Understanding Organizational Culture

Organizational culture is the summation of the underlying organizational values manifesting as collective assumptions, attitudes, beliefs, expectations and norms.  Grounded in the customs and

Organizational culture is the personality of the organization. Culture is comprised of the assumptions, values, norms and tangible signs (artifacts) of organization members and their behaviors. Members of an organization soon come to sense the particular culture of an organization. Culture is one of those terms that are difficult to express distinctly, but everyone knows it when they sense it. For example, the culture of a large, for-profit corporation is quite different than that of a hospital which is quite different that that of a university. You can tell the culture of an organization by looking at the arrangement of furniture, what they brag about, what members wear.

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,

Organizational culture is the stable beliefs, values, and assumptions shared by a group of people. I used to work at a bar and there was a shared understanding between the servers and bartenders. The bartenders were the managers, and each manager had their style of how the bar was ran each night. The servers had their system of who get what section, but they also had to follow the style of each bartender. The instrumental purpose of our organizational culture was influenced by who was managing the bar each night. There were some bartenders who did not like being bothered with questions from the servers and there were some who were nice and helpful. The bartenders that did not care, influenced the servers by letting them choose who had each section, deciding who had to clean and stock, and who was able to leave and at what times.

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

Organizational culture is not a new concept in the world of organizational behavior. Yet despite its age, it still has many varied definitions as well as philosophies on its importance and impact to the success of a company. One definition is that organizational culture is a cognitive framework consisting of attitudes, values, behavioral norms, and expectations shared by members of an organization (Greenberg, 2013, p. 368). Greenberg (2013) further explains organizational culture through an analogy of a tree. Organizational culture are similar to the roots of a tree.

Organizational culture creates a unique identity that diversifies an organization from its opposition. Ogbonna & Lloyd (p, 32, 2002) defines organizational culture as “the collective sum of beliefs, values, meanings and assumptions that are shared by a social group and that

Organizational culture can be defined as a system of shared beliefs and values that develops within an organization and guides the behavior of its members. It includes routine behaviors, norms, dominant values, and a feeling or climate conveyed. The purpose and function of this culture is to help foster internal integration, bring staff members from all levels of the organization much closer together, and enhance their performance.

Organizational culture is system within an organization that drives the values, standards, and beliefs. Everyone within the organization should have a vested interest in the culture, as it sets a standard of expectations throughout an organization to which everyone performs their job. Organizational culture will influence how and when certain uniforms are worn, the level of professionalism while on a call, doing inspections, or out in public, and what type of behavior is tolerated and not tolerated around the station. One of the greatest attributes of organizational culture is that it is fluid. In other words, this culture can be studied and refined for improvement which can result in a better culture. A good example of this is the use of

The concept of organizational cultures was first raised in 1970s, and soon became a fashionable topic. Organizational culture is the shared beliefs, values and behaviours of the group. Theorists of organizations believe that organizational culture represents the pattern of behaviours, values, and beliefs of an organization. Hence, studies around organizational culture have been seen as great helpful and essential for understanding organizations and their behaviours. Additionally, organizational culture has been considered to be an important determinant of organizational success. Therefore, leaders and managers pay more than more attentions on this topic, focusing on constructing and managing organizational cultures.

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.

Organizational culture is how people behave, practice or beliefs in an organization. As every company

Organizational culture, according to Cristian-Liviu, V. (2013) can be defined as a system of shared values, representing the company’s most important elements, and beliefs, representing the way in which thing are done inside the company, that shape the employees, the organizational structure and control systems, in order to produce commonly accepted behavioural norms. Moreover, the way in which people behave is influenced by the ideologies, symbols and core values shared throughout the company.

The personality traits of a person are really important factors that have considerable influence on the organizational culture and collective targets of the organization.

Organizational culture is" The collection of traditional, value, policies, beliefs and attitudes that constitute a pervasive context for everything we do and thin in an organization".