STUDY OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
AND ORGANISATIONAL CLIMATE
Abstract
This paper presents my understanding of two important parts of organization, which are the organizational culture and the organizational climate. The study of the two is important in understanding how the behavior and attitudes are shaped within an organization. This shaping of attitudes affects the work environment and fundamentals of an organization strongly. Organizational culture, in a way, gives an identity to the entity. Organizational climate is a part of the culture and is derived from it. It is the impact ofculture on them or the way employees face the culture.
Author: MaulasreeMaiti
Management Development Institute, Murshidabad
Professor: DrSomenduBiswas
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The main focus of the organization is to produce exactly same screws having attributes like square head, unique number of threads, a particular diameter and pitch. Exactness and accuracy is the fundamental policy of the company. Therefore, attention to detail is a core value of the organization. Be it anything, but not even a single screw should be different. It was the duty of each employee of the company to follow the guidelines strictly and avoid any deviation from the prescribed rules. In this example, the strictness and the attention to value is the culture of the organization. And as the members were expected to follow the rules strictly (that is to follow the culture), the climate of the organization was rule oriented (which is nothing but the impact of the culture).
SIMILARITIES BETWEEN ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AND ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE
The organizationalclimate is in a way, a subset of organizational culture. Organizational culture and climate have a lot of similarities. The focus of both culture and climate is on the integrated and aggregate study of the society of an organization. For example culture is born out of social interaction in an organization whereas climate is the impact of that interaction. As given in the research paper, both the organizational culture and climate can be classified into various levels. The culture can be divided into three levels:
1. Deep level: Core assumptions of the organizations. It consists of the fundamental expectation or perceptions which are typical to the
Just as there are cultures in larger human society, there seem to be cultures within organizations. These cultures are similar to societal cultures. They are shared, communicated through symbols, and passed down from generation to generation of employees. Many definitions of organizational culture have been proposed. Most of them agree that there are several levels of culture and that these levels differ in terms of their visibility and their ability to be changed.
Aspects of the perceived culture in an o organization, such as, level of communication among members, the level of support in regard for new innovations and technology, as well as the amount of support by upper level management all have a positive influence on the manner employees behave and interact with each other as well as how they treat consumers and suppliers. If employees emulate a manager that does not share the same values and beliefs of others within the organization, or that does not share a good work ethic, employees will not complete tasks and fail to be productive. It works as well in the opposite manner; when employees see a manager who supports a company’s mission, its goals, and business strategy, the organizational culture of the company will aide in providing a clear direction for employees to follow and strive towards. Ultimately, the culture supports desire business strategies and the overall mission of an organization, and the capacity of the culture is dependent on just how intensely employees share the values and basic assumption of the
Cultural Climate – The climate needs to move from an environment of indifference to customers’ needs. Also, because NCO monopolized the computer technology market and customers paid excessively for services. Employees lacked the motivation to meet customer demands. Therefore, it was noted that the environment needed to move from one of one indifference to one of meeting their customers’ needs. The environment will switch focus to working directly with customers’; allowing questions, feedback and customers will become part of the implementation team.
Organizational Culture and Structure Successful organizations recognize the impacts of organizational culture and its influence on many facets of business. Strong culture serves to support a business’ structure and furthers its efficiencies by keeping the focus where it belongs. Organizational structure uses the company’s culture as a moral and visionary compass. Both organizational culture and organizational structure play significant roles in a company’s resulting ethics, job performances, and retention rates. Ethical Effects Organizational culture is the basis for which ethical behaviors are established.
In today’s dynamic business environment leadership must understand the value and importance of their organizations’ culture. While it may never be formally defined, leadership must have a vision of their intended culture and a plan for creating and maintaining it. This vision will serve as the potter’s clay that determines everything from the dress code to the organizational structure. This paper examines two methods organizations can choose to create and maintain a healthy culture.
Organizational culture is the system of shared beliefs and values that develops within an organization and guides the behavior of its members, while organizational structure is an expression of social and economic principles of hierarchy and specialization (Kinicki, 2015). Both the culture and the structure of an organization are important things for management to understand in order to successfully set and achieve an organization’s goals. Companies who excel in highly competitive fields can attribute their successful economic performance to a cohesive corporate culture that increases competitiveness and profitability. This culture is best utilized in an organization that has the necessary structure to allow its employees to coordinate their actions to achieve its goals.
Culture can be defined as “A pattern of basic assumptions invented, discovered or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration that has worked well enough to be considered valid, and therefore to be taught to the new members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems”. Schein (1988). 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 feelings or climates. The purpose and function of this culture is to help foster internal integration, bring staff members from all levels of the organization closer together, and enhance their performance.
Culture, as well as climate, provides the leaders and the followers a context in which they interact. In turn, both culture and climate a positive organizational environment enabling members to feel better about themselves, have stronger commitments, and produce better work. In addition, culture and climate can affect the organization mission accomplishment either positively or negatively based on its members shared attitudes. In both cases, members’ shared attitude plays a critical part in the motivation and commitment level throughout the organization. Additionally, culture and climate can provide an environme...
This essay gives a basic idea of what organizational culture is, and emphasis on the controversial issues of managing organizational cultures. As there are various definitions for organizational culture, and none of them are universally agreed. Therefore, for an easier understanding by readers, the definition of organizational culture given in this essay focusing on levels of culture, and will be discussed t together with Schein's(1983) framework. Before talking about managing organizational cultures, the types will be introduced first. Because, there are some descriptions about managing different types of organizational cultures, in the following content.
...l man who enables others to think and do in his way (role model) and his employees work him for unconditional loyalty (e.g. his PA), also, adopt a fair system of rewards and punishments; however, as a leader sometimes he just needs some transformational styles which respect and communicate with followers equally rather than forced them to shut up rudely. As for organizational culture, the article obtains further understanding that some factors attribute to detect cultures existed in an organisation, communication system, for example. As a result, it can be identified that his culture not only can be classified as power but task. Moreover, due to the changeable outside environment, compounded and flexible cultures seems to be a better way for an organisation’s sustainable development. Therefore, leadership is tightly related to organizational culture.
The concept of organizational culture is one of the most debated topics for researchers and theorists. There is no one accepted definition of culture. People even said that it is hard to define culture and even more change it. It is considered a complex part of an organization although many have believed that culture influences employee behavior and organizational effectiveness (Kilmann, Saxton, & Serpa 1985; Marcoulides & Heck, 1993; Schein, 1985a, 1990).
Organisational culture is emergent and socially created by constant interactions of organisational members with their environment as well as with each other. Looking at the former, Schein (1985) defines culture as learned solutions to problems that arise from positive problem-solving situations, be it problems of “external adaptation” or “internal integration”. Essentially, when confronted a problem that threatens the continuing survival of an organisation, members of the organisation would try out various responses until they discover one that most effectively remedies the situation. This solution, once accepted, is absorbed into the culture and becomes a cultural norm. For the latter, culture also emerges as a way for members to cope with environmental anxieties. For example, in order to cope with the stress of their occupational responsibilities and develop an effective way to communicate their points with each other, members of an organisation may develop their own jargon and language, which then becomes an implicit cultural
Organizational culture is the key to organizational excellence and leadership is a function to create and manage culture (Chen 1992). Organizational researchers have become more aware of the importance of understanding and enhancing the cultural life of the institution. "This study is one of a group of companies with high-performance in North America, interest in organizational culture is an important element in organizational success. Tesluk et al (1997). Looking at the" soft "of the organization, the researchers claim that" the organizational culture may be suitable for a means to explore and understanding of life at work, and make them more humane and more pronounced (Tesluk et al, 1997), and the graves (1986) also stressed the importance of corporate culture, and the need for research strategies and methods of investigating the various elements and processes of the organizational culture. He argued the culture that meets the basic needs of belonging and security in an attempt to describe this gathering that culture is "the only thing that distinguishes one company from another gives them coherence and self-confidence and rationalises the lives of those who work for it. Standard that may seem random, is to enhance the life to be different, and safe to be similar, and culture is a concept that provides the means to achieve this compromise (p. 157).
Culture can be defined as the beliefs, values and the pattern of behavior of an individual within designated areas. The culture of organizations defines shared values and behavioral expectations. Cultural issues are especially basic issues all around the globe. These issues can happen in various routes relying upon the size, area and the custom culture of that institution. Social issues happen even because of the states of mind and how each individual comprehend in diverse business environment. Today, the corporate administrations and rising business firms have chosen to give the essential attention on trainings and classes at the multicultural working environment that will help them to understand and create
Organisational culture can be defined as a total function of common beliefs, values, patterns of behaviour that held and shared by the member in an organisation. It is also a valuable resource which can improve competitiveness of a company and uses to distinguish the company (Barney 1986). From 1970's the study of organisational culture has become an important issue and closely studied in early 1980s. Since then organisational culture turned out as one of the most important factors which affects the overall performance of a company. It brought organisational culture to the performance of a company which has become a critical topic in management department. In addition to what organisational culture is, organisations need to aware and prepare changes of the expanding workforce from business growing. Companies are facing with maximizing benefits as well as profits while minimizing negative factors that comes from those changes. There is no only one answer for the issue, but some of guidelines are clear. Awareness of organisational culture, teamwork, individual performance, external environment adaptation, leadership, and measurement of organisational culture are key factors that lead a company performs better.