To What Extent Can Organisational Culture Be Managed? Is It Critical to Organisational Success?

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.

Once completing the quiz “What’s the Right Organisational Culture for Me?”(Robbins, DeCenzo, Coulter & Woods, p. 46), I found that my personal score of 24 placed me in this more humanistic style of organisational culture. According to Robbins et al (2016, p. 46), scores more than 22 “indicate a preference for informal, humanistic, flexible and innovative cultures”. The quiz itself looked into the seven main pinpoint of organisational culture; “innovation and risk-taking, attention to detail, outcome orientation, people orientation, aggressiveness and stability.” I think that organisational culture is integral to the businesses productivity because of its ability to reflect communal shared values, principles, traditions, and practices that influence the way an organisation’s employees and other members conduct themselves.

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

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

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

Describing and identifying the importance of abstract terms is a difficult task because their meaning rely more on substance than form. For this and other reasons, individuals as well as organizations tend to overlook or underestimate their importance for a successful career and for the effective functioning of an organization. “Organizational Culture” is one of those terms, we can’t see it, but we can feel and experience it, and it has a profound impact in the way people behave in an organization. It denotes the attitudes, experiences, beliefs, and values of the work group or team within the organization, which to an extent affect the organization as a whole.

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,

In addition to having implications for organizational performance, organizational culture is an effective control mechanism for dictating employee behavior. Culture is in fact a more powerful way of controlling and managing employee behaviors than organizational rules and regulations. When the company’s environment. To the extent shared values are proper for the company in question, company performance may benefit from culture.[5]

Organisational culture can be defined as a collection of beliefs and norms shared by individuals and groups in an organisation. It is those norms that control the way they do things and the way they relate with themselves and with their customers. The culture of an organisation can be perceived and felt but, may not be easily explained. Culture is developed and transferred in conscious ways and unconscious ways from one generation to another.

In this report we aim to explore three different theories regarding organisation culture and apply these theories to three businesses with different values and structures. We will go about this by using primary research we have gathered to make informed decisions on what theories suit the different businesses best and why some theories cannot be applied in certain circumstances.

Organisational culture shared among all the members, with its values, principles, traditions and methods of working. It determines how an organisation functions, from industry side to individually. It could be an important asset which, if not managed well, can be a critical liability for the organisation. While a healthy and positive organisational culture could increase relationship between employees and employer, and together achieve the maximum performance for the company, a deleterious culture would lead to the downfall of the organisation, and eventually collapse. It is an advantage that requires good management skill, coordination and communication in order for the organisation to utilize it well. Beaudan and Smith (2000) at Ivey Business Journal stated that corporate cultures are mature and complex organisms. One must carefully and smartly shape the culture, and it is wise to nurture corporate culture as an asset, rather than a risk and liability. This essay explains both beneficial and negative sides of organisational culture, along with case studies supported.

The business dictionary (Business Dictionary 2014) defines organisational culture as the ‘values and behaviours that contribute to the unique social and psychological environment of an organization’. An organisation's culture is important in ensuring that the performance of the business meets or exceeds the expectations of all aspects of their business, from management to the wider community as a whole. The culture dictates the ways employees interact and brings all the employees on a common platform to extract the best of each member. An organisations culture should be in line with the predefined goals, visions and values outlined in the mission statement.

Interest in the area of corporate culture is said to have originated in the 1970s as a response to the success of Japanese management and the perceived failure of traditional organizational analysis (Hofstede, Neuijen, Ohayv & Sanders, 1990; Ouchi, 1985; Martin & Frost, 1999). Since then, research has flourished, with particular emphasis placed on the link between culture and corporate performance (Kilmann, Saxton & Serpa, 1985). Observations of the most well-known, best run companies, like IBM and Google, seem to suggest that having a unique, cohesive culture can propel a company above the competition (Kilmann et al., 1985). Following from this, it makes sense that figuring out how to control culture to achieve competitive advantage has received a lot of attention from scholars and management alike (Anthony, 1994).

The culture of an organisation can be seen as a set of core characteristics that are collectively valued by all members of that organisation; and, corporate culture is believed to be a key element in the success of any organisation (Visagie et al. 2002). Schein (2004) emphasises that organisational cultures provide group members with a way of giving meaning to their daily lives, setting guidelines and rules for how to behave and most important, reducing and containing the anxiety of dealing with an unpredictable and uncertain environment. The aim of this paper is to provide a clear demonstration of appropriate theoretical frameworks in relation to corporate culture; with the concentration on analysing its positive and negative influences

The classic Phrase by Mckinsey organisation, “the culture is how we do things around here” is taken as reference by many great people. It’s true that culture exist in an organisation which influences the work being done and also affects the success or failure of the project.