The Culture Of An Organization

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.

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,

Within organizations, large and small, there exists a sense of identity among its members that separates it from other organizations. This sense of identity is known as organizational culture. All over, managers seek to influence and change this into something that can be beneficial for the organization. In his article, “The Six Levers for Managing Organizational Culture”, Professor David W. Young defines the different elements that can influence and change the culture within the organization and how the reader can use these “levers” to their advantage. While the author does present a decent explanation for changing the culture of an organization, he leaves many questions unanswered that leaves his argument incomplete.

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

Culture change is not a program with a completion date, nor is it a quick fix. It is an ongoing journey – a journey that requires leaders to understand the current state of the organization, establish a clear vision, align behaviors and instill

The formal reporting lines refers to the communication between directors, managers, and those employees under them in the organizational structure while the informal reporting line refers to the communication that occurs between health care professionals in the course of the decision-making process, i.e. nurse to physician discussing a patient. Informal communication also can be peer to peer regarding conflict, policy, or safety issues. If a decision is made between the peers, the formal reporting line can be entered in with the peers taking the information up the chain to the managers and directors. Often informal reporting becomes formal reporting. In my organization our formal reporting line starts with the unit charge nurse, proceeding to the team coordinator, the director

Managers have displayed a dominant resistant to change. Therefore, how does leadership mold attitudes of managers to accommodate/facilitate a holistic cultural change?

In today’s dynamic business environment leadership must understand the value and importance of their organizations’ culture. While it may never be formally defined, leadership must have a vision of their intended culture and a plan for creating and maintaining it. This vision will serve as the potter’s clay that determines everything from the dress code to the organizational structure. This paper examines two methods organizations can choose to create and maintain a healthy culture.

Organizational culture and leadership are linked in the process of change (Schein, 1986). Leaders are not born, but developed. For an organization to develop, leader of an organization should be perfect in all aspects. If the leader of an organization is incongruous, then the organization will see a downfall, because leaders and the employees are like mirror; whatever the leader does the employees will follow it. It effects all the employees, they don’t get proper training and they also

Leaders must work with others in the organization to understand the organization’s culture. The core beliefs and values that are shared by the organization’s members, that guide their actions in its behalf and define their expectations about the actions of those around them (Beach, 2006). In analyzing the culture at my previous employment, I discovered a few different types of cultures existed within my organization. The organization I worked for was a manufacturer of foam components to the Automotive, Appliance, Medical and Military industries. We have provided engineered solutions to leading global manufacturers since 1992. The company consisted of approximately 50 employees, in which about 10 of those were office personnel and the

If one looks at the organization as a human body with a respiratory system, a skeleton, and a brain, the culture of the organization is its face. The organizational culture determines how individuals, both in and outside of the organization, perceive the way business is conducted. The National Defense University Website, in a section called Organizational Culture, highlights several cultural forms including language, use of symbols, ceremonies, customs, methods of problem solving, use of tools or technology, and design of work settings that create the way the organization is perceived (NDU 2009). An example of this idea is a restaurant. Most restaurants divide the business in the “front of the house” and the “back of

Organizational cultures are created, maintained, or transformed by people. An organization's culture is, in part, also created and maintained by the organization's leadership. Leaders at the executive level are the principle source for the generation and re-infusion of an organization's ideology, articulation of core values and specification of norms. Organizational values express preferences for certain behaviours or certain outcomes. Organizational norms express behaviours accepted by others. They are culturally acceptable ways of pursuing goals. Leaders also establish the parameters for formal lines of communication and message content-the formal interaction rules for the organization. Values and norms, once transmitted through the organization, establish the permanence of the organization's culture.

Previously people were less interested in an organizational culture. Cultural perspectives were not really important. When it comes to cultural change, leaders used to take an action at the end, at the time where company was facing bankruptcy, and they were not succeeded. Unlike now, culture is significantly important aspect in an organization. It shapes how people think and behave. Once an employee gets hired, firstly he or she tries to identify existing culture. This is important for a new employee because he or she will be able to adopt themselves to the new environment. On top of that, the practice of cultural change has become different. Leaders now, start changing an organizational

Culture combines themes from various disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, and social psychology. While some experts associate culture with the ancient practices in different societies, the term now refers to developments within organizations. The world is changing, and so are organizations. Many organizations are striving to create and maintain an identity in a world where competition keeps mounting each day. The mounting pressure requires organizations to make certain decisions to achieve their objectives. The decision making exercise requires leaders who can identify particular targets and develop strategies to help organizations meet them. Leadership entails the facilitation of an organization towards the realization of some desired results (Schein, 2010). While pursuing objectives, leaders may either follow the routine practices of the organization or invent some new tactics so long as they conform to the set principles. This implies a strong relationship between leadership and culture. Leadership could be the source or culture or vice-versa. In most cases; however, leadership comes secondary to culture. For example, leaders work according to the existing

Organizational culture can be defined as ‘a pattern of shared basic assumptions learned by a group as it solved its problems of external adaption and internal integration, which has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems’ (Schein 2010, p18). Having great organisational culture is not achievable in just one turn. Implementations of certain factors are required in order to attain an effective corporate culture. Factors that determine a company’s culture are: the vision of the organisation being understood by the staff, the decisions made by the managers and whether or not they reflect the values taught, and whether or not the perceptions, values and beliefs are being role modelled by managers on all levels. Through the discussion of how organisational cultures are established and maintained, its impact, the difference between strong and weak corporate cultures, how it affects the performance of managers as well as employees, and the process of changing an organisational culture, the importance of managers needing to have a thorough understanding of the culture, will become evident. Hofstede’s theory of dimensions, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Kotter’s theory of change, will support this.