Reflection Of Organizational Culture

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.

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.

Background Organizational Culture Organizational culture is a way to describe the collective behavior within an organization, the values, norms, language, symbols, status, and beliefs and habits. We can also view organizational behavior as the collection of behaviors within an organization that cause those members to perceive their organization and others. In fact, organizational culture affects the way individuals and groups interact with each other, clients, stakeholders and the public Because people are so individualistic, it would stand to reason that each organization would have a unique culture, or even group of cultures based on location or department/focus (Tatum, 2010).

In the 1980’s business experts began to realize the root to organizational success or failure is through its culture. The culture of an organization is the belief that guides each employee in knowing what to do and what not to do and it also affect the public perception of the organization’s brand. Therefore culture is the shared social knowledge within an organization regarding the rules, norms and values (Colquitt, Lepine, & Wesson, 2012). Although, no two cultures are alike, there are components and characteristics that help business experts to define an organization’s culture.

Organisational Culture is defined as what the employees perceive and how this perception creates a pattern of beliefs, values and, expectations. Organisational culture differs from organizational climate. Climate refers to more temporary attitudes, feelings and perceptions of individuals (Schneider, 1990). Culture on the other hand is an enduring, slow to change, core characteristic of organisations which is an implicit often indiscernible aspects of organisations, climate refers to more overt, observable attributes of organisations.. Organisational culture is “the way things are” in the organisation rather that people’s transitory attitudes about them

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

Four years after the unit was formed, the SS was put in the hands of Heinrich Himmler, a racist extremist who was a very good friend of Hitler. The years of his management were a big time of change for the group, since it increased from 300 members to 50000. Each member had to have Aryan characteristics (tall, blonde hair and blue eyes), physical perfection and racial purity. Their symbol consisted of two Ss in the shape of lightning bolts with skulls and silver daggers around them. This made the members feel superior to the average Storm Troopers of the SA (Sturmabteilung) to which they were inferior to in the first place.

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.

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

As a result of the accelerating pace of globalization, business environments in which organizations operate are increasingly turbulent and there is an unprecedented level of competition between rival firms (News.bbc.co.uk, 2016). Owing to this persistent rise in competition, organizations are faced with the dilemma of creating a viable competitive advantage. One way of developing such advantage is by constructing a captivating organizational culture.

Continuous change is required in the fast-paced business environment, however the fundamental- organizational behavior, design, and development, in addition to the overarching mission must remain constant in order to guide the organization through change on a regulatory basis. The University of Chicago Campaign Inquiry & Impact is leading the organization's culture change as an active representation of the university’s mission, vision, and strategy. The campaign will be used primarily to analyze The Unviersity of Chicago culture. The campaign provides an approach that the entire organization can rallying behind and tangible structure for change that involves influence, ingenuity,

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,

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,

Intensively but also with a lot of fun, the last nearly one month’s learning journey on Organizational Culture and Communication is a totally refreshing experience for me. At this moment, I still cannot believe I have been in New Zealand for one month. Recalling the brand new life here at homestay, the study in the University of Waikato with more than 80 classmates I never meet before from different countries and background, and the last week’s A Night before Christmas outdoor event along with around 20,000 locals, etc. I am so overwhelmed and I realize what I am experiencing is just the application of what I learned from this course. Before this learning journey, I assumed it would not be that challenging and I could do it without so much effort. But the reality gives me a lesson that always being humble. Contrary to the education in China, the approach of teaching, the volume of reading, the demand for self-study, and the effort to be made is much more, which is beyond my expectations. Through all these diversified lectures, assignments, role-play and case study, my cognition about organisation have been keeping evolved. All the knowledge and skills I learned during this learning process have affected and will influence me since I embark my life, study and career here in New Zealand. To be more specified, this unique experience of taking this MBM paper will facilitate my adaptation and integration into this culturally and ethnically diverse country, as well as my career

Organisation Culture as there are many ways in which you can define the subject my interpretation of it is that it is structure of shared meaning which is held by members that differentiate the organisation from other organisations. Culture has its origin in the organisational interaction.