Preview

Roles of Culture in Organizations

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2035 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Roles of Culture in Organizations
What 's the role of culture in modern corporations and how can it be managed effectively?

People in every workplace talk about organizational culture and that mysterious word that characterizes a work environment. One of the key questions and assessments, when employers interview a prospective employee, explores whether the candidate is a good cultural fit. Culture is difficult to define, but you generally know when you have found an employee who appears to fit your culture. He just feels right.

Culture is the environment that surrounds you at work all of the time. Culture is a powerful element that shapes your work enjoyment, your work relationships, and your work processes. But, culture is something that you cannot actually see, except through its physical manifestations in your work place.

There are so many different definitions of culture in the past by many scholars in the past. The variety of meaning is so diverse that it is impossible to offer any value as a research topic. Culture seeks to describe those facets of human experience that contribute the differences and similarities in how people perceive and engage with their world. We define organizational culture as a set of shared, often implicit assumptions, beliefs, values and sense-making procedures that influences and guides the behavior and thinking of organizational members, and continuously enacted and in turn reinforced –or changed- by the behavior of organizational members. Our definitions is fully compatible three characteristics universally seen as central to the concept of culture: (a) it emerges during the adaptive interaction between people and their environment, and therefore it will change when these interactions change; (b) it is by necessity constituted only of shared, intersubjective elements; and (c) it is transmitted to members across time periods and changing member cohorts or generations.

In many ways, culture is like personality. In a person, the personality is made up



References: i. “Organizational behavior & management, by John Martin fellenz.” Publisher “South- Western” ii. “Organizational behavior-an experiential approach, by Joyce S, David A, Irwin M, and Marlene E.” Publisher “Pearson” iii. www.about.com iv. www.biomedcentral.com v. www.attractorconsulting.com vi. www.academia.edu

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    “Culture is made up of the values, beliefs, underlying assumptions, attitudes, and behaviors shared by a group of people. Culture is the behavior that results when a group arrives at a set of - generally unspoken and unwritten - rules for working together. An organization’s culture is made up of all of the life experiences each employee brings to the organization. Culture is especially influenced by the organization’s founder, executives, and other managerial staff because of their role in decision making and strategic direction.” (1)…

    • 1720 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Hobby Lobby

    • 1123 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Organizational culture is the summation of the underlying organizational values manifesting as collective assumptions, attitudes, beliefs, expectations and norms. Grounded in the customs and values of the organizational construct as well as in the experiences and interactions of the people within its walls, culture is the personality of an organization. In order to unravel the complex dynamics of culture within an organization, Edgar Schein offers a theory which categorizes culture into three basic elements, artifacts, espoused values and basic assumptions (Nelson & Quick, 2011).…

    • 1123 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The way a story is told is completely different depending on the narrator because of their point of view. An example of this incident is in the passage from Nathaniel Hawthorne¡¯s The House of the Seven Gables. The sarcastic way that the character Judge Pyncheon is revealed through the narrator is distinguished through the narrator¡¯s (not the author¡¯s) style of writing including tone, selection of detail, and syntax.…

    • 503 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    1. “Culture represents the personality of an organization, having a major influence on both employee satisfaction and organizational success” (Kane-Urrabazo, 2006).…

    • 1021 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Best Essays

    Organizational culture is not a new concept in the world of organizational behavior. Yet despite its age, it still has many varied definitions as well as philosophies on its importance and impact to the success of a company. One definition is that organizational culture is a cognitive framework consisting of attitudes, values, behavioral norms, and expectations shared by members of an organization (Greenberg, 2013, p. 368). Greenberg (2013) further explains organizational culture through an analogy of a tree. Organizational culture are similar to the roots of a tree. Roots provide stability and nourishment for a tree in the same manner that culture provides these things for their organization. Another way to think about organizational culture is that it is the unseen and unobservable force that is always behind the tangible activities of an organization which can be observed and measured. (Gundykunst & Ting-Toomey, 1988). “Culture is to the organization what personality is to the individual – a hidden yet unifying theme that provides meaning, direction, and mobilization” (Kilman, Saxton, & Serpa, 1985).…

    • 3262 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    Organizational culture can loosely be defined as the shared assumptions, beliefs, and "normal behaviors" (norms) of a group. These are powerful influences on the way people live and act, and they define what is "normal" and how to sanction those who are not "normal." To a large degree, what we do is determined by our culture.…

    • 2344 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    To what extent can organisational culture be managed? Is organisational culture critical to the success of an organisation?…

    • 3488 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    holland code

    • 6026 Words
    • 24 Pages

    Culture: The Missing Concept in Organization Studies Edgar H. Schein Massachusetts Institute of Technology Inattention to social systems in organizations has led researchers to underestimate the importance of culture—shared norms, values, and assumptions—in how organizations function. Concepts for understanding culture in organizations have value only when they derive from observation of real behavior in organizations, when they make sense of organizational data, and when they are definable enough to generate further study.…

    • 6026 Words
    • 24 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Culture is defined as "the totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought" (1993). Culture builds up a particular society's behavior. Business organizations, like social systems require a fast and effective communication system process in order to successfully reach their targets. In the Citigroup organization, the business culture is subjective to the behavior of each individual employee. The business tends to "overemphasize internal causes and underemphasize external causes" (Schermerhorn, 2003, pg. 20).…

    • 660 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    CQ- Self Assessment

    • 1270 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Culture can easily be described as the different activities, beliefs, and behaviors, of like individuals. Each culture has their own set of values, morals, and organizational goals. There is such thing as well cultured individuals (sometimes…

    • 1270 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Like all social mechanisms, an organization 's culture performs certain social functions, some or them intended and some of them unintended. Like organizational structure, culture is difficult to observe measure or map. In some cases, culture supports or reinforces structure, in others it conflicts with structure. In yet other situations, cultures acts as a functional alternative to reducing behavioral variability in organizations. These are the most commonly discussed functions of organizational culture…

    • 1561 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Culture shapes exactly how people feel the world, yet it's not necessarily the easiest term to define. Culture is a set of values, social practices, and types of expression held in common by several grouped people. People in the group generally identify themselves and/or are also identified through outsiders in accordance with ancestry, language, and practices. Typically, culture is usually determined through ethnicity, although it may also be determined by criterion such as geography, religion, and socioeconomic standing. The truth is, some individuals identify themselves like a culture simply because have identical gender roles, sexual orientation, physical or mental capacity, and academic or professional expertise.…

    • 704 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Organizational Culture

    • 472 Words
    • 2 Pages

    “Organizational culture refers to a system of shared norms, beliefs, values, and assumptions which binds people together, thereby creating shared meanings.” (Larson, 2011)…

    • 472 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Culture and Leadership

    • 832 Words
    • 4 Pages

    This is the scenario where we move, we must have to deal with the market vicissitudes almost every day. The perspective is uncertain for common people, even for us; but the prize is too great to ignore it. We daily strive for productivity and obtain more profits for our organization; although, leaders realize that our efforts are motivated by what is called culture. And what is culture? According to Gudykunst & and Ting-Toomey (1988), culture is the way of life, customs, and a script of a group of people.…

    • 832 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Culture is the complex phenomenon of learned behavior patterns and perceptions inherited from our forefathers which distinguishes our society from other societies. It determines the attire we wear, the food we eat, the places we live in and many other dimensions of our daily life.…

    • 320 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays

Related Topics