ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

Organizational Culture



Organizational Culture

Task 1

Importance of Organizational Culture

The culture of an organization is represented in its basic values, beliefs, norms and assumptions. An organization's culture is often seen as manifested in its policies and practices and the understandings, language, behaviour and attitudes of organizational members. The history of the organization and the influence of its founders and/or key position holders are widely judged to be important influences on shaping the organization's culture. In turn, this culture is reflected in the characteristic style that a company displays. In the given case study of Excel, the culture of increased absenteeism and overtime had gone out of control and it was costing around 15 to 20% of output each month (Grugulis, 2002, pp. 179-94). The company had to suffer a lot because of this unethical and undesirable culture. The management at Excel had to make changes in its previous culture and reform its working environment.

In the 1980s, the culture of work organizations became the focus of attention for many management theorists and consultants. The most visible form of this was Peters and Waterman's book In Search of Excellence (1982) in which they argued that the success of particular organizations could be attributed to the 'excellence' of their strong corporate cultures. The prescriptive element in Peters and Waterman, and many managerial consultants that followed them, was that cultures could be managed and modified: that the right leadership, holding the right values and beliefs, could change the culture and inculcate those values and beliefs throughout the organization (Hatch, 2006, pp.96-105). The outcome was portrayed as a positive effect on levels of employee commitment, productivity and performance. In this way, cultures were viewed as potential sources of enhanced management control, capable of being shaped and harnessed in pursuit of greater organizational effectiveness.

It can be said thus, that by creating an open, friendly, relaxed and supporting working climate, that is also highly effective and dedicated to succeed, Excel Corporation has adapted the ultimate informal corporate culture. Rob Goffee's and Gareth Jones' have defined culture as a "...community. It is an outcome of how people relate to each other". They believe that there are four types of communities, identified by the degree of sociability and solidarity that exists in any organisation. Taking their view into account, Excel Corporation has attained a communal culture; that is a culture, where sociability as well as solidarity is high, meaning that there are strong relationships between the employees, but at the same time work gets done effectively and efficiently and the collective will to succeed is high (Kume, 2007, pp. 211-227).

Evidently, a large portion of Excel Corporation's success has been achieved thanks to this culture and the attitudes, ideas and believes that are shared by all the employees. That is mainly because, through its culture, Excel Corporation has achieved exactly what a company needs, to be a world leader in its industry.

There are different factors responsible for the current culture in Excel Corporation ...