Reflection Of Organizational Culture

Organizational culture and behavior are two separate yet wholly related concepts. The type of established and shared values that shape the activities of an organization is known as the organizational culture where as the way the human elements in the organization behave as a consequence of the culture adopted in the organization is referred to as organizational behavior. One of the effects of organizational culture and behavior can be seen in the way the leadership of an organization relates with its employees. Another effect of organizational culture and behavior is in the area of operational practice. If the operational practice in an organization encourages everyone to be a team player, the behavior of those employees will be different from

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.

Levitt (2014) defines culture as the coherent, learned, shared views of a group of people and about life’s concerns that ranks what is important, furnishes attitudes about what things are appropriate, and dictates behavior. Macy’s corporate culture possesses a diverse leadership team to target their diverse customers and locations. Diversity, based on experiences and passion, gives the Macy’s leadership team new perspectives to promote successful business. Levitt (2014) suggests organizational diversity can be considered as a mixture of people with different group identities working in the same social system. A multi-cultural team of Americans, Italians, Germans and Swiss would adapt well in the rich bouquet of culture in Zurich, Switzerland. As a new team leader, the biggest concern would be establishing integrations between the different cultures working together at Macys.

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

Organisational culture refers to ‘the shared beliefs and values guiding the thinking and behavioural styles of members’ (Cooke and Rousseau, 1988, in Bratton 2010: 334), indicating that employees who accept the common values of an organisation and put great effort on commitments are likely to build up a strong culture to an organisation.

Today, it is not uncommon to find a vast amount of companies that are hiring culturally diverse employees or are doing business abroad. With that being said, it is exceedingly important to understand culture and all the aspects that it makes up in order to be able to bring about a productive work environment. Culture is diverse and complex and brings about positive change, new ideas, and viewpoints. However, how does one effectively analyze all aspects of culture that allows them to bring together people of different backgrounds? In this essay I’m going to be discussing about the five levels at which culture can be analyzed as well as how culture is exhibited in the business environment to show how one can bring all cultures together in the workplace.

Over the years, culture has been looked at in different ways. One such approach to culture is organizational culture. The behaviour of the employees and through this the external image of the organization is determined by the organization’s culture (Bratianu, Vasilache, & Jianu, 2006). Organizations have increasingly started to focus on the unique culture innate to them, trying to find ways to gain a competitive edge over others. There is no single widely accepted definition of organizational culture although one commonly known definition by Lundy & Cowling (1996) is that organizational culture is “the way we do things around here”. In other words, the culture of an organization can be understood through the values, beliefs and norms shared by the organization as a whole. Therefore through an understanding of the culture, managers should be able to determine a general trend on how employees of an organization think and behave in tandem with the organizational

The culture of an organization is as unique and diverse as the individuals are who live and work within it. In fact, the above definition of organizational culture provided by Schein (1985a) suggests an image of a living, breathing and influential force engaged in a series of reciprocal interactions with its members. Furthermore, the culture of an organization does not simply appear but is one that is constructed and developed over a period of time. For example, Stackman, Pinder and Conner (2000) describe organizational culture as being comprised of a system of layering or as a “deep construct.” The idea being that the culture of an organization is similar to the skin of an onion encompassing layers of values, beliefs, assumptions,

’Culture is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another.’- Hofstede

Throughout this essay organisational culture will be examined, including the two approaches mainstream and critical. What managers can do to shape culture and also an example of when culture has in fact been changed.

Globalization has brought the world closer in communication, economics, politics, and especially business. The Internet and technological improvements have allowed instantaneous communication almost anywhere, and even poor women in India are using Smartphones to manage their banking portfolios. The idea of globalism continues to break down cultural barriers. As this continues it will be essential for organizations to not only understand, but embrace cultural differences and styles (Trebing and Estabrooks, 2005). Clearly, the changing demands of global stakeholders require new ways of approaching divergent customer bases. There are differences in style, skill, education and attitude in every organization now accentuated when we think of the multi-national organization. Correctly managed, this diversity can be a huge bonus to the organization. Organizations are far more effective once they understand and use diversity within their strategic and tactical planning process. Also, the new paradigm for global management includes creating and maintaining a diverse work environment in which cultural diversity is encourage and celebrated, rather than simply acknowledged (We need to identify and understand how our differences impact our relationships with other employees and customers. We also must create and maintain an inclusive work

The culture of an organization is like a river. It can be fluid, strong and consistent, serving as lubricant while guiding its members in the right direction. In contrast a river can become stale and toxic, silently killing those who drink at its shore.1

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 influences many aspects of work life. Workplace cultures that are grounded in strong and formally articulated values and modes of behavior define an organization. Well-communicated values influence employee behavior and drive how employees relate with all stakeholders within the organization—from co-workers, management and members of the board to clients, shareholders and the community at large. When organizations seek to change their culture, HR—as change agent and educator of the change process—plays a significant role in this endeavor. In addition, HR's role is both up front and in the background, by leading, supporting, coaching, encouraging, measuring and evaluating the change during the process and over time.

Many research studies have focused on culture, and the factors that affect organizational culture and climate (Kavanagh & Ashkanasy, 2006). Organisational culture is often described as ‘how we do things around here’. Sensemaking is an important ongoing process engaged in by everyone in an organisation. How people go about making sense of their environment, and what they make sense about is predicated on the culture of an organization. “Neither the subject matter nor the actual process of change alone is sufficient to predict successful organizational change when taking into account the influence of organizational culture” (Latta, 2015, p. 1030).