preview

What is Organizational Culture? Explain both how the culture of an organization might evolve and why an understanding of the organizational culture is important

Good Essays
When we hear the word 'culture ', what appear on our minds are traditions, which have lived and been practiced through the generations of a certain race, tribe or people, for examples, top-spinning and traditional wedding for the Malays. In the following paragraphs, I will be explaining what organizational culture actually is, as applied to the organizations nowadays.

According to R.W. Griffin, in his book Management, he defines organizational culture as a broad form of culture, which comprises of a set of values, beliefs, behaviours, customs, and attitudes that help the members of the organization understand what it stands for, how it does things, and what it considers important. If we go back to our earlier interpretation of culture,
…show more content…
Consider this example of the English national football team. During the European 2000 tournament, the England team played badly and was actually dumped out in the first round. Not long after that, the manager, who was an English, gave up his post, and the English Football Association later appointed a Swedish, a foreigner, to fill in the vacancy. Sven Goran Erikkson, the new manager, is very well-known, and has been a manager in a number of clubs all around Europe with excellent success records. With his knowledge and experience, he has instilled a new dimension of European flavour into the national team, especially in terms of dieting methods, training and tactics. His winning mentality has so far been absorbed by the players, and this is shown by the turn of fortune the team have been experiencing since then. Although a football team is not a typical organization as we discussed in this entire essay, it shows that a change in culture brought by an outsider signifies it similarity with, say for example, when a new outside CEO is appointed within the organization, and how important the resulting effects could be.

Similar to the point above, but in an altogether different perspective, an organizational culture could also surface through mergers and acquisitions. Such co-operating and takeover activities are quite commonplace nowadays, where competition keeps especially large businesses to stay ahead, and at the same time act as a cost-cutting measure. For example,
Get Access