DEVELOPING CORPORATE CULTURE

Developing Corporate Culture



Developing Corporate Culture

Introduction

Organisational culture has been given a lot of attention in recent years. Culture consists of the shared values of an organisation - the beliefs and norms that affect every aspect of work life? from how people greet each other to how major policy decisions are made. The strength of a culture determines how difficult or easy it is to know how to behave in the organisation. The four cultures he discusses are Power'? 'Role'? 'Task' and 'People'. The purpose of the analysis is to assess the degree to which the predominant culture reflects the real needs and constraints of the British Airlines.

The power culture?

The family operation with strict responsibilities going to family member's responsibility given to personalities rather than expertise creates the power structure of the 'web'. Examples to which Handy refers include the massive institutions in the USA? run as a small family business at the top and known as 'robber barons'. Power is concentrated in a small area? the centre of which is the wheel or the centre of the web. Power radiates out from the centre? usually a key personality? to others in the family who send information down to departments? functions or units.

The role culture?

This has been typified as a Greek temple and has often been stereotyped as portraying bureaucracy in its purest form. The apex of the temple is where the decision making takes place; the pillars of the temple reflect the functional units of the organisation which have to implement the decisions from the apex. On the other hand a model of culture? developed by Jerry Johnson (Figure 1)? may help to explain the difference between the two approaches.

Johnson calls his model the 'cultural web' though I must admit that it reminds me more of a flower than a web. The paradigm in the centre is the set of core beliefs which result from the multiplicity of conversations and which maintains the unity of the culture. The 'petals' are the manifestations of culture which result from the influence of the paradigm.

Most change programmes concentrate on the petals; they try to effect change by looking at structures? systems? and processes. Experience shows us that these initiatives usually have a limited success. A lot of energy (and money) is put into the change programme? with all the usual communication exercises? consultations? workshops? and so on. In the first few months things seem to be changing but gradually the novelty and impetus wears off and the organisation settles back into something like its previous configuration. The reason for this is simple? though often overlooked—unless the paradigm at the heart of the culture is changed there will be no lasting change.

Analysis

1.1Explain how models of organization (BA) culture can be used to achieve organizational objectives

It is difficult to define what organisational culture is but the most popular way to explain organisational culture is to consider each organisation and try to describe “how thing are done around here” because ...