The Cultural Values Of Organizational Design

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.).

“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

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.

It is commonly known that different organisations have their individual cultures. Culture describes who they are and what they stand for. It relates to the organisation 's traditions, customs, beliefs, meanings, morals, ethics, norms, language, shared values and practices. The business culture determines how people communicate within the company. There are numerous factors affecting

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.

Coined as “the way we do things around here” (Deal and Kennedy, 1983, p. 501), culture encompasses how an organisation is run, its “personality”, and the norms, values, beliefs and attitudes (Armstrong, 2010) that reflect the organisation’s mission, aims and goals.

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

The ability for an outsider to accurately discern about the underlying cultural values of an organization by analyzing symbols, ceremonies, dress, or other observables aspects is more difficult than for an insider with several years of work experience (Lukasova, 2004). The difference in understanding the underlying cultural value between an outsider and an insider will vary from organization to organization and how often an employee interacts with an outsider.

Within the field of management, the success and failure of the modern business organisation has been largely depicted by the intricate concept of culture. Organisational culture, a concept borrowed from borrowed mostly from anthropology typically is defined as a complex set of values, beliefs, assumptions and symbols that define the way in which an organisation conducts and manages its business (Barney 1986). Management is not just an act of change, but the responsibility for and control of a company or similar organisation (Willmott 1983). It is the management of organisational culture that merely drives the

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,

Hofstede (2003) defined culture as "the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another". Corporate culture refers to the intangible aspects of companies, including the interactions at an interpersonal level, and values, morals and ethics which permeate the way that decisions are made and polices are implemented (Buchanan & Huczynski, 2011). Just as when one undertakes international travel, and sees different cultures where there are different attitudes and traditions, one can also observe different

Firstly, we have to understand what is culture? Culture can be describe as collective programming of the mind, which distinguishes the members of one human group from another. Culture in this sense includes systems of values. (Hofstede, 1984) Culture in a simpler way is the "pervasive and shared beliefs, norms, and values that guide the everyday life of a group." (Cullen, 2010) National, Business, Occupational and Organisational are the different levels of cultures that are encountered by firms regardless of dealing and trading in their own country or expanding into another. Business culture though, is the most relevant out of the four as it pertains to all aspects of doing business in a culture. It 's important to note of this culture as it teaches individuals the appropriate and acceptable manner of conducting business in a society. Understanding business cultures and its importance establishes the argumentative case for the need of firms to behave in accordance to those of their host countries.

Culture is steady, clear patterns of behavior in organizations. This view heightens repeated behavior or habits as the heart of culture and deemphasizes what people feel, think or believe. It also focuses our attention on the forces that mold behavior in organizations, and so brings up an important question: are all those forces “culture” or is culture simply the behavioral outputs?

One way to imagine corporate or organizational culture in the contemporary world is to define it as a way that allows for certain assumptions: that the organization finds meaning and values in the inner structure of the entity, and that there is a pattern of shared and basic assumptions that the group uses to perform duties and solve issues. In this, the organizational culture is something taught to new employees, shared, and a way of "doing business" that is based upon generally accepted practices for that particularly organization (Schein, 1992, p. 12). Too, the 21st century has embraced globalization bringing the world closer in economics, politics, communication and particularly, business. The changing demands and expectations of global stakeholders cause an organization's culture to also evolve, particularly in the nature of embracing cultural and stylistic differences (Trebing and Estabrooks, 2005). Only in this way, notes a recent study, will companies be able to appropriately compete in the modern world (Mahrokian, et al., 2010).