Research On The Culture Web Adopted By Heinz Australia

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.).

The aim of the investigation is to determine the effect that these diverse cultures have had on the food and hospitality industry and the main cultural influences in Australia. The following focus questions will help guide the investigation.

Organizational culture, if appropriate, can be an intangible asset but it can also be a liability for a business if it is not checked and cultivated carefully. This is so because

“Culture consists of the symbols, rituals, language, and social dramas that highlight organizational life, including myths, stories, and jargon. It includes the shared meanings associated with the symbols, rituals, and language. Culture combines the philosophy of the firm with beliefs, expectations, and values shared by members. It contains the stories and myths about the company's founder and its current leading figures. Organizational culture consists of a set of shared meanings and values held by a set of members in an organization that distinguish the organization from other organizations. An organization's culture determines how it perceives and reacts to the larger environment (Becker, 1982; Schein, 1996). Culture determines the nature

Every organization has values and beliefs that define what they do and how they do things in the organization. These values have significant influence on how the employees behaves and the general performance of the organization – it is these set of values and beliefs, rooted deep in the company’s organizational structure that depict the “dos”, “don’t” and the “hows”, of the organization and these unequivocally represents the culture of the organization. This concept became popular in the 1980s when Peters and Waterman in their book: “In search of Excellence” presented the profound argument that, the success of any organization is inextricable linked to the quality of its culture. (Carpenter, M., Taylor, B., Erdogan, B. 2009 p183). The purpose of this paper is an attempt to analyse the impact diverse cultures played in the success of the Lincoln Electric Company.

All Organisations posses a distinct form of culture with some having more than a single culture. This culture is usually very difficult to measure, change and most especially change.

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,

Culture within an organisation is a system of shared values, beliefs and norms of individuals in the organisation and how the value consensus creates a way in which people behave. The shared values have a strong influence on the individuals in the organisation and dictates how a person acts, dresses and performs in their job. A unique culture is developed and maintained by an organisation which provides guidelines and boundaries, through informal means, for the behaviour of the people within the organisation.

The Hofstede Centre (n.d.) defines culture as the “collective mental programming of the human mind which distinguishes one group of people from another.” Chipulu, Ojiako, Gardiner, Williams, Mota, Maguire, Shou, Stamai, and Marshall (2014), note that “culture can be at once tangible and observable; latent and unobservable; or even an abstraction altogether” (p. 367). Culture therefore has many dimensions. Some aspects of culture can be observed by analyzing symbols, ceremonies, dress, and other aspects. On the other hand, some aspects are not observable from the outside, but have to be experienced. Looking only from the outside gives us only a glimpse into the culture values. A large part of culture is the unwritten rules of how things are done. This part of culture is not necessarily observable to an outsider. To fully understand the cultural values of an organization, you need to be inside the organization with access to those with years of work experiences.

A thorough integrated literature review was conducted utilizing the method and recommendations outlined by Broom (2000). Organizational culture has roots in anthropology, sociology, psychology, as well as, organizational behavior and system theory. In 1879, Sir Edward Tylor, defined culture as a complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, laws, customs, and any capabilities and habits acquired by a human as a member of society( Salehi, 2012). The word culture is often used to describe national

A framework which can be used to identify both Steinhoff’s and Poundland’s culture is the Cultural Web - a method to analyse an organisations current and future culture. Johnson et al (2014) states the Cultural Web analyses multiple manifestations of culture informed by the taken for granted assumptions within an organisation. Johnson et al (2014) highlights one positive of utilising this framework is that it encourages companies to focus on future goals and strive for a better organisational

There’s a lot of talk about culture in organisations, and it seems to me a bit ethereal.

Culture is a term that is used in workplaces discussions but it is taken for granted that we understand what it means. In their publication In Search of Excellence, Peters and Waterman (1982) drew a lot of attention to the importance of culture to achieve high levels of organisational effectiveness. They made use of over 100 years of theory and research in cultural anthropology and folklore studies to inspire and legitimise their efforts. This generated many subsequent publications on how to manage organisational culture (e.g. Deal & Kennedy 1982; Ott 1989; Bate 1994).

The Cultural Web, developed by Gerry Johnson and Kevan Scholes in 1992, provides one such approach for looking at and changing your organization 's culture. Using it, you can expose cultural assumptions and practices, and set to work aligning organizational elements with one another, and with your strategy.