Organizational Culture

Organizational culture is the “values and beliefs that people have about an organization and provides expectations to people about the appropriate way to behave” (Kinicki, 2013, slide 3). Corporates can change Changing organizational culture can be a process using one or more of the eleven strategies, (1) formal statements, (2) slogans & sayings, (3) stories, legend, & myths, (4) leader reactions crises, (5) role modeling, training, & coaching, (6) physical design, (7) rewards, titles, promotions, & bonuses, (8) organizational goals & performance criteria, (9) measurable & controllable activities, (10) organizational structure, and (11) organizational systems & procedures (Kinicki & Williams, 2013, p. 236-137). Like stated before organizations

One of the many responsibilities of company leaders is to ensure that their organization is able to compete and excel in the global marketplace. One way organizations are reaching this goal is though a shift in organizational culture. According to Thompson (2014), a company 's culture can be defined as its personality or the way in which things are done. When an organization attempts to shift its culture from that of an individual contribution to a team environment, the transition must be thoughtfully considered and strategic steps should be taken to encourage the most positive results. Changing an organization 's culture does not occur overnight, and will take patience and focused attention from its leaders and workforce to engrain these new ways of doing things into the fabric of the company. Team culture can be fostered through assessing the workforce 's key skills, encouraging team development and teamwork, selecting and utilizing the right motivation, and creating a rewards program that drives a team to achieve the company 's goals.

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.

*  Culture is Negotiated. One person cannot create a culture alone. Employees must try to change the direction, the work environment, the way work is performed, or the manner in which decisions are made within the general norms of the workplace. Culture change is a process of give and take by all members of an organization. Formalizing strategic direction, systems development, and establishing measurements must be owned by the group responsible

In order to bring about a successful change, it is important to first consider the rationale for change. The organization and people being impacted by the change must understand the desire for change, benefits, and importance of supporting the change. After the change has been embraced and implemented successfully, it is essential for the organization to incorporate it as a standard practice, motivate the personnel to utilize it, and adhere to the change to influence positive

According to Mclean and Marshall (1993) organisational culture is defined as the collection of traditions, values, policies, beliefs and attitudes that contribute a pervasive context for everything we do and think in an organisation. (ie) this means that these factors actually determine how we think as well as act and react not only to people from within the same organisation but also to anybody on the outside who has some sort of interaction with the organisation. As can be seen with the part-structure in Figure 1, this organisation (WHD) has various levels of management. There is quite

Culture change is not a program with a completion date, nor is it a quick fix. It is an ongoing journey – a journey that requires leaders to understand the current state of the organization, establish a clear vision, align behaviors and instill

Changing organizational culture is a teaching process, members of an organization teach each other about the association’s favorable values, beliefs, norms, expectations, and behaviors (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013). The first mechanism Mr. Marchionne used for changing the organizational culture was formal statements. He stated that margins and quality needed to improvement. Mr. Marchionne also believed that they needed better control over pricing (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013).

Throughout the Business Program, students learned how motivating and facilitating change can often be a challenging mission in an organization. MAN3240 Organizational Behavior highlighted the different types of leadership styles, emotional intelligence, motivational theories, team building, goal setting, and the importance of implementing change. Organizational change is not just making physical modifications within an organization; it can apply to business strategies, culture, and human resource management. Change is constant in the competitive business environment due to market trends, consumer demands, competitors, and the global economy, however it often met with resistance from employees. Leadership style is of the utmost importance

It is important to change various aspects of organization culture when trying to institute change in organizations (Kavita, 2005). The aspects that such changes should target include the balance of power in the organizations, the organization structure that supports the framework, leadership and management styles. Organizational history is also very critical, especially if it has a progressive track record success. However, if the culture despite the changes remains aligned to the organization goals and mission the employees will adopt it and embrace change.

Over the last three weeks we have focused very much on leadership, power, organizational culture, and organizational change. The Cultural Change Situation article from Human Resource Planning (available in the Doc Sharing) is a great synthesis piece that addresses all of these topics through a detailed study of firm’s attempted move to team-based management.

When implementing a successful change initiative, Kotter stated you must “win over the hearts and minds of the employees” (Kotter, 2011). After all the changes are recognized, the leader and team need to push through the stages and stay on track with the initiative that has been set. Once all the stages of the change initiative have been determined and initiated, behavior in the culture needs to change to compliment the changes that have been put into place (Cohen & Kotter, 2012). It is often difficult to keep employees out of their comfort zone and keep them on track with the change (Kotter, 2012).

An organization’s culture governs day to day behavior. This type of power may be seen as a control mechanism, which businesses use to manipulate internal and external perception. Every organization has a set of assumed understandings that must be adopted and implemented by new employees in order for them to be accepted. Conformity to the culture becomes the primary basis for reward by the organization. “The role of culture in influencing employee behavior appears to be increasingly important in today’s workplace, as organizations have widened spans of control, flattened structures, introduced teams, reduced

Organizational culture has been described as shared values and beliefs that underline a company’s identity. A strong culture that encourages employees from the top to the bottom in adaptation and change can increase organizational performance by energizing and motivating employees, shape behaviors, unify personnel in the goals / objectives and align employee’s actions with the priorities of the company (Daft, R., 2013). Creating a constructive culture should be a manager’s top priority because the right culture will propel a company into a top performer in its industry.

Living in a world of approximately 7.5 billion people mean living with different perspectives, different ideas, different cultures; in other words, we live in a society full of diversities. Throughout this semester, I have learned that an organization cannot function without people. In fact, employees are one of the valuable assets of an organization. Every organization has a corporate culture; thus, living in a world of diversities poses the challenge for companies in maintaining such culture alive. I believe that organizational culture, just like Politics, cannot be avoided within an organization. I am not a mother yet, but based on my observation, organizational culture is like growing up a child that is, it requires of a strong mother (an empowered leader) to nurture a child (culture) with values and confidence which are key elements towards attaining success.