UK AND CHINESE COMPANIES

Organizational Culture of UK AND Chinese State Owned Companies

Organizational Culture of UK AND Chinese State Owned Companies

Concept of organizational culture

The concept of Organizational culture can be defined as the set of attitudes, relatively stable beliefs, and values, which could be easily found in the members of the organization. The employees of the organization share prescriptive beliefs, and some common behavioural anticipation, or pose a set of beliefs, values, & behaviours, which characterize the way they interrelate in moving towards a common goal. (Childs & Storry 1999, Pp. 628) Organizational culture has been researched qualitatively as well as quantitatively and plays a central role in understanding organizational behaviour. The importance of managing the organizational culture, in order, to balance global and local effects appropriately, rests in the fact that organizational culture has been linked with leadership and employee effectiveness, productivity, and satisfaction. Most discussions and definitions of organizational culture implicitly refer to it as a group-level phenomenon. Yet, at the individual level, organizational culture is also reflective of individual sense-making efforts of employees, as it makes a reflection on to how the individuals in a known culture make an effort to develop a sense of the working of the organization, and may be referred to as perceived organizational culture. (Caunce 2004, Pp. 275)

It is at this individual level of the sense-making process that social cultures exert a strong effect on organizational culture, as individuals bring their learned assumptions to judgements and decisions on the work environment. Recent emphasis on cross-cultural and cross-national research has resulted in numerous findings regarding ways in which social cultures differ and the impact these differences in national contexts have on organizational culture and specific aspects of work-related attitudes and behaviours'.

Additionally, the interaction between social and organizational cultures has been shown to affect the perceptions, attitudes, and behaviours' of employees. This may be seen most clearly during times of change. A study was conducted in this regards, which was a longitudinal study of organizational culture change in a higher education context, in Turkey. From data gathered through surveys and interviews, the authors concluded that, in their sample, the influence of social culture exerted a strong effect on how organizational members responded to change. The Total Quality Management initiatives made by the organization in order to effect an organizational culture change resulted in an organizational culture that was not always consistent with social culture characteristics. They noted that the TQM effort enhanced individualism and reduced power distance in the organization, relative to the cultural norms of the Turkish nations. Furthermore, when the initiative concluded management reverted to a management style that was more in tune with social cultural norms. Other research highlights the interactive effect of social and organizational cultures on organizational initiatives and practices. (Brewer 2000, Pp. 752)

The differences in organizational culture of UK company and Chinese state owned enterprises

There were a number of cultural differences in the organizational culture of the UK store in China, and the Chinese State Owned ...