Culture works like a social adhesive or glue that helps in holding the organisation together. There are three basic functions of Organisational culture and they are as follows:-
1. Organisational culture provides a sense of identity for members.
2. Organisational culture enhances commitment to the organisation’s mission.
3. Organisational culture clarifies and reinforces standards of behaviour.
According to Child, culture can be explained as one of the strategic tools of control in organisations and explained that cultural control helps in four areas:
1. It helps in developing strong identification with management goals.
2. It helps in developing semi-autonomous working with few formal controls.
3. It has strong emphasis on selection, training and development of personnel.
4. It has reward oriented climate towards security of tenure and career progression.
According to Schein, there are three basic elements of organisational culture and they are artifacts, espoused values and basic assumptions.
1. Artifacts: Artifacts is the first level of organisational culture and are hard to decipher. It is observable symbols and signs of the organisations and includes visible parts of organisation e.g., structures, processes etc.
2. Espoused Values: Espoused Values is the second level of organisational culture. These values are the reasons (e.g., strategies, goals, philosophies) given by an organisation for the way things are done.
3. Basic Assumptions: Basic assumptions is the third level of organisational culture and can be described as the beliefs that are taken for granted by the organisational members. These are ultimate source of values and action that include: unconscious, perceptions, taken for-granted beliefs, thoughts, feelings etc.
Culture begins through many forces in an organisation. If the organisational culture is