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Organizational Culture Essay

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Organizational Culture

Organizations have personalities like individuals and like individuals, they have enduring and stable traits that help us predict their attitudes and behaviors. An organization’s culture may be hard to define but it has a major impact on the behavior of individuals in the organization. To understand one’s behavior in an organizational culture it helps to understand the dominant culture in an organization and to figure out how individuals come to learn that culture and how the culture affects them.

Defining Organizational Culture (7 Characteristics)

There seems to be wide agreement that organizational culture refers to a system of' shared meaning held by members that distinguishes the organization from other …show more content…

Appraising the organization oil these seven characteristics, then, gives a composite picture of the organization's culture. This picture becomes the basis for feelings of shared understanding that members have about the organization, how things are done in it, and the way members are supposed to behave

Culture is a Descriptive Term

Organizational culture is concerned with how employees perceive the seven characteristics, not whether they like them. That is, it is a descriptive term. This point is important because it differentiates the concept of organizational culture from that of job satisfaction.

Research on organizational culture has sought to measure how employees see their organization: Are there clear objectives and performance expectations? Does the organization reward innovation? Does it encourage competitiveness?

In contrast, research on job satisfaction seeks to measure affective responses to the work environment. It is concerned with how employees feel about the organization's expectations, reward practices, methods for handling conflict, and the like. Although the two terms undoubtedly have characteristics that overlap, keep in mind that the term organizational culture is descriptive, whereas job satisfaction is evaluative.

Contrasting Organizational Cultures

Organization A

This organization is a manufacturing firm. Managers are expected to

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