Organizational Culture and Its Importance

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 is an observable, powerful force in any organization. “Made up of its members’ shared values, beliefs, symbols, and behaviors, culture guides individual decisions and actions at the unconscious level. As a result, it can have a potent effect on a company’s well-being and success” (One Page, n.d.).

These are countercultures which are smaller groups within a certain culture group that are in opposition to all the behaviors and norms of the larger group. (Newman, 124) These countercultures contribute to the violation of norms and values of the dominate group.

Counterculture (Pg. 48)- a group whose values, beliefs, norms, and related behaviors place its members in opposition to the broader 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,

There is something about the ideology of a subculture that sparks an interest in me. Maybe it is intriguing due to its members’ originality, courage to stand up for beliefs, or freely expressing their own self- identity. A subculture forms by individuals taking a risk, separating themselves from the mainstream, and forming their own distinctive norms, not caring what the “normal” members of the mainstream society think of them. Or do they care? Maybe that is the exact statement a subculture is making. Maybe these individuals are forming these groups so that people will care. Maybe their rebellious attitude is a final, somewhat desperate approach to getting that response. The images being portrayed in most subcultures are

Subcultures also have a relationship to the overall dominant culture which, because of its pervasiveness, in particular its transmission through the mass media, is unavoidable. We can therefore distinguish a subculture, for example that of the hippies, which has connections with, but is distinct from due to its deviant lifestyle, the progressive middle class culture. The hippy subculture also has connections with the bohemian tradition of the artistic avant-garde, but its use of illegal drugs, and its value of instant hedonism means it has connections with other urban, more delinquent subcultures.

Organizational culture is not a new concept in the world of organizational behavior. Yet despite its age, it still has many varied definitions as well as philosophies on its importance and impact to the success of a company. One definition is that organizational culture is a cognitive framework consisting of attitudes, values, behavioral norms, and expectations shared by members of an organization (Greenberg, 2013, p. 368). Greenberg (2013) further explains organizational culture through an analogy of a tree. Organizational culture are similar to the roots of a tree.

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.

There are many definitions of organisational culture available in the literature, many of which are based on the fact that culture consists of values, beliefs, and assumptions shared by the majority of members of an organisation. These characteristics and shared views are then translated into common and repeated patterns of behaviour. Although it is difficult to come up with a single definition that would cover

Organizational culture creates a unique identity that diversifies an organization from its opposition. Ogbonna & Lloyd (p, 32, 2002) defines organizational culture as “the collective sum of beliefs, values, meanings and assumptions that are shared by a social group and that

Subculture had become part of political debate over identify and community sense. The meaning of subcultures is multiply of subculture to the individual group member might belong at any time at different times in his or her life. Usually thought as a group that is part of the dominant culture but differs in some important respects. Countercultures are not just merely to be different but to actively reject the culture aspects of dominant subculture. There are three ranks of subculture: 1: Troublesome relativity of any definition, 2: difficulty of concenters when teaching students about subcultures stem from the developmental dynamic nature of assimilation, 3: underlying the ordinary sociological use of subculture concept and the poorly theorized relationship between subculture

However, there seems to be a widely held misconception that throughout an organization or within a specific division there is only one uniform culture that exists. This definition does not seem adequate because it fails to recognize that in many organizations there are quite

Almost every organization, whether public or private, on paper or in practice, has a culture that fairly dictates its everyday functioning. The term culture has many

These subcultures provide a method of informal socialization “that no reasonable amount of formal training can provide.” (Volti, 2008) In most cases, these subcultures “mesh quite well with the dominant organizational culture because their goals and values parallel those of management.” (Volti, 2008) However, as stated, this is an organization in transition and there is the potential for countercultures to arise due to the ambiguity of what the behaviors, values, and norms of the new leadership’s culture will be. “Schein contends that many of the problems confronting leaders can be traced to their inability to analyze and evaluate organizational cultures.” (National Defense University, Undated) As this new group of leaders begins to set strategic direction for the next generation of this organization, they must acknowledge, “Difficulties with organizational transformations arise from failures to analyze an organization’s existing culture.” (National Defense University, Undated) For this organization to be successful, leaders will need to “correctly analyze the organization’s existing culture, and evaluate it against the cultural attributes needed to achieve strategic objectives.” (National Defense University, Undated)