept either. The term "organizational culture" has just recently become to be used more (Barley, 1988). Though there may be disagreements on defining culture universally, researchers tend to agree that culture is of vital importance in an organizational context, whether that organization is a company or a government (Kilmann, Saxton, & Serpa, 1986).

The following essay examines the meaning of organizational culture and discuss factors associated with understanding an organization 's culture, with examples presented to show my discussion points. This essay will therefore discuss some of the main reasons why it is important for organisation and when it should be changed.