Organizations Culture

 

HR’s role in shaping organizational culture for performance

Organization culture is defined as the collection of belief, expectation and values that interacts with members as to contribute a unique social and psychological environment of the organization (Schein, 2016). Organizational culture includes an organization’s expectation, experiences, philosophy as well as the values that guide team members’ behaviour and is expressed in members self – image, inner workings, interactions with the outside work and future expectation. Culture also includes the organization’s vision, values, norms, systems, symbols, language, assumptions, beliefs and habits as this affects in performance and organization’s productivity provides guidelines on customer care and services, product quality and safety, attendance and punctuality and concern for the environment (Ouchi and Alan, 2020) . Organizational culture is unique for every organization and one of the hardest things to change.

There are four types of organization; The Clan Culture, The Adhocracy Culture, The Market Culture and The Hierarchy Culture Quinn and Cameron 1983 discover that organization that are flexible in culture are more successful that rigid ones as this would make organization to manage the competition between culture while restraining their values sets as required (Wrong, 2020).

The Clan Culture also known as Task Culture; The employees share commitments and see themselves as team members who are active and involved. In this culture the employees are teamed up with expert members to solve particular problems, complete due task importance and focus on mentoring, nurturing themselves. Taking an example, the Telecommunication division which is task-oriented, the employees and the manager take up the role to ensure the competitiveness of the given target in efficiency and productivity of the organization (Wrong, 2020).

Adhocracy Culture also known as the Adaptive Culture; The employee extent to which freedom is allowed in decision making, developing new ideas and personal expression are an important part of this culture. The core values of the organization are held together by experimentation with an emphasis on individuals, changes to be brought and agility (Wrong, 2020). Taking the example of IT organization that development based on their ideas and creativity that are shared and brought in to action by the employees.

The Market Culture also known as Person Culture; The business treats employees, customers and the wider community in the strong aspect of a person and market culture. Person Culture is a culture in which horizontal structures are most applicable where each individual is seen as valuable that organization itself. It’s not easy to sustain in this culture as the organization is mainly focused on competitions, achievements and getting the job done (Boundless,2020).

Hierarchy Culture also known as Power Culture and Role Culture. In this culture, the organization is structure as a hierarchy. This type of culture required strong deference to the leader in charge. Role cultures are where functional structures are created where individuals know their jobs, report to their superiors and value efficiency and accuracy above all else. Taking the example of Vallibel as this goes under a power culture where the power index person in Mr Dhammika Perera (Boundless,2020).

The process of how culture is created and maintained

Figure 1: The Structure on how the organization is formed.

(Schein, 2016).


When entrepreneurs establish their own business, the way they want to do business the organization’s rules, the structure set up the company and the people they hire to work with them. During this step, the values become part of the corporate culture to the degree they help the company to be successful. Taking an example of the Browns Capital PLC – it starts off as a solutions provider for agriculture. Established in 1875 by Mr M. B. Lachore Browns and begins as a Plantation Support Services that is currently known as the oldest Strategic Business Unit (Browns Capital PLC, 2018). The core values are still existing as they believe to cover the entire section of agriculture by serving the finest quality farming solutions and empowering farming customers to work towards increased farm productivity, prosperity and profits. With the help of these values, the organization helped themselves in identifying the competitive larger corporate brand and attract a loyal customer base. Whereas this becomes a competitive advantage as these values were retained as part of the corporate the culture and were taught to new employees to improve the business. Due to this currently, the organization has expanded in covering different sectors such as constructions, investments, telecommunication and tourism.

According to (Schlender, 1998) with a supportive and powerful influence over corporate culture by the founders, the industry characteristics also play a major role. This means different organization in sectors are different in culture-oriented (Ouchi and Alan, 2020). Taking example such as companies is that in the Financial sector, they are stable and rule-oriented this means that their company structure is bureaucratic, compressed with rules and regulation and maintain a secure culture. Companies that are into the technology industry determines to be innovative in culture this requires the culture to be creative, agility, taking quick action and low concern in regard to laws and authority. Lastly, organizations that are non-profit tend to be people-oriented. These different types of cultures become the key role in the industry as these shows that may not be possible to imitate the culture of a company even though it may seem admirable to outsiders (Chatman & Jehn, 1994; Gordon, 1991).




References

Browns Capital PLC, 2018. Annual Report, Sri Lanka: s.n.

Ouchi and Alan, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.so.11.080185.002325. Organizational Culture, Volume 11:457-483, pp. Ouchi, pp 457-483.

Schein, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.45.2.109. Organizational culture., pp. 45(2), 109–119..

Wrong, K., 2020. Organizational Culture: Definition, Importance, and Development, USA: Achiever.

Schlender, B. (1998, June 22). Gates’ crusade. Fortune, 137, 30–32.

 


Comments

  1. Culture of an organization can be demonstrated in many ways, including leadership behaviors, communication styles, internally distributed messages and corporate celebrations. Given that it has many elements, there is no accepted definition for organizational culture. Some commonly used terms to describe organizational culture are; aggressive, customer-focused, innovative, fun, ethical, research-driven, technology-driven, process-oriented, hierarchical, family-friendly and risk-taking. These cultures are shaped through different factors of characteristics namely; shared values, degree of hierarchy, degree of urgency, people or task orientation, functional orientation and organizational subcultures. For this reason, HR professionals must have a sound understanding of their organization specific culture and what drives the culture if they want to have any impact on the organization (SHRM , Toolkits)

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    1. Thank you Sonali, Conversely, the company and its leadership can be taken down by an inadequate community. Examples of how the wrong culture will adversely affect the bottom line are disengaged workers, high turnover, bad consumer relationships and reduced income (Iedunote, 2020).

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  2. Hi Malinga, I would like to add few more points to you post regarding the Clan Culture. This culture values flexibility, employee autonomy and teamwork rather than competition or conformity. Participation is another element that is crucial to clan cultured organization because there will not be any teamwork or a sense of family if everyone is not taking part and only completes their own job but do not bother about others’ jobs. The sense of being a part of the organization, part of the family will make everyone share the same thoughts and goals, minimizing internal strife but targets all the external parties such as rival companies with a consensus without even discussing. While this business culture has many positive features, Strain M. argues that, there are also some potential disadvantages too. Such as, lack of diversity, lack of dissent, potential of abuse, lack of authority etc..

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    1. Clan cultures have a fun, collaborative culture which can be compared with a big family where individuals have a lot in common, i.e. a clan. Generally strong bonds of allegiance, tradition, and commonality form. Google, Zappos, or Tom's of Maine are examples of firms that may have a clan culture (Armstrong 2014).

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    2. Thank You Malithra for your valuable comment.

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  3. Hi Malinga, According to Armstrong (2014), Organizational culture is a pattern of values, norms, beliefs, attitudes, and assumptions.

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    1. Yes Ranga Furthermore, Organization culture is defined as the collection of belief, expectation and values that interacts with members. Culture also includes the organization's vision, values, norms, systems, symbols, language, assumptions, beliefs and habits (Ouchi and Alan, 2020).

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  4. Hi Malinga, adding more on how the organizational culture is developed, according to Schein (1990) the basis of culture is formed in four ways. Firstly by the visionary leaders in the organization, especially those who have shaped it in the past. Secondly around critical incidents from which lessons are learnt about desirable or undesirable behaviours. Thirdly from the need to maintain effective working relationships among organization members that establishes values and expectations. Finally through the organization’s environment which may tend to be dynamic or unchanging.

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    1. Hi Himasha thank you for your idea & furthermore, A number of factors, including the principles and desires of founders, market demands, and early values, objectives, and assumptions, establish organizational cultures. Community is retained by attraction-selection-attrition, onboarding of new workers, management and organizational incentive programs (Schein, 2016).

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  5. Ravasi and Schultz (2006) characterize organizational culture as a set of shared assumptions that guide behaviors. It is also the pattern of such collective behaviors and assumptions that are taught to new organizational members as a way of perceiving and, even thinking and feeling. Thus organizational culture affects the way people and groups interact with each other, with clients, and with stakeholders. In addition, organizational culture may affect how much employees identify with an organization.

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    1. Hi Janaka thanks for your comment further, Identifying a set of values that might be used to describe an organization's culture helps us identify, measure, and manage culture more effectively. Several researchers have proposed various culture typologies. One such typology is the organizational culture profile (OCP), in which culture is represented by seven distinct values (Boundless,2020).

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  6. Hi Malinga, I would like to add another points of organizational culture here. Acar,A.Z & Acar, P. (2014) stated four key characteristics of organizational culture, according to the current finding as follows:
    1.Organizational culture is a shared phenomenon (Schein, 1997)
    2.Organizational culture has visible and less visible levels (Schein, 1997) .
    3. Every new member of the organization learns the culture(Wilson, 2001), especially through socialization.
    4. Culture changes slowly with time (Baumgartner, 2009) & correlation structure established by the employees of the organization moving towards the same values, beliefs and common goals.

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    1. Thank You Eranga for your valuable comment Further, the culture of organization is very difficult. Every organization has its own distinctive personality, just as individuals do. An organization's distinctive identity is called its culture (Ouchi and Alan, 2020).

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  7. Hodgetts and Luthans (2003), state that different attributes that are associated with the culture of organization as organizational culture. Culture may define as system of ordinary values which can be estimated that people describe the similar organization culture even with different background at different levels within the organization (Robbins & Sanghi, 2007). As per Stewart (2010), Organization’s norms and values have a strong effect on all of those who are attached with the organization. The complete knowledge and awareness of organizational culture will help to improve the ability to examine the behaviour of organization which assists to manage and lead (Brooks, 2006).

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    1. Yes, Chamila I agree with your comments, Organization's norms and values have a strong effect on all of those who are attached to the organization. The complete knowledge and awareness of organizational culture will help to improve the ability to examine the behavior of organization (Robbins & Sanghi, 2007).

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  8. The entrepreneurial culture is based on the drive and ambition of staff and the willingness to succeed. This is supported by letting people take responsibility and ownership of their own performance, development and career. The entrepreneurial culture in the company is a great strength and asset towards engaging staff for performance (Kerstin Alfes et al, 2010).

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    1. Thanks Mihiran furthermore, entrepreneurial culture has been defined as the mentality, beliefs, abilities, and power to generate income of a community or individuals employed in an institute or organization (Zeeshan Ahmad, 2019).

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  9. Hi Malinga , Interesting reading and adding more for your reference. Organization culture is the one of key areas of management and organization studies. An important task of managers is to try to manage the ideas and understanding of their subordinates and also dealing with technical issues like budgets, Information system - calls for people to ascribe a positive and similar meaning for these to work well( Alvesson 2013)

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    1. Yes, Madura I completely agree with you & further, HR has a vital role in perpetuating a strong culture, starting with recruiting and selecting applicants. HR also develops orientation, training and performance management programs. HR ensures appropriate rewards and recognition go to employees who truly embody the values.

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  10. Malinga as per the your post, A key ‘concern is that culture Management aspires to intervene in and regulate being: So that there is no distance between individual’s purposes and those of the organization for which they work' (Gery 2005)

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    1. Hi, Asanka thanks for your comment & I do not agree with you on the contrary as entrepreneurs build their own company, the way they want to do business is essential to the rules of the organization, the organization's system set up and the people they employ to work with. It begins as a solution provider for agriculture, taking an example of Browns Capital PLC. According to (Schlender, 1998), with the founders having a supportive and influential impact on corporate culture, the features of the industry also play a major role (Zeeshan Ahmad, 2019).

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  11. Watson (2006) emphasises that a crucial trend in managerial thinking recently has been one
    of encouraging managers to try to create strong organisational cultures. Culture is primarily important when an organisation is undergoing significant transformation or
    when bringing about major reforms which require different or new cultural or value traits from those exhibited in the past ( Boyle, R 2008).

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  12. Schein (1992, 1993) notes the importance of organizational culture in understanding how organizational learning occurs. He argues that basic assumptions (i.e. the taken-for-granted, shared, tacit ways of perceiving, thinking and reacting) are powerful and stable forces operating in organizations.

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