organisational culture

What is organisational culture?

Organisational culture is a widely used term but one that seems to give rise to a degree of ambiguity. (Watson, 2006) emphasizes that the concept of culture originally derived from a metaphor of the organisation as ‘something cultivated’. For the past number of decades, most academics and practitioners studying organisations suggest the concept of culture is the climate and practices that organisations develop around their handling of people, or to the promoted values and statement of beliefs of an organisation (Schein, 2004). (Schein, 2004) highlights that ‘the only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture; that the unique talent of leaders is their ability to understand and work with culture; and that it is an ultimate act of leadership to destroy culture when it is viewed as dysfunctional’. Culture therefore gives organisations

 Types of organisational culture

It is important to note that there is not just one organisational culture. It is widely recognised by the academic literature that different organisations have distinctive cultures. Also, there may be more than one culture within organisations.  (Bradley and Parker, 2006)  One classification of culture types is proposed in Competing Values Framework , based on work by (Quinn and Rohrbaugh, 1983).  [See Figure 1].

Figure 1: The Competing Values Framework of Organisational Culture

Source: cited in Bradley and Parker(2001) and adapted from Zammuto and Krakower (1991)

Theories of Organisational Culture

Just as there are differing perspectives on what organisational culture is, there are differing perspectives regarding how it functions. (Denison, 1990) identifies four basic views of organisational culture that can be translated into four distinct hypotheses:

1.       The consistency hypothesis – the idea that a common perspective, shared beliefs and communal values among the organisational participants will enhance internal coordination and promote meaning and a sense of identification on the part of its members.
2.      The mission hypothesis – the idea that a shared sense of purpose, direction, and strategy can coordinate and galvanize organisational members toward collective goals. 
3.       The involvement/participation hypothesis – the idea that involvement and participation will contribute to a sense of responsibility and ownership and, hence, organisational commitment and loyalty.
4.       The adaptability hypothesis – the idea that norms and beliefs that enhance an organisation’s ability to receive, interpret, and translate signals from the environment into internal organisational and behavioral changes will promote its survival, growth, and development.

Increasing Importance of Organisational Culture

 (Schein, 2004) suggests that organisational culture is even more important today than it was in the past. Increased competition, globalization, mergers, acquisitions, alliances, and various workforce developments have created a greater need for:

• Coordination and integration across organisational units in order to improve efficiency, quality, and speed of designing, manufacturing, and delivering products and services
• Product innovation
• Strategy innovation
•  Process innovation and the ability to successfully introduce new technologies, such as information technology
• Effective management of dispersed work units and increasing workforce diversity
• Cross-cultural management of global enterprises and/or multi-national partnerships
• Construction of meta- or hybrid- cultures that merge aspects of cultures from what were distinct organisations prior to an acquisition or merger
• Management of workforce diversity
• Facilitation and support of teamwork.

In addition to a greater need to adapt to these external and internal changes, organisational culture has become more important because, for an increasing number of corporations, intellectual as opposed to material assets now constitute the main source of value. Maximizing the value of employees as intellectual assets requires a culture that promotes their intellectual participation and facilitates both individual and organisational learning, new knowledge creation and application, and the willingness to share knowledge with others. Culture today must play a key role in promoting:

• Knowledge management
• Creativity
• Participative management
• Leadership

References

·          Barnhart, R.K. (1988) ‘Entries for ‘Structure’ and ‘Culture’’, Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, Edinburgh:Chambers cited in Watson, T.J. (2006).

·          Schein, E.H.(2004) Organisational Culture and Leadership, Third edition, San Francisco:Jossey-Bass.

·          Bradley, L. and R. Parker (2006) Do Australian public sector employees have the type of culture they want in the era of new public management? Australian Journal of Public Administration (AJPA), Vol.65, Issue 1 p.89-99, Australia: Blackwell Synergy, http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/ abs/10.1111/j.1467-8500.2006.00474a.x

·          Quinn, R.E. and J. Rohrbaugh (1983) ‘A spatial model of effectiveness criteria: Towards a competing values approach to organisational analysis,’ Management Science 29: 363-377, cited in Bradley, L. and R. Parker, (2006) Do Australian public sector employees have the type of culture they want in the era of new public management? Australian Journal of Public Administration (AJPA), Vol.65, Issue 1 p.89-99, Australia: Blackwell Synergy, http://www.blackwellsynergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467- 8500.2006.00474a.x

·          Osborne, D. and Gaebler, T. (1992) Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit Is Transforming the Public Sector, Reading, MA:Addison-Wesley, cited in DuGay (2000) and Bradley and Parker (2001).

·          Zammuto, R.F. and J.Y. Krakower (1991) ‘Quantitative and qualitative studies of organisational culture,’ Research in Organisation Change and Development Vol 5:pp. 83-114, cited in Bradley, L. and R. Parker, (2006) Do Australian public sector employees have the type of culture they want in the era of new public management? Australian Journal of Public Administration (AJPA), Vol.65, Issue 1 pp.89-99, Australia: Blackwell Synergy, http://www.blackwellsynergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467- 8500.2006.00474a.x

·          Denison, D.R. (1990) Corporate culture and organisational effectiveness. New York: Wiley

·          Denison, Daniel R. 1990. Corporate Culture and Organisational Effectiveness. New York: John Wiley & Sons

·          Schein, Edgar H. 2004. Organisational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers