Organizational Culture: The Relationship Between Culture And Culture

An organization, defined by a structured social unit, is managed to pursue collective goals, or to meet a special need. When a founder sets up an organization, he has to set up a structure, determining the hierarchy, defining each role, responsibilities according to objectives and strategy. Thereafter, he also has to set up a culture. Actually, this step is a really important one, as it will affect on the organization’s performances. Founders propose a culture, which will be developed by top managers. After having defined it in more than a hundred ways, several authors have proved its importance, especially in relation to the organization’s performance. That is exactly why many tools have been developed to estimate culture’s efficiency. Nevertheless,

As it is taking years to set up one, changing it is even more difficult. This essay will explain in a first time the basis of an organization culture, with its main definition and emphasising its importance. Thereafter, this essay will concern the different implication of an organizational culture, relating the relationship between culture and performance, including the main frameworks to measure it, but also explaining the different meanings of a change.
“If you don’t maintain Southwest’s culture, you don’t have anything special.”
Colleen Barrett, President Emeritus of Southwest Airlines Co
Considered as the personality of an organization, the culture aims to show to employees how to act within it, but it is especially a kind of mirror promoting its values, beliefs, behaviours and its relationship with the different stakeholders, it is a socially constructed attribute serving to establish an organization. According to Edgar H. Schein, organizational culture is a “pattern of shared basic assumptions (...) learned by a group”, solving its problem of external adaptation, and internal integration, which means it has to be adapted to customers and

Many tools have been developed so that the organizational culture becomes more apparent and to measure its impact. They are divided into three categories: strategic measures (external environment and elements of Porter’s five forces), organizational measures (internal environment), and operational measures (mostly about outcomes). Then, according to the Balanced-Scorecard approach, organization’s performances are divided into tangible (quantitative), and intangible (qualitative) elements. Indeed, most of the time, members become aware of their culture only when they face a new culture (language is a part of their culture, but they realize it only when they face another language). Measuring culture is then a challenge as it is not always detectable, or consciously articulated. The Denison Organizational Culture Model tries to answer to those problems. It is based on four cultural traits: adaptability, mission, involvement, and consistency, where each one has an impact on sales growth, Return On Assets, quality, profits, employee satisfaction and overall performance. This model is a circumflex one, where each trait involves three other indices. At the centre of it are the basic beliefs and assumptions of the organisation. Adaptability