Organizational Culture

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,

Analysis of the organizational culture, an evaluation of the strengths or weaknesses of the culture:

Corporate Culture is widely used in many organisations and has a variety of definitions. It has been defined by Koozes, Caldwell & Posner cited by Moorhead/Griffin, (1989:494) as:

The culture of an organization denotes how both employees and their leaders carry out the business strategy and values of the company. While there are many facets to business management, the culture that leadership encourages in the workplace can determine the success, mediocrity, or failure of a business. Therefore, leveraging culture, and how efficacious a culture is, becomes quite critical to accomplishing effective leadership.

A strong organizational culture provides both the company and its employees with direction and stability. The culture within an organization can be powerful enough to effect employee attitude and behavior as well as performance and turnover ratio. According to many scientific studies, there are seven primary characteristics used to define the culture of an organization: innovation and risk taking, outcome orientation, people orientation, team orientation, aggressiveness and stability.

Creating of organizational culture is crucial for organizations and leaders. The success of organization depends on an appropriate

Denison, R (1990). Corporate culture and organizational effectiveness (3rd ed.) Oxford, England: John Wiley & Sons.

With numerous meanings given to organizational culture, scholars claim that the field is grounded in the shared assumptions, attitudes, and behaviors accepted and enacted by employees within an organization, which affect its performance and overall welfare (Belias & Koustelios, 2014). Another widespread definition of organizational communication often used by organizational scholars states that: “Organizational culture is the pattern of basic assumptions that a group has invented, or discovered in learning to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, and that have worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems” (Schein, 2004, p.3). A simpler definition of organizational culture claims that the culture of an organization is the study of specific systems of meaning within an organizational setting (Gabriel, 2010).

There are different organizations having their own organizational culture. They have unique organizational culture due to their company strategies. Some organizational culture is perennial and some are only for short term planning. However, a strong organizational culture is one of the major factors that makes an organization to be successful. In the essay, I will analyze strong organizational culture that can increase the overall performance of a firm and utilize different theories to support the views. The objectives are to indicate the importance of strong organizational culture and how it influences the performances of employees. Through the essay, the relationship between organizational culture and performance of employees can be found.

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.

Organizational culture is an idea in the field of organizational studies and management which describes the psychology, attitudes, experiences, beliefs and values (personal and cultural values) of an organization. It has been defined as "the specific collection of values and norms that are shared by people and groups in an organization and that control the way they interact with each other and with stakeholders outside the organization."[1] Ravasi and Schultz (2006) state that organizational culture is a set of shared mental assumptions that guide interpretation and action in organizations by defining appropriate behavior for various situations. Although it’s difficult to get consensus about the

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.”

Barney, J. (1986) ‘Organizational Culture: Can it be a source of sustained competitive advantage’? Academy of Management 11(3), pp. 656-665.

Organizational culture has an effect on the effectiveness of leadership. If the organizational culture is strong, it could influence the way leadership is created. If it is weak, the leadership models will also be imagined and implemented in different ways. Therefore, we will be able to find which key factors will positively or negatively influence the leadership effectiveness.

In detail, how organizational culture impacts people and organizational outcomes begins with developing a model of effectiveness. As we have discussed in earlier work, trait theory in leadership, the four traits of organizational cultures are adaptability, consistency, involvement and mission. “Two of the traits, involvement and adaptability, are indicators of flexibility, openness, and responsiveness, and were strong predictors of growth. The other two traits, consistency and mission, are indicators of integration, direction, and vision, and were better predictors of profitability. Each of the four traits were also significant predictors of other effectiveness criteria such as quality, employee satisfaction, and overall performance.” (Banto). These traits represent the culture that breed’s success for an organization; As stated above each trait plays a significant role in organizations; beginning with a mission- it informs a collective identity that influences the group to communicate and understand the goal for the organization. Next, adaptability, which prescribes behavior that is made cleared to each group member the “do’s and don’ts” by knowing the policies for the situation at hand. As we continue, consistency, which helps the group, work together to meet the vision of the direction of the organization. Lastly, involvement, being accountable for the role given, it provides structure with in-group that creates trust and develops motivation with each person to